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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site nsc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!nsc!chuqui
From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuqui Q. Koala)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.stargate,net.followup
Subject: Re: STARGATE (READ THIS!)
Message-ID: <2226@nsc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 18-Jan-85 00:23:38 EST
Article-I.D.: nsc.2226
Posted: Fri Jan 18 00:23:38 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Jan-85 00:12:27 EST
References: <504@vortex.UUCP>
Reply-To: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuqui Q. Koala)
Organization: The Warlocks Cave
Lines: 151
Xref: watmath net.news:2985 net.news.stargate:29 net.followup:4348
Summary: 

I sincerely hope that Lauren doesn't pull out his support because of the
insane ramblings of people who really don't know what they are talking
about, but if he does, I can't blame him. For many of the same reasons he
uses I've found myself pulling back and spending a lot less time working my
guts out trying to keep the net running or trying to improve it. Every time
anyone does anything that looks like an attempt to change something
(better, worse, or simply different) there is always a small but vocal
group of people who seem to get their kicks by trying to tear down any
constructive action at all. I've spent a LOT of time on the net, and Lauren
has spent a LOT of time on Stargate, and Rick has spent a LOT of time on
the source, and Gene ha spent a LOT of time on keeping things straight, and
Mark, well, Mark has spent more of his (and his wife's) time than all of us
put together, cubed. None of us (contrary to what I expect we'll hear
shortly) get paid for this. A lot of times we wonder why we bother, and
every so often we get real frustrated and yell at each other to make sure
the net doesn't see it (if it did, that frustration tends to turn into
month long pitched battles). 

Look. We aren't fascists. People who insist on calling us fascists don't
have any idea what that word really means. We aren't out for mind control,
we aren't out for power, we aren't out for anything but a smoothly running
net. Because we have to deal with the net on a day to day (sometimes hour
to hour basis) and talk to a LOT of the people who run the net, I think we
have a different view of the net than the people who simply have the
priviledge of using the damn thing. There are a number of people out there
that I don't consider qualified to change the disk drives on MacDuff that
seem to think they know as much about the operation of the net as Mark, the
software as Rick, or Stargate as Lauren. I mean, seriously-- if you haven't
spent months bickering with the carriers lawyers, how in the HELL can you
suggest seriously that we really don't need moderators or that we can do it
in software? 

If you people seriously want to try to get along without a group of
overworked and harried people who happen to spend a lot of time keeping
this thing running so you can bitch at us about it, then fine. Let me know.
I'll rmgroup mod.singles, I'll unsubscribe to net.news, and I'll laugh if
and when the system dies. We can cancel Stargate, we can watch the
backbones start restricting news, the software can get flakey, and, if you
could get it through the garbage, everyone who is yelling at the fascists
for trying to do a thankless job would spend just as much time yelling at
us for letting it fall apart. I don't know about the rest of them, but I
am sometimes tempted to just step back and watch the damn thing die. I have
a Macintosh I seems to spend most of my time using as a terminal to work on
net related things. I'd much rather work on Mac related things, personally.
I know Gene would LOVE to finish his thesis without going insane, and Mark
has this wonderful child due any time, and Rick would love a good nights
sleep. Lauren would LOVE to pay his rent next month. 

If you want to take over my slot running news, have fun. A few things to
keep in mind:
    type fast, and have lots of disk. I average between .25 and 1 megabyte
    of mail a week. I spend between 45 minutes and two hours a day on mail,
    about half of that on news, answering questions like 'My inews
    coredumped. how do I fix it?'

    Have a company that doesn't mind phone bills, lots of disk space,
    random changes to the usenet software. I have, at various times, been
    running three simultaneous versions of news, with three full databases,
    as I try to keep a production version up, test an old version somewhere
    else looking for an inews or an expire bug, and attempte to beta test a
    new version of software for you so it has some chance of being stable
    when it gets out to the rest of you. Most of who, of course, won't
    bother to upgrade, bringing me to

    Know the software. You can't only operate on 2.10.2 (or 2.10.3)  on
    4.2, you have to understand how that affects 2.10.1, 2.10, notes,
    system V, PDP11's, Genix, Venix, Xenix, Kleenix, and the phase of the
    moons and tides. I recently posted a discussion of sys files,
    researched VERY heavily through 4 versions of news and uncounted forms
    of Unix, and things still slipped through my fingers. Most people seem
    to do nothing more than compile news, install it, and then bitch about
    the quality. I've found myself dreaming designs for news enhancements.
    Those kinds of nightmares I don't need.

    Get a bottle of aspirin. Large. The second you stand up as a public
    figure, someone will attempt to knock you back down. Guaranteed. Some
    people rate their own successes by how they ruin others. Maalox helps,
    too. 

    Tact, tact, and more tact. One of the things you can't do when you are
    working on something like the net is let your own personal views take
    precedence. We've bent over backwards (in my case and in Laurens,
    almost to the breaking point, it seems) to keep our personal views to a
    minimum. If I really WAS fascist, and if I really DID run the then the
    way some people accuse me, this net would run a lot better than it
    does, because I wouldn't take the shit I see out there. I do a number
    of things I don't particularly care for because the majority of the
    users prefer it that was. Some fascism. People yell at you, you don't
    yell back (I am now, but that is becasue I find I'm not sure I really
    care anymore). You smile, and try to talk calmly. People make
    outrageous suggestions (hey, why don't we rewrite all the news software
    to include a way of passing encrypted love letters across the ethernet
    to VMS systems? By next week? And when you're done, fly out here and
    install it in my system, OK? and I'll yell for you to fix it if I find
    a bug') and assume they get done by magic. People out there take a hell
    of a lot for granted, as far as I can tell (not everyone-- we see
    constructive suyggestions, advice, thank you notes, and the like as
    well, but always from mostly the same small group that always helps
    out). This place isn't magic-- it is blood, and sweat, and tears, and
    ulcers. You want to use your blood and sweat and tears and stomach
    acid, fine. What I've found is that the people who really like to yell
    tend to disappear when faced with actually having to stand up and
    produce. 

    I could go on yelling forever, and I probably should because it is
    making me feel better, but I can feel those 'F' key fingers itching out
    there. Let me close with the following comments:

    o I wish I understood why I take this abuse. If I did, I probably
    wouldn't.

    o Regardless of what I say in my saner moments (like this) I'll
    probably continue to be stupid and work to make the damned net better
    for all of you, despite everything you do to discourage me.

    o I hope Lauren does the same, although I don't blame him if he
    doesn't.

    o I wish this silly machine was on the Arpanet. It may be moderated, it
    may be fascist, it may not have complete freedom of expression (which,
    as far as I can tell, means allowing people to make complete asses of
    themselves with no checks and balances whatsoever) and it may not have
    all the useless topics that this network has, but it works, dammit.

    o I can't say the same for this net. Usenet is broken, has been for a
    while, and will continue to get worse until someone is allowed to do
    some work fixing it. yelling, screaming, and bitching doesn't do it.
    Finding ways of fixing it and giving people the ability to do it does.
    usenet is marginally functional at best. Stargate is a way, I hope, to
    help that. I think it is a good way. Which means, of course, that it
    has no chance in hell of succeeding.

    o May all those people whose only contribution to usenet is the
    mindless flaming of the intelligent people be infected by the fleas of
    a thousand camels.

    o go ahead, send mail. If I wasn't a masochist, I wouldn't be here. 

    sincerely, the same to you 

    the fascist pig, megalomaniac supreme, power hungry, tactless, and
    general all around idiot.



-- 
From the ministry of silly talks:		Chuq Von Rospach
{allegra,cbosgd,decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui  nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA

Do not wait until tomorrow to tell someone you care. Tomorrow doesn't
always come.