Talk:Eternal September

message: A related expression to this, in the BBS communities of the 1980s where I am from, in Canada, was "Christmas Modem Kiddies", or CMKs.  Just as university networks had their intakes of new members in September, the public BBSes had their intakes of new members when people got computers and modems (300 or 1200 bps) at Christmas time.  I'd like add a reference to this phrase, but I wonder how widespread it was.  Do other people recognise the phrase "Christmas Modem Kiddies"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.235.233 (talk) 08:58, 22 November 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The BBSs I was on referred to them as "ruggies", i.e. rugrats (though this was not necessarily Christmas-related, the term came to be associated with Christmas due to the influx following the holidays) and "Christmas newbies." Jerry Kindall 22:32, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Christmas Modem Kiddies

message: Usenet, in a lot of ways, was (and, yes, I mean "was"; Usenet is dead.  Let me take that back.  Usenet has become a fire sharing network; Usenet as a discussion medium is dead) a big clique.  There was a lot of useful information there, but there was also a lot of attacking of newbies and people with different opinions in a lot of forums.  I remember a 1994 article (back when Usenet was the internet) about Usenet, comparing the behavior of members to the rites of street gangs.  The whole "anti-AOL" and the resulting attitude which resulted in jokes like "Eternal September" (as I recall, AOL didn't have Usenet until mid-1994) was just one symptom of this cliqueish.  IRC was another big clique; the pre-dot-com internet was very cliquey (actually; let me take that back.  The Free Chess servers always had nice people; people could express their agression by kicking my butt at Chess instead of being a cliquey snob).  
There are some things I miss about Usenet.  I miss being able to use Leafnode to download a few Usenet newsgroups to my laptop over a modem, taking my laptop to the library and reading and posting to Usenet while studying; I would have my posted articles uploaded to Usenet that evening when I was online again.  Usenet did not need a continuous online connection to be usable.  Then again, more and more libraries have wireless internet access.
One of the positive benefits of the dot-com revolution, besides making it so that a given hot girl you see at the pool now has a web page, is that the internet is not the clique it was.  I strive to make Wikipedia non-cliquey, and, in fact, remind seasoned members of Wikipedia:Newbies when I see any signs of this cliqueishness.   Samboy 08:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  My random thoughts 

message: You mean Usenet was overrun by illegal immigrants from AOL? 
--Aggieben
:Who exactly is "You"? Hackwrench 18:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wait, wait... 

message: I don't know why someone apparently without a registered username thought that immigration isn't related, but the concept of "Eternal September" can be expressed as a continual immigration into a community such that the community can never integrate them and maintain a stable state. Hackwrench 17:49, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it’s not. Tuvalkin (talk) 14:26, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Immigration is related 

message: I've added a hacked together computation for the current SeptDate, I couldn't find a good reference to how to do this (help?), please see if you can find a problem/fix it.
it's { {#expr:2679+((({ {CURRENTYEAR} }-2001)*365.24) round 0)+(({ {CURRENTWEEK} }-1)*7)+{ {CURRENTDOW} } } }
  = 
Explanation:
Since 2000 was an exception to the leap year rule I start at 2001.
*2679 - The last septday of 2000.
*365.24 - Number of days a year (including leap days).
*round 0 - Round down "partial" leap days.
*(CURRENTWEEK-1*7)+CURRENTDOW - For some reason CURRENTDOY didn't work for me, it works alone but not as part of an expression.
Motti 07:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's a page, with source code that converts all dates to their Eternal September date.  According to it, the script here is off by two days.Slipgrid (talk) 20:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Diff with Unix timestamp and avoid leap year calculations, like so: .  — Dispenser 14:00, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Computing SeptDate 

message: There's been some dispute on the sources and notability... Mrsaius, could you explain your reasoning on that point here?  Thanks.  Georgewilliamherbert 01:16, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources and references 

message: The article says "On February 9, 2005, AOL discontinued newsgroup access through its service (this was announced on January 25, 2005[6][7]). September 1993 is thus, according to some, finally over."   Actually, in the later 90s, the usenet died out when it became so flooded with spammers on every group that it was unusable.  I think this is completely relevant to the logic of this article.  Basically September didn't so much as end, but usenet kind of died thanks to spammers. William Ortiz 00:27, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On a lot of groups (certainly all of the ones I was on), experienced regulars used clients capable of getting rid of most spam in the late 90s by dropping messages cross-posted to more than 2-3 groups and simple filters we could update by hand as needed.  Based on what it looked like from the users' side, in 2000 or so, spammers switched from posting a handful of messages from their homes to a dozens of newsgroups at a time from their basements, to renting a server from a commercial provider running software that flooded countless newsgroups with dozens or hundreds of spam at a time and changed the words/phrases so frequently that users/filters couldn't keep up. Xyzzy☥Avatar (talk) 11:10, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Over in 2005? 

message: I edited the original article as the one that cited the last sentence, "It's moot now. September 1993 will go down in net.history as the September that never ended." didn't realize the dot between "net" and "history". I think this is a small joke to refer to "net history" as another Usenet News Group. Corrected now to fully quote the original.
: Using a dot in that manner was very common among IT geeks in the 90s. FWIW the dot was spoken aloud. Robert Brockway (talk) 01:54, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  A small note on the final quote 

message: The external link, "September that never ended in Ursine's Jargon Wiki," is broken.  Doesn't seem like that domain host a wiki anymore.  This link should be removed.Slipgrid (talk) 20:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: so do it? wtf  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Petchboo (talk • contribs) 14:13, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dated External Links 

message: Typo; I meant to explain my recent reversion more.  Inculcate was the right word to begin with.  Indoctrinate is POV-y and a loaded word, it has sinister connotations that are not relevant here.  Xihr  05:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: And where do you end up if you click the inculcate link? - Denimadept (talk) 14:41, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Start with the fact that Wikipedia is not a dictionary.  Continue with the fact that Wikipedia is not in and of itself a reliable source.  What a redirect on Wikipedia points to has absolutely nothing to do with anything.  Ask, say, m-w.com -- y'know, an actual dictionary -- the same thing and you'll see what the difference is; see definition 2, for which there is no equivalent for the the word inculcate. Indoctrinate has negative bias connotations; inculcate does not.  Xihr  23:59, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: uhh, "disruptive newcomers" also has negative bias connotations. fixed Asdf98761 (talk) 23:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Ref specifically supports that the disruption was a key aspect, not just that there were new users. Whether that's negative or not, that's what the ref supports--see WP:NPOV. DMacks (talk) 23:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inculcate vs. indoctrinate 

message: Someone wrote a poem to describe the phenomena:
https://groups.google.com/group/rec.humor.oracle.d/msg/1ce643db0ffa4354
144.32.48.87 (talk) 17:14, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eternal September Anthem  

message: In Septmber '93 Demon was still shipping ka9q to its dial up customers; unlike AOL it required a certain amount of nous to access usenet and Demon didn't pretend that usenet was its own forum service. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.193.134.105 (talk) 18:11, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should Demon Internet be included? 

message: THis article reads like a angry college kids essay. Statements like -To many "old-timers", these newcomers were far less prepared to learn netiquette than university students.  Sound ridiculous. --98.87.94.57 (talk) 01:57, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you check the references? That's a pretty accurate summation of what they say. Sorry if it annoys you. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 12:24, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article reads like a essay. 

message: this link might be useful for this article http://motherboard.vice.com/read/its-september-forever • Sbmeirow • Talk • 21:01, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Eternal September. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20060626080344/http://www.nyupress.org:80/netwars/pages/chapter01/ch01_.html to http://www.nyupress.org/netwars/pages/chapter01/ch01_.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 15:35, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: AOL did not invade in 1993.  It was GEnie that first invaded, in October if I recall correctly.  AOL didn't invade until 1994.  Cite:  http://www.nyupress.org/netwars/pages/chapter03/ch03_.html
'AOL was a lot smaller--only a million users--and far from the market leader in March 1994, when it set up its "Usenet feature," which allowed a seemingly endless stream of people to tap nervously on their newsreaders, type out, one after another, "Hey, is this working?" and then hit the SEND button to relay this world-shaking message to all of Usenet.'
It was called the "Endless September" because  just when the September Newbies seemed to be petering out, the GEnie Newbies showed up.  Then as the clues started flowing into the GEnie userbase then the WELL granted Usenet access to its users.  Then the wheels started to come off of the train, so to speak.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.236.138.2 (talk) 06:21, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major error in the text 

message: I have reverted your re-insertion of original research. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:07, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: To cite a webpage and quote it is perfectly acceptable original research, since no claim beyond that the webpage says what it can clearly be verified to say is being made. I removed the claim that it was the first time anybody said it. Srnec (talk) 23:10, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The source you cited fails WP:SPS. Calling that source "firstuse" and the placement of the text within the article is WP:NOR. I can understand your belief that your addition is neutral but I'm seeking ensure the narrative is covered reliably. This prohibits what you've done. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:41, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess somebody of importance cares enough to write about it after all. Srnec (talk) 00:01, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I stand corrected. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:10, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who said it first? Nobody of any importance cares. 

message: An editor User:Susmuffin has placed a "more citations" tag on the story - unnecessary in my opinion. There are more than sufficient citations. If no explanation appears, i will remove the tag. I am also returning the useful pop-culture references, which are well sourced and show the extent to which this phrase has spread.- DavidWBrooks (talk) 10:44, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: This article has five paragraphs. Two of them lack citations. ―Susmuffin Talk 17:56, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: That's your argument - a paragraph count? Pretty lame, man - I would normally remove the tag as being misapplied but we'll leave it for a while and see if anybody else cares. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:22, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why "more citations" tag? 

message: How is this useful at all? Hunter Hutchins (talk) 08:03, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: It identifies what today's date is according to the calendar that is the article's topic. It's comparable to  in other calendar articles, but it's a specific day not just a year. DMacks (talk) 12:54, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Read the article.  It'll make sense then.  If not, let us know what's unclear. - Denimadept (talk) 18:25, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: It does make sense now. Completely unencyclopedic. And not useful. It is literally a joke. Hunter Hutchins (talk) 06:35, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: It fits the tone of the article and provides some (very minor, admittedly) context. "Encyclopedic" doesn't have to mean boring and dry. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:09, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: And in case Hunter Hutchins is instead commenting about the article's topic itself, "encyclopedic" is determined by WP:NPOV and WP:V, regardless of how serious a topic is (or how serious any one of us thinks a topic is). For example, according to the cited refs, it was still being mentioned over 20 years later. DMacks (talk) 13:59, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's this "today" table on the page? 

message: The redirect Great September has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached.  Utopes (talk / cont) 07:02, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  "[[:Great September]]" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: It's just after noon on Thursday May 9 where I'm at, in Central time zone.  The clock was reading Weds May 8 until noon hit, and yes, I had both reloaded the page and clicked "refresh" before then, and it kept saying it was Wednesday.  I double-checked to see whether any other time zones actually were still in Wednesday, but I don't think there are any.  It's just after 17:00 UTC, so I think someone who understands how it's coded needs to fix when this clock thinks it is.  (I can't do it myself as I don't do that sort of coding.)  Thanks ahead of time to whoever can sort it out! Critterkeeper (talk) 17:15, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time clock needs fixing