From: stephen@orchid.UCSC.EDU ()
Newsgroups: ca.politics,ba.politics
Subject: What is BIFF?-  answers inside- and I still don't understand.
Date: 6 Oct 1992 21:01:45 GMT
Organization: Santa Cruz
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: orchid.ucsc.edu

In article <12633@optilink.UUCP> manley@optilink.UUCP (Dave Manley) writes:
>In article <1ajaliINN6jf@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> stephen@orchid.UCSC.EDU writes:
>
>A response from BIFF operates on many levels. As you are obviously
>unfamiliar with this form of posting let me enumerate a few characteristics
>of BIFF postings [I hope you find this tutorial informative]:
>
Unfamiliar- well I guess if you mean this is some standard of posting then
yes I am unfamiliar. So, on I go to read and respond to the BIFF concept.

> 1. It attacks those who cannot or will not use a dictionary.

I am the first to agree that everyone needs to able to write clearly and
this includes spelling, but we are people, not computers, and therefore
are endowed with the ability to extract the correct meanings from postings
when typographical/spelling/usage errors occur.

In many cases I answer quickly with little or no proof reading.  This is the
cost of too much information to process - but I suspect that most people
can derive the idea of the message.

> 2. It attacks those who cannot or will not proofread their postings.

See number 1 above.

> 3. It attacks those who needlessly waste bandwidth ((such as a name
>    and two .sigs) in part by satirically responding by wasting 
>    more bandwidth).

People are allowed to have as many .sigs as they wish- it is up to each
news server to reject redundant materials, as ours does by not allowing
trasmission of replys that are less text than the original included posting.
See 5. below also as relating to bandwidth waste.

> 4. It offers non-sequiturs, usually in a humorous fashion, in
>    response to those whose postings contain no content or whose
>    postings show some idiosyncratic discontinuity with reality.

"idiosyncratic discontinuity with reality" - I do like this one!

> 5. Any conclusions made are guaranteed to not follow any logical
>    process from any premises made.

Bandwidth wasting????
See 3. above.

> 6. It does bring satisfaction to the poster and to others.  
>    (My email is running 100% positive on this issue!)

In general, your e-mail is not a good statistical indicator of 
satisfaction with postings.

> 7. It mirrors 96.3% of all postings made.

How did you arrive at this precise calculation?

> 8. It raises the overall quality and intelligence of the net.

This is a Subjective conclusion.

> 9. It carries on a long standing net tradition.

Traditions are not necessarily good. And to whom does this tradition
belong?

>10. It reduces the competitiveness of the US in a global economy
>    by incuring transmission costs, consuming disk space, and 
>    wasting both my time to write it and your time to read it.

This one is confusing- are you saying that a 'BIFF' posting causes
all of these things?  Not very nice.

The following items seem to be going off tangentially, they do not seem
to relate to ... 'anything'. But I am seeing that none of this has any
real content.

>11. It reflects The Human Condition.
>12. It is non-federally funded Art.
>13. It is non-coercive.
>14. It is mutually consensual.
>15. It is both political, apolitical and non-fattening.
>16. It is the heat death of the universe.
>17. It IS.
>
>In the beginning there was BIFF, and it was good....
>
>Finally, let me assure you my spellings are done in the most serious manner.
>
>--
>I"MNOTBIFF@BIFF"S>SK00L>OF>INGLISH.EDU
>
>
Well I will take your tutorial under consideration.  In the meantime it 
was somewhat amusing, but I am not that it had any informational content.
So in a concluding comment on my part- I was not able to easy extract a
common idea or thread out the above 'enumeration', but it is possible
that this is your intent.