A summary for those that haven’t been keeping up with this series:
I found a number of 5.25″ disks at a thrift store a number of years ago (we are talking late 1990s probably). I finally got around to acquiring a 5.25″ disk drive and extracting the contents a several years back. Since then, I have been occasionally posting the content here.
Based on the contents, at least some of these disks were apparently once owned by someone named Connie who used to run the “Close Encounters” Special Interest Group (SIG) on Delphi in the mid 1980s.
A description of this SIG was found in a document on one of the disks: “This SIG, known as ‘Close Encounters’, is a forum for the discussion of relationships that develop via computer services like the Source, CompuServe, and Delphi. Our primary emphasis is on the sexual aspects of those relationships.”
This service was text based and was accessed via whatever terminal program you used on your computer to dial in to Delphi’s servers. Many of these disks have forum messages, e-mails and chat session logs. All of this is pre-internet stuff and I don’t know if there are any archives in existence today of what was on Delphi in the 1980s. In any case, much of this stuff would have been private at the time and probably wouldn’t be in such archives even if they existed.
This post includes the contents of RESTRIC.DOC which is dated September 26th, 1985. It contains “membership restrictions”. This is primarily a description of the policies of this SIG regarding behavior in both conferences (live chats) and forums. Basically, it is sort of a three strikes and your out type of policy.
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RESTRIC.DOC
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.lt
This message is being left as a statement of policy of the managers of
the Close Encounters sig.
Membership Restrictions:
Membership in 'Close Encounters' is restricted to persons who are at
least 18 years of age or older. The reason for this is that the sig
deals with matters of a sexual/personal nature ranging from the very
general to the very explicit.
Although it's difficult to verify age via this medium, anyone found to
have violated the age requirement will be denied access to the sig at
the discretion of the sig managers.
We are all adults here, and as such, are expected to extend to all the
same courtesies that we would expect. However, in no way or form will
the sig managers tolerate deliberate maliscious or disruptive
behavior.
Personnal attacks (especially when unfounded in fact), profane or
other verbal abuse will also not be allowed. Such behavior has no
place in this sig.
Conference Disruptions:
Should anyone attempt to disrupt one of our regularly scheduled Saturday night conferences, the following actions will be taken in order shown here:
<<caution>> things are getting out of hand
<<warning>> second and last reminder of above
'/squ' persons who persist in proscribed
behavior may be squelched and thus
ignored by the moderator at that co.
'access denied' This is a drastic move and will be used
in future if needed to handle 'hard'
cases.
Forum Disruptions:
We <the sig managers'> will not "censor" any messages posted in the
Forum. However, should a member attempt to disrupt the sig via the
Forum, the following actions will be taken:
<first offense> The message will be deleted from the Forum and mail
will be sent to the author's username explaining why
it was deleted. The sig managers will retain on
file copies of the message and any mail sent or
received regarding it.
<second offense> The message will be deleted from the Forum and mail
sent to the offending party with a **WARNING -
SECOND OFFENSE** notice that any further such
activities will result in loss of sig access.
Copies of the message and mail sent/received will be
added to the first offense file.
<third offense> The message will be deleted and mail sent to the
offending party, as well as Delphi officials, that
the user has been denied access to the sig. Copies
of the files retained above will also be sent to
Delphi officials.
Although these policies may seem rather stern on the surface, please
remember that we don't expect to encounter problems that will mean
enforcing such measures. However to avoid any misunderstandings these
policies must be stated to all members.
Thank you for your patience, understanding, respect and consideration
in these matters.
Connie A. Buys, Sig Manager
John P. Yerger, Assist. Manager
.el
