From: ashtray@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (John Newnham)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud
Subject: Re: split of rec.games.mud
Summary: I hate bigots who type faster than they think
Keywords: mud VR vr flame new group
Date: 14 Apr 92 03:35:33 GMT
Organization: you have got to be kidding!

In article <1992Apr13.191643.13819@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> fortony@bart.gis.uiuc.edu (Felix Ortony) writes:
>
>It's incredibly clear to me that most of you folks posting on the
>subject have no idea how newsgroups are organized.  None whatsoever.
>rec.games.mud.VR?  rec.games.mud.adventure?  These are such ridiculously
>lax and useless terms that any self-respecting MUDder would be personally
>embarrassed if an RFD were sent into news.groups containing them.  Or

Emotive language?  What ever happened to reasoning?  And I suppose you are the
arbiter of who has self-respect?  

>how about that argument that we should try for 'rec.mud.*', because then
>people would be able to convince their systems administrators that it's
>not a game?
>
>How dumb do you think systems administrators are, Jason R. Pascucci?

Less so than you? (cheap shot #1 :-)

>Anyone out there who seriously believes that 'VR' (that hoary, child-eating
>pipe dream word) is an acceptable suffix to any newsgroup except maybe
>something beginning with 'sci' is foolish.  MUDding is not 'virtual reality',
>no matter how much you'd like to try to convince your systems administrator
>that it is.  MUDding, maybe, is textual reality.  But please.  Don't

Come off it!  I am a self-respecting mudder, and I beleive that there are shades
of grey in the term "VR".  The most important part of reality is imagination: if
you cannot imagine the world, you cannot interact with it naturally, whether
that world is physical or virtual.  (Say, maybe that is his problem.... :-)

>wrongly overuse a word that's got enough problems of its own.  Unless, that
>is, you can manage 5000 polygons a second in ascii.

Or at least some good prose (which _is_ a problem on some MU*s).  I know that I
saw a more convincing hobbit when _reading_ Tolkien than when _looking_ at ANY
artist's impression.

>So let's move on to the Galloping DikuMUDders problem.  This newsgroup
[random opinionising deleted]
>Diku is about as exciting and enervating as LPmud, why don't we go right

Well, then, Diku must be pretty good!!  I must try it one day.  Seriously,
your bigotry is showing through...

>ahead and create another ghetto for these people?  I mean, there's precedent,
>right?  WELL I'LL TELL YA.  THE REASON WE'RE DEFINITELY NOT GOING TO BE ABLE
>TO GET AWAY FROM DIKUMUDS NOW IS THAT ALMOST EVERY SINGLE DIKUMUDDER IN THE
>KNOWN UNIVERSE HAS POSTED HIS OR HER PERSONAL THEORY CONCERNING HOW THE GROUP
>SHOULD BE SPLIT UP, WHAT IS APPROPRIATE, AND WHAT A REALLY K00L LIST OF
>ENDINGS SHOULD BE, LIKE 'PROGRAMMER' AND 'DUNGEON' AND 'TOPMUD' AND AND AND.

And and and if I, like, shout, then I must have a better point than them. hmmm..

>To be fair, this massive mental affliction has apparently migrated to a
>chosen few other non-diku net.charlatans.  But it seems especially prevalent
>in the ranks of the dikuMUDders, who by very nature have a much higher
>cluelessness per capita than people who actually interact with other humans.

Cluelessness we are born with.  Crass, tactless, arrogance like yours must be
practiced.  To paraphrase, "Have a manner.  Take two, they're small".

>So what's going to be done about all this?  Well, I'm 100% straight out
>flush true blue confident that the subset of morons who think their ideas
>about mudding are going to convince the professional authorities to create

Usenet has no such authorities.  It a reasonably democratic anarchy, which works
largely by the assumption of freedom of speech limited by reasonable behaviour.

>ten new groups is going to keep posting, and posting, and posting, filling
>up this newsgroup, and perhaps news.groups, with unadulterated useless
>dribble that could be described as masturbatory at best and as mewling,
>incomprehensible excretions at worst.  And I'm even more confident that

Like your article? (cheap shot #2 :-)

>this volume of ill-thought-out drivel will ruin any chance that this newsgroup
>will fall back into the hands of its rightful owners, the tiny* set.

I don't see a smilie, so I assume that you actually believe that you are a
member of some sort of elite which "owns" a usenet group.  Wow!  I have played
a little tiny, and enjoyed it.  But it is not the be-all and end-all of mud.

>Which, in the end, is very depressing.
>
>If anyone sane is listening out there [nope, by now they all changed channels]
>, the only groups which have a chance
>of making it, and that only individually, are:
>
>rec.games.mud.diku
>rec.games.mud.tiny
>rec.games.mud.announce (moderated by Scott Goehring)
>
>Those are just the cold facts.  Either get it together, or get it out of here.
                         ^^^^^
Ashtray falls down laughing.

>
>Felix Ortony
>fortony@murphy.gis.uiuc.edu
>Rhodesia

Ashtray@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au
------------------------------------------------------
If it's there and it works, it's physical.
If it's not there and it works, it's virtual.
If it's there but it doesn't work, call maintenance.
If it's not there and it don't work, call the police 'cos someone swiped it!