The
New Face of Usenet (Part I)
By Chris Clark |
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Usenet is a very popular
way of sharing information and discussions worldwide. Right now there
exist over 30,000 News Groups, with many more being added every day and
countless new servers to bring them to the viewing public.
In this article, we'll
take an eye-opening journey through the most cutting edge News Groups
on Usenet. These are groups so new and different that most news servers
don't carry them yet, but will soon. Their growing popularity is shaping
the new face of Usenet.
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Each
News Group that we feature can be put into one of the following
categories:
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Binary
News Groups - These are groups designed to carry files. Their
enormous bandwidth requirements make them available only to the Seven
richest billionaires of the US. |
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Talk
News Groups - These are groups set up for the discussion of a
single topic. They are habitats to trolls, lamers, and mountains of
spam amid legitimate posters. |
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Moderated
News Groups - These groups do not post messages automatically,
but instead messages are read by customs officers from Kennedy International
Airport in case of contraband and then, maybe, are posted. |
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Other
News Groups - These are groups that don't fit in the other categories,
hence the need for this category. What'd you expect? A News Group
that reads your thoughts? Ha! |
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*Please
Note! Some News Groups are subject to their fair share of cuss words.
In order to protect ears and feelings, we have replaced all cuss
words with names of fruits, in italic lettering.
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#1 - alt.scream.incomprehensible.nonsense
This
News Group is host to wide variety of posters that all have one thing
in common: utter hysteria. As sort of an offspring to the once bustling
and popular alt.utter.hysteria, alt.scream.incomprehensible.nonsense
allows  maximum
tolerance for venting of frustration with long strings of vowels and expletives.
ASIN
has no FAQ at this point, since very few posts contain more than one legitimate
word.
#2 - alt.talk.l33t
This
News Group's existence alone is controversial due to the widespread belief
that the language of L33t is a backslide in human evolution. Nonetheless,
this group thrives on people who prefer to talk about nonsense, but do
it in L33t.
A highly noticeable
trend in this group is self awareness and self love. Phrases such as "1
0WNZ U" are extremely common.
We
warn to anyone who has never encountered L33t, this language is highly
volatile and always changing. Some attempts to logically understand the
purpose and functionality of this language have resulted in the heads
of scholars bursting like overripe melons.
Use this News Group
at your own risk.
#3 - talk.crimes.committed
Very
few messages ever appear on this News Group. In fact, none ever
show up. Not that we've seen anyway! Out of curiosity, we sought an interview
with the moderators of this group. They are, as with all News Group moderators
in existence, customs officers as Kennedy International Airport.
Oddly, we found that
all messages to this group are immediately forwarded to the NYPD and used
as evidence to issue warrants of arrest. Do you here that criminals? If
you  want
to keep doing what you do best, stick with alt.talk.crime.unmoderated-by-police.seriously!
...And good luck paying
off your student loans, the very thorns in your collective side that drove
you to felonious lifestyles.
As we comb Usenet more
and more, we find more strange new News Groups.
Be sure to watch the
site for the next installment of The New Face of Usenet where we
will feature three more of peculiar places on the world's largest forum!
-Chris Clark
( click
here to email the author )
P.S.
- A big thanks goes out to Strider for providing inspiration for this
article!
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