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.The point of the discussion is to make the people who care about such things aware that there'ssupport for your idea, so that when the newgroup arrives at various sites, the operators will recognize it as a good idea andadd the group.See "So You Want to Create an Alt Newsgroup" (posted periodically to news.answers, as well as alt.answers and alt.config)for more suggestions and guidelines.Note that not only can anyone post a newgroup message to request the addition of a group, but anyone can post the evil twinof it the rmgroup message.An rmgroup sends a note to the operator of each site telling them that someone would like agroup removed.Like newgroup, it's usually ignored unless the person posting it has some authority and seems to have avalid reason.I'm not going to discuss the actual mechanics of issuing a newgroup message here, as it's usually best if you just ask somenoted authority to post it for you anyway, as their word will carry more weight.(I try not to get involved in such things, forpolitical reasons, so please don't ask me.)Kibo--by Tod FoleyAlthough it will take HappyNet months, maybe years, to improve all areas of daily existence in all possible ways, it will beobvious to the most casual reader that HappyNet is better than Usenet.Those who aren't casual readers well, they willcome to agree.In time, they will even love me.In fact, soon they will beg to love me! But I, Leader Kibo, want only thebest for everyone.After all, I am one of the readers of Usenet, so I can make the readers of Usenet happy by making mehappy FIRST.DEATH TO USENET! LONG LIVE HAPPYNET! TO THE MOON!--From Kibo's HappyNet Proclamation and Manifesto"Kibo," the Net persona of graphic artist and ontological guerilla James Parry, is a virtual god to many Usenet users, whoread of his exploits (or just hang out with him) in any of the several newsgroups devoted to discussion of the man, the myth,and whatever other weird thoughts pop into their peculiar little heads.The g-word is not used lightly here, either;alt.religion.kibology is the third most popular religious newsgroup on the Net (tied with soc.religion.islam).To allappearances, this mysterious and quasi-mythical Kibo character possesses powers that are nothing short of awe-inspiring(alt.exploding.kibo and alt.imploding.kibo are both popular groups) he even ran for president of the United States in 1992on the electronic platform of alt.politics.kibo.Late one evening this summer, Kibo and I played tag with each other through the ever-netsplitting IRC terrain; due to hisimmense popularity, we were forced to communicate through personal /msg commands.In his sometimes-serious,sometimes-surreal style, Kibo chatted with me about his unusual Net religion, his interests and philosophies, and his ideason Usenet posts as communicative medium and performance artform.TF: Your reputation precedes you to such a degree that at times (many times!) it must be an awful impediment.How doyou feel about this?http://docs.rinet.ru/ITricks/tig09.htm (9 of 18) [4/18/1999 12:39:20 AM] Tricks of the Internet Gurus tig09.htmKibo: Well, the burden of pseudo-fame is slowly increasing.Recently I had to take three weeks leave of my e-mail, andnow there are 715 messages in my mailbox.Mail is actually harder to keep up with than Usenet, as it requires more replies,and the tools for dealing with it aren't as good at weeding out the stuff you don't want to see.TF: Are you working on any AI ki-bots to shoulder some of the infoload?Kibo: I already have a few.I tried out my first one about six years ago.It was written in, believe it or not, BASIC.There's acrude piece of ELISP code that generates Kibo-style nonsensical slogans about Kibology, and a C translation of thesame which actually can put together a grammatical sentence on occasion.TF: How long do you figure before most online persons have some sort of intelligent filtering agent?Kibo: Depends on how you define intelligence.A newsreader killfile is a very, very primitive sort of agent; you can extendthem to do a lot in the way of auto-selecting and managing Usenet.Eventually someone will write a good content-sensitiveone, which will figure out what you want to read by searching the text of everything, and classifying it by what keywords itcontains.Of course, the agent wouldn't understand what it's selecting for the user, but if it sees something containingcichlids and it knows I want to read about tropical fish and it can cross-reference the two in a dictionary, that's good enough.TF: What grepwords are prominent in your filter?Kibo: Depends on the groups.Often I include or exclude articles based on their authors.Certain words in subject lines aresearched for, too.As far as searching the text of Usenet articles, about all I look for are variants of my name (good forfinding followups to articles I've posted,.signatures that quote me, and so on).I don't filter my mail (but I may have tosoon.)TF: How did all this kibomania begin?Kibo: Oh, it was when I was in college (the first of three colleges).I had already adopted the nickname "Kibo" (for reasonsthat are not clear any more) and when I was having dinner with two friends, in a Chinese restaurant in Troy, NY, one ofthem said, "There should be Kibology!" So we made up a stupid ol' doctrine and began proselytizing on the local computerconferencing system.One thing led to another.a few years after that, alt.religion.kibology was created on Usenet, and Istarted running that program to search for my name (people seem to find that last part the most interesting).TF: Was the original idea of kibology computer-related per se, or was it just "James' type of weirdness?"Kibo: I don't think it really involved computers.Hard to say, given that the doctrine was completely nonsensical andcontent-free.But computers were involved from the beginning.Nowadays alt.religion.kibology really has little to do at allwith any sort of mock religion; it's more of a forum for me and people who seem not to mind being around me.TF: Kibo and the wacky disciples of noncontent.What do y'all do there?Kibo: I keep getting asked this about alt.religion.kibology and I really can't say.We talk about stuff that's not worth talkingabout, is the best I can describe it.The newgroup is an intellectual vacuum except that it's full of keystrokes.And, of course,there are a few Kibo groupies in there, and some genuine wackos.Occasionally, I'll do something like running for Presidentof the World or other pointless activity.Keeps the peons amused, you know.They get sick of attending the gladiatorialgames and Giant H Fights unless I throw 'em a bone.:-) Some of those people have no lives, let me tell you.A lot of themwant to date me, and I have no social skills, so they must be really pathetic if they think I'm a step up.Lest I insult myfollowers too many times, I should point out to your readers that my followers know that I'm always sarcastic (except whenwriting chapters in books on how to use the network).TF: Heh.What is it that people seem to want from being around you, or what do they want from their association withkibology?Kibo: Entertainment? Someone to laugh at and/or with.I try to be both to everyone.TF: A new form of public service.perhaps one day people will be professional kibos.Kibo: I don't try to be funny, of course, because many people can do that better.I try to fail to be funny.That way peopleget to laugh at me.Someday I want to make a film worse than Plan 9 From Outer Space.I'm a little like Max Headroom inhttp://docs.rinet.ru/ITricks/tig09 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]