Ray Haddad and "Zen and the Art of Usenet"

Recently, Ray Haddad made the following claim:

"I wrote the section on posting in the earliest version of Zen and the Art of Usenet. More than 25 years ago."

A Google search on [ Ray Haddad Zen Usenet ] turns up many other examples of him making this claim, and a search of newsgroup posts turns up many more.

I thought that he might have confused the name ("Zen and the Art of the Internet" is a well-known document with a section of posting) but he assured me that rthe correct name in "Zen and the Art of Usenet", and that he wrote the section on posting.

No document titled "Zen and the Art of Usenet" appears to have ever existed outside of Ray Haddad's posts and a couple of people who obviously mis0remembered the name of _Zen and the Art of the Internet_

Ray Haddad's oldest archived post is from 1994, which is

14 years ago, not 25.

He also makes a claim, supposedly backed up by this alleged document, ("Top posting was the preferred method at the time" that is factually wrong, as can be easily seen by looking at random posts from that time in the archives.

If I am wrong and there exists a "Zen and the Art of Usenet" with you as a contributor, I will be happy to apologize for my flawed research. Just point me at some evidence. I have asked Ray Haddad as have several other people over the years) and he has not produced any evidence that such a document has ecver existed.

Reply to
Guy Macon
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A Google search on [ "Ray Haddad" "Military service" ] unearthes some far more serious charges. Faking a Usenet FAQ is one thing. Faking military service is another.

Reply to
Guy Macon

In message , Guy Macon writes

1983 ish?

Having been "on line" myself since 1983 (various BBS and Fido) and the net itself since 1990 from my recollection of some 18 years top posting has always been frowned on in Usenet. It was always interspersed or bottom posting with sensible trimming. (Define "sensible" :-) This is to keep context in the message as stand alone.

I note that recently Google has as a default no quoting when replying. All we got was the reply and no context. Google has had to change this. If Google has to fit in with Netiquet so should individuals.

What I do notice is that occasionally (more often these days) we get some one turn up who says "I don't care what the generally accepted rules of the club are" Ie Netiquet I am joining and you will treat me politely eve though I will be "rude" to the rest of you by ignoring convention and do it my way.

I recall this happened when AOL Users (known as Arse-holes On Line for many years thereafter) arrived on the Internet. (They should never have been let off the reservation that was AOL :-)

Why can not these people fit in with the community they are joining? Generally it is because they are shallow and insecure people who need to prove/win some point(s), generally obscure and meaningless to feel superior.

Life is too short.

Just fit in with the accepted convention and lets discuss more meaningful things like where to put the { } (style wise) in C and if "AVR is better than PIC" :-))))))

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Reply to
Chris H

Good observation - way to go.

Dimiter

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Chris H wrote:

Reply to
Didi

. .

Discussion of the latter would be fruitless as we all know it's true.

:-P

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John B
Reply to
John B

Definition: "Sensible trimming": the size of quotation is less then about two times of what you typed.

Keep the substance, drain the water out.

That's the back side of the proliferation. In 80x and the early 90x, the news were the toy of the intellectuals.

Why can't you get used to the manners of the ordinary people? :-)

The one who goes online is some kind of freak by definition. "Normal" people are not interested in that.

Grab a woman? :-)

No. AVR and PIC are the same crap :)

But isn't your own favorite "Payware vs Freeware" question? :-)

Vladimir Vassilevsky DSP and Mixed Signal Consultant

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Reply to
Vladimir Vassilevsky

"The most hostile group was the one with high but unstable self esteem. These people think well of themselves in general, but their self-esteem fluctuates. They are especially prone to react defensively to ego threats, and they are also more prone to hostility, anger and aggression than other people.

"These findings shed considerable light on the psychology of the bully. Hostile people do not have low self esteem; on the contrary, they think highly of themselves, But their favorable view of themselves is not held with total conviction, and it goes up and down in response to daily events. The bully has a chip on his shoulder because he thinks you might want to deflate his favorable self image."

-Roy F. Baumeister, _Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty_ p 149

Reply to
Guy Macon

No the DarkStar 9000 is the best one

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Reply to
Chris H

In message , Guy Macon writes

I did the search.... Whilst I don't fully agree with al the debunking of Ray... many years electronics, many years as a magician and many years in the US forces are possible if you are an electronics technician in the armed forces (as I was) and working in the clubs on and near units he was stationed at... I did a spell in a couple of NAFFI's in the entertainment's committees... you met bands (and their groupies) and went "backstage" etc.

Also he claims to have been on carriers and flying... possible if in the US Navy jets...

Now I can be guilty of that to. At my age (50) I can confuse decades and dates. Also I was a University student as a mature student in my 30's not my 20's when most go to collage.

However he claims, at various times too much and the dates vary and overlap... he can not have done all the things he claims from what I can see.

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Reply to
Chris H

On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:43:48 +0000, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and Guy Macon instead replied:

Well that may be true but I've not always posted using that name. I didn't use a sock, though. Try it without the first name. At one point I used my initials.

As to the USENET FAQ, it was before you were around, most likely, and I have no idea if it was ever disseminated. I just know I was asked to write one small bit and I did.

-- Ray

Reply to
Ray Haddad

I used to see boxes of magtape at hamfests labeled as nntp archives with datecodes in the '80s and early '90s; the owners felt that the material wasn't worthy of shelf space. I wonder how spotty 'Google Groups' early archives really may be; I cannot find many of my posts (made from BBS gateways in the early days) any more, and worse, since the acquisition of Deja News, posts which once existed have vanished (FWIW, X-No-Archive wasn't set), or for whatever reason aren't searchable.

From time to time I publicly renew a suggestion to create an independent Usenet archive of the technical groups from remaining private materials.

Michael

Reply to
msg

... snip ...

Before Dejanews or Google, to the best of my knowledge the only Usenet archives were private. As a matter of fact, they still are, but are freely published.

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Reply to
CBFalconer

itself since 1990 from my recollection of some 18 years top posting has always been frowned on in Usenet. It was always interspersed or bottom posting with sensible trimming. (Define "sensible" :-) This is to keep context in the message as stand alone.

Google Groups' archives of news.announce.newusers is very incomplete, but the earliest set of FAQs I could find are here:

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Remarkably, no mention of top or bottom posting style can be found in the canonical Usenet guides from the earliest available versions up to the present. Some documents mention the need to honor the conventions of individual newsgroups however.

The first article to include both the phrases "top posting" and "bottom posting" as indexed by Google Groups is this thread in sci.geo.satellite-nav:

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The evidence seems to support the theory that posting style issues arose within the context of individual newsgroups. However, it does appear to be true that the posting style of the earliest messages archived in Google Groups irrespective of newsgroup tended to follow a bottom posting style.

I wonder if this was a carry-over from the conventions or the mechanics of antecedent email systems. (FWIW, I stopped reading alt.folklore.computers years ago).

Also, newsreaders previously enforced quoted text to original text ratios to prevent the blind replies of a short comment at the bottom of a large quoted section; such a feature has merit.

Michael

Reply to
msg

I've often seen attempts to come up with formula such as this on various newsgroups and they frequently fail on many valuable posts. A particular case that comes up fairly frequently is the one-line response - these aren't all "me too"s or "I agree"s. Sometimes someone will post a necessarily detailed list of requirements that must be done by, say, a shell script or C function, and the response is a simple one line demonstration of the correct invocation for those circumstances. You can't meaningfully trim the list of requirements much because to do so would omit something essential.

This is particularly infuriating with news servers that enforce a maximum 50:50 quotation ratio since they unfairly reject many perfectly valid posts. I believe my own demands at least a third original content give or take ten lines - that seems to me an acceptable compromise. It doesn't prevent all needless quoting but eliminates the worst excesses, while giving legitimate room for maneourve in situations such as I describe.

--
Andrew Smallshaw
andrews@sdf.lonestar.org
Reply to
Andrew Smallshaw

On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:43:54 -0500, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and CBFalconer instead replied:

There used to be a huge one at MIT somewhere. Haven't heard about it for years though. Not since Deja News started up.

-- Ray

Reply to
Ray Haddad

... snip ...

To me, this is the purpose of systems that summarize usage and aspects of usage of a newsgroup. There is such a beast on c.l.c, which shows me that I talk too much, and that my posts carry, on average, about 30% quotation.

I do appreciate servers that reject html or any attachments. This avoids a lot of problems.

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 [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) 
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Reply to
CBFalconer

And comparatively recent

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Reply to
Chris H

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