[Pan-users] Re: OT: calling all old-timers -- using * for attributions

[Duncan]

Wayne E. Nail posted on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:31:42 -0500 as excerpted:

[claims:]

>> On Tuesday November 3 2009, Fred said:
>> > blah blah blah
>> 
>> this poster uses:
>> 
>> * Fred:
>> > blah blah blah
>> 
>> claims it is "clearer" [and predates the former]
>> 
>> I can't say I've ever seen this, but I've only been using Usenet for
>> 15-odd years, so not an old-timer. Any old-timers ever seen this and
>> like to comment?
> 
> Haven't seen it, so far as my two remaining brain cells can recall.
> 
> I've only been a 'serious' Usenet user since 1994; it might predate
> that.

That was about when I got serious with it as well, but back then it was 
still common to actually buy those dead-tree things that used to be 
called books, to learn about things, and I actually had a "Using the 
Internet" book or some such, several hundred pages, covered USENET, 
FIDONET, etc... and I don't even remember such a thing from /it/.

So I'm in agreement it's not a USENET tradition.

> Further, I have always been into Usenet mostly for the binaries, with
> discussion and group camaraderie messages within such environments
> valued but secondary, so I dunno how the Australopithecus Masters may
> have handled things in their text-only realms.

I've always been into the text regularly, and the binaries, sometimes.  
I /really/ got involved with the MSIE and OE groups, back during the IE/
OE4 public betas, which I ran (and was in line for W98 at midnight the 
day of release, too... man how things change, as I couldn't use MS or any 
other servantware if I wanted to now and haven't been able to for over 
half a decade now... as I couldn't agree to the EULA or to the damage 
waivers on "black-box" software, only freedomware that can actually be 
inspected to see what I'm making myself liable for!).  Those were of 
course mainly text groups, and that's where I really got into things.  
I've been into binaries too on and off, as I said, but off for actually 
years, now.  And I've /never/ seen a group where the * attribution form 
was common at all, binary or text, MS, alt.*, or big-8, none of them.



Rob posted on Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:36:03 -0400 as excerpted:

> I started using it before there were alt.* groups.  I would swear that
> even the rn program circa 1987 used either the "In article
> address@hidden, nnnn wrote:" or "On XXXX, YYYY
> wrote:" form of attribution. But you can poke around on
> groups.google.com and come up with plenty of evidence.  I went back and
> looked at a couple of my own posts from that era, and my quoting style
> wasn't consistent (sometimes I just indented the previous post,
> sometimes used greater-than symbols, sometimes had "YYYY wrote:",
> sometimes had nothing at all to indicate attribution) so I assume I was
> still doing it by hand.
> 
> Maybe the asterisk thing was a FidoNet or other BBS-oriented form of
> attribution, but I don't remember it.  I have used some tty-based chat
> programs (similar to IRC) that used an asterisk to indicate who was
> speaking, and maybe that's where the poster got confused.

I don't have first-hand knowledge of fidonet, but as I said that book 
covered it, and it didn't mention any such thing that I recall.  I used 
the compuserve back when it was flat-rate, too, tho none of the amateur 
or smaller BBSs.  No such thing that I recall on cserve either, tho I 
didn't spend a /whole/ lot of time in their forums.

The IRC thing sounds most plausible to me.  I've never gotten into the 
"instant" stuff that much, either IRC or IM, partly because my thought 
process is rather too deliberative to be good at it, so I can't say 
anything about that angle from personal experience, but based on general 
knowledge of the topic, that sounds far more plausible for IRC, or 
indeed, pretty much any "instant" text-comms (particularly those like 
texting where some or all participants are on a very limited keyboard).

It could well also be a cultural thing.  I could see as plausible a 
theory where the * looks like the Chinese ideogram for "said", or some 
such thing, such that anyone familiar with that ideogram could have 
started it, even if they were Japanese or Singaporean or some such.  Or 
perhaps Eastern European or Russian...  But in terms of English 
newsgroups, it just doesn't seem plausible at all, or surely there'd be 
some reasonable trace that people would remember.  I mean, after all, 
bang routing (!) is still around in the "Internet News" path headers, for 
instance.

I'd suggest that, and point at the examples of your own posts and perhaps 
others from google groups as far back as they go... and then tell him the 
ball is in his court.  You've made your case and presented evidence.  
He's claiming something, apparently without presenting evidence of any 
sort beyond his own claimed recollections.  Surely, if the claim is 
correct, he can present /some/ sort of generally archived evidence!

[And now wandering off in an entirely different direction...]

OTOH, he's free to continue attributing in whatever style he wishes, and 
doing whatever else as long as it doesn't break the RFCs.  But like 
people who insist on posting HTML thru multiple warnings, just because 
they can post it doesn't mean the regulars need to see it.  People are 
equally free to killfile him, if it bothers them, or really for any or no 
reason at all.  I've /always/ held that the right to killfile is 
absolute, and that no reason need be given.  In fact, in most cases for 
me, I don't, because by the time it gets to that point, it's quite 
obvious the signal to noise ratio is fractional as it is, and there's no 
point in continuing the conversation.  So I let the other guy have the 
last word, and simply fail to see his posts any more...  By that point, 
that's generally the best outcome I can see as possible in a bad 
situation, for all involved.

Now personally, I can't see the * form being worse than a mark of 
uniqueness that I might actually appreciate... as long as the rest of 
what he's doing is fine, of course.  OTOH, people who consistently post 
in HTML despite warning /do/ get killfiled eventually, here.  If they 
don't have any regard for not making their message look like malware or 
spam, than I don't need to read it.  But as I said, I hold the right of 
the killfile to be absolute, and if it's that bothersome, certainly, use 
it.  That's certainly better than eternal arguments on the subject, or 
worse yet, irrationally taking it physical, as unfortunately some 
ultimately do.  And it's certainly better than letting it drive one 
crazy, as well.  There are certainly people who just can't abide my style 
at all.  Yes, I know it.  No, I don't let it bother me, and yes, I have 
actually pointed out that if it bothers them so much, they really should 
have me killfiled.  So no, I don't consider it that big a deal.  I just 
accept it and get on with life.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman