Re: Tweet This: I Don't Care

["Paul M. Moriarty" <pmm () igtc com>]

On Mar 20, 2009, at 6:43 AM, Rich Kulawiec wrote:

> You want "curmudgeon"?  I'll give ya curmudgeon...
>
> On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 11:27:43PM -0400, B.K. DeLong wrote:
> > This post has been full of nothing but sad curmudgeons grumbling  
> > about
> > "new-fangled technology" and "how good the old stuff works so why
> > change?"
>
> And yet the "sad old curmudgeons" have been the only ones to display
> an acceptable grasp of rudimentary netiquette: not full-quoting, not
> top-posting, not sending superfluous copies of messages to people
> who are known to be subscribed to the list.  It would appear they  
> still
> have some things to teach the newbies who haven't yet learned how to
> use email properly and politely. 1/2 ;-), 1/2 not

1991 called.  They want their netiquette FAQ back.

> You might want to remember that the "sad old curmudgeons" built the
> network you're currently using.  And that perhaps they're not quite as
> reactionary as you seem to think, but rather more cynical about the
> latest transient and unimportant fad.  After all: they've seen many.
>
>
> Many of the newbies (in my view: "anyone who did not have an address
> ending in .ARPA") seem very intent on constantly creating and using  
> new
> communication methods while failing to master any of the ones they
> already have.  And thus we see ever-more-elaborate, ever-more- 
> heavyweight
> mechanisms put in play, many of which are actually far worse in terms
> of facilitating communication than those they would replace, and  
> most of
> which carry serious privacy, security and abuse risks that have not
> been adequately researched or analyzed prior to production deployment.

Well, I can't claim a .arpa, but I've been around 20+ years.  It  
strikes me that if we left the Internet in the hands of the "old  
timers", we'd be stuck in a world of 7-bit ascii remarking about the  
latest breakthroughs with gopher.  Because, in my experience,  plain  
text ascii is world that most old timers either live in or pine for.



> None of these have yet approached the utility, efficiency,  
> scalability,
> resilience, and reach that Usenet had decades ago.  It's very  
> instructive

Usenet failed to scale. The mid-90's was when Internet adoption truly  
took off and that's when Usenet broke.  Anarchy reigned and new  
newsgroups proliferated without rhyme or reason.  It became impossible  
for all but big companies with lots of bandwidth to play the Usenet  
game.  Correlation or causailty, I don't know and I don't care.  But  
please don't hold up Usenet as a some model of greatness to be admired  
and emulated.



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