In my blog entry Rants and Revelations » 4166 September, 1993, I expressed some hope that with AOL dropping Usenet access, it might mean that Usenet would go back to being the place where only the clueful hung out.
As usual when I express optimism like that, I spoke too soon. There is a new scourge on Usenet these days. It’s people accessing it through Google Groups (or other web interface) who think that Usenet is an invention of Google, and that Google is in charge of monitoring everybody’s behaviour. Representative quotes from this new breed of wankers:
- “I saw a couple of spams in this group. Where are the moderators?”
- “I’ll report you to Google if you don’t stop insulting me.”
- “Speak english, this is an American system!”
There’s a gateway to a few aus.* grops at eyo.com.au. It is, if anything, worse than Google as the whole thing is presented to the end-user as just extra forums in an existing system.
Thus we get a lot of idiots posting “bump!” in addition to the usual moderator stuff.
Yep, the web forum front-ends to Usenet are the worst. The users of these fora often have no clue what Usenet is and how it operates, and, for the most part, they’re utterly resistent to any clues.
And not only are they resistant to Clue, they think that they’re safe and registered and that everyone else on the “forum” is known to the “moderators” and they have no idea that their e-mail addresses are being shown and archived forever more. I have a standard little blurb that I post on alt.support.step-parents when someone comes in from talkaboutparenting, a web interface that mentions Usenet only in passing.
What is “bump!” all about?
At a wild guess, it means “ban” or some such. At any rate, people who come to alt.support.diet.low-carb or alt.support.diabetes through these web gateways regularly ask if the cross-posting trolls can’t just be banned.
On the other hand, earlier this week, a relatively clueful person who found alt.support.diabetes through a web gateway took only a day or two to figure out groups.google.com.
I think “bump” means that they’re bringing the conversation to the top of the list. A lot of web fora organize their conversations in order of the most recent postings, so posting a short message like “bump” is the person’s way of keeping their conversation at the top of the list.
*sigh*
I’ve never been able to figure out why clueless idiots are the quickest to find ways to abuse the system. They’re brainless, yet they think of things like posting “bump!” when that wouldn’t occur to me in a million years.
I’m going home.