"Lurking Is Good. . .Remember. . .Lurking Is Good"
Those Who Would Be King, Part III
The Netiquetters
"We Are Surrounded By An Insurmountable Opportunity."
"It Is Like Drinking From A Firehose."
"Be Sure To Have YOUR Messages `Netiquette Approved.'"
These sentiments reflect a portion of the Internet who
have terrified thoughts and feelings about a wonderful
set of opportunties made available by the Internet and
other networks.
They are afraid of too much opportunity and would like
to make sure no one else takes advantage of such great
opportunities because it will make themselves look and
feel very small by comparison.
They want to make sure YOU don't cross the boundaries,
simply because THEY ARE AFRAID to cross them.
Their thinking is sociological rather than logical, as
follows:
1: They are obviously afraid of so much opportunity.
2: They want to reduce the pressure of so much highly
available opportunity.
3. This is because they are afraid someone else would
make good use of this opportunity and leave them a
footnote in their own fields as opportunity shifts
into hyper-drive and nothing will ever be quite as
sedate, staid, prim, proper, stiff and reserved as
it was previous in a paper dominated room, full of
stuffed shirts and Robert's Rules Of Order: which
THEY used to keep YOU from upsetting Apple and IBM
carts with more horsepower than THEY were willing,
and able, to use.
History is full of examples of those in position of an
older variety of power using their power to deny, defy
and otherwise stultify anything new, and therefore out
of their own immediate forms of control.
It is also full of examples of the "Powers-That-Be" so
vaingloriously squashing any potential rival powers in
much the same manner as a queen bee stings other queen
bees to death before they are even born.
In such a manner are the ideas of the new refused in a
world dominated by the old.
Of course what comes to mind is Napoleon III's "Salon-
des-Refuses" in which works of the [now!] greatest and
most famous painters in the world finally had a day to
have their works shown to the public after years of an
autocratic denial by the Academic Francaise's official
Salon, originally begun in the Louvre, and where great
examples of these works hang today, in defiance of the
greatest "powers-that-be" that ever were, who failed--
as all such attempts should fail.
"The Academie Francaise (French Academy)
is the most renouned and oldest of the
five learned socities that make up the
Insititue de France, established by
Cardinal Richelieu.
[Grolier's 1994 Electronic Encyclopedia]
The encyclopedia goes on to state that
"`unification, and purification'" were
among the prime "`development'" goals.
The most famous recounting of Cardinal Richelieu's
attempts to take over France and to remold it in a
reflection of his own conservative power structure
are detailed in Alexandre Dumas' Three Musketeers.
Please...take time to "Read More About It."
The encyclopedia article continues on to describe the
intense conservatism these Institutes maintain even a
few centuries later even though at least this "oldest
and most powerful" of them, "the Salon gradually lost
its position as the sole official exibition of French
painting," sculpture, etc., which also stood against
the Eiffel Tower, as well as everything else new.
JUST SAY NO
When they come to YOUR electronic door, enlisting YOUR
support for their views of how to run the Internet you
can "just say no" and feel no obligation to make THEIR
rules of order be YOUR rules of order:
1. Don't bother with their requests for "conservation
of bandwidth" because their idea of bandwidth is a
sociological "inversion, diversion and perversion"
of the term "bandwidth."
They would have you believe that a dozen short message
files sent through THEIR listservers are a "bandwidth-
preserver" rather than one message containing what you
had to say all at once.
A. This is just so much sociological barnyard matter.
They just want to keep you from having your say in
an uninterrupted manner. . .it is ONLY this manner
in which anyone CAN BE INTERRUPTED on the Internet
and it requires YOU TO INTERRUPT YOURSELF, because
THEY CAN'T DO INTERRUPT YOU THEMSELVES: THEY HAVE
TO TALK YOU INTO THE CUTTING YOUR OWN THROAT.
B. The logical rather than sociological truth is that
short messages are 50% made up of header materials
that are not part of the message you are sending--
but rather header and packet identifiers for these
messages. Thus your series of a dozen messages of
the short variety is going to be 50% wasteful of a
bandwidth it uses, in comparison to sending the 12
thoughts you might want to express as one, single,
uninterrupted message.
*** Insert header here
Here is an example of the kind of header attached to a
normal Internet message. Some VERY wasteful emailers,
Netiquetters included, have much longer headers due to
their refusal to take the time to delete the addresses
when they send the same message to hundreds of people.
I have received messages in which the header literally
contained hundreds of extra lines beyond this.
**Header Starts Below** [Margins were shortened.
This header contains 1054 characters, which would
take 3 512 byte packets, each packet of which has
to have its own header normal users never see. A
mailer can be set not to show most of the header,
but it is all there, and taking up bandwidth.]
Received: from UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu
(ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu [128.205.2.1])
by mtshasta.snowcrest.net (8.6.5/8.6.5)
with SMTP id FAA24025; Thu, 2 Feb 1995
05:53:11 -0800
Message-Id: <199502021353.FAA24025@
mtshasta.snowcrest.net>
Received: from UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU
by UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2)
with BSMTP id 0354; Thu, 02 Feb 95 08:43:10 EST
Received: from UICBIT.UIC.EDU
(NJE origin VMMAIL@PPLCATS) by
UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a)
with BSMTP id 3521; Wed,
1 Feb 1995 19:45:18 -0500
Received: from UICBIT.BITNET
(NJE origin LISTSERV@UICBIT) by UICBIT.UIC.EDU
(LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 5650;
Wed, 1 Feb 1995 18:44:26 -0600
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 18:22:10 CST
Reply-To: Project Gutenberg Email List
<GUTNBERG%UIUCVMD.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sender: Project Gutenberg Email List
<GUTNBERG%UIUCVMD.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: March Gutenberg Etexts
To: Multiple recipients of list GUTNBERG
<GUTNBERG%UIUCVMD.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
**Header Ends Here**
Another Demonstration of Socio-Logical Argumentation
I have a signature block that contains the usual in a
name, position, and disclaimer along with information
of how long you should wait for a reply to a message,
who to contact for further information and it has one
line about how long I have been on the Internet.
It takes up about this much space:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
which is about 318 characters and receives complaints
from those who accept signature blocks that look like:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x x
x x
x x
x Your Message Here x
x x
x x
x x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
which takes over 718 characters because all the blank spaces are real spaces.
I have pointed out this discrepancy in logic, but the people readily reply the
space they are talking about is in the human mind, and not in the computers.
To which _I_ reply "Barnyard Material!"
THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT OUT TO SAVE "BUZZWORD BANDWIDTH". . .
THEY ARE OUT TO CONTROL YOU. . .DON'T LET THEM.
"Netiquette" is something THEY have invented TO CONTROL YOU!
All you have to do is remind them that each individual has a
most powerful protection against anything they don't want to
see. . .THE DELETE KEY!
You will probably also have to remind them, sometimes in the
manner of using a different platform to speak from, if their
response is not to post your messages, that:
"SINCE EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN DELETE KEY,
THERE IS NO NEED TO DELETE THIS FOR THEM!