Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!grapevine.lcs.mit.edu!olivea!hookup!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!newsserver.jvnc.net!newsserver2.jvnc.net!netnews.upenn.edu!jake.esu.edu!coot.ma.iup.edu!pyld From: Matt Schnierle Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.usenet-cabal,alt.answers,news.answers Subject: alt.conspiracy.usenet-cabal Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 17:08:18 -0400 Organization: People for the Ethical Treatment of USENET Lines: 159 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Expires: Sat, 7 Oct 1995 Message-ID: Reply-To: pyld@oak.grove.iup.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: coot.ma.iup.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Summary: This posting contains frequently asked questions and answers about the usenet cabal conspiracy Followup: alt.conspiracy.usenet-cabal Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu alt.conspiracy.usenet-cabal:741 alt.answers:11933 news.answers:52507 Archive-name: usenet/cabal-conspiracy-FAQ alt-conspiracy-usenet-cabal-Archive-name: FAQ Posting-Frequency: Monthly (7th of each) Version: 1.2 URL: http://www.ma.iup.edu/~pyld/faq.html ALT.CONSPIRACY.USENET-CABAL FAQ * I. What the heck is this group? * II. Why was it created? * III. Who created it? * IV. What the heck is a cabal? * V. But I thought they broke the Backbone Cabal? * VI. So, there is no Cabal * VII. Credits and other information * VIII. Where this FAQ can be obtained I. What the heck is this group? Alt.conspiracy.usenet-cabal is a group to allow the unbelievers or believers (depending upon your personal level of paranoia) to ponder the existence and actions of the Usenet Cabal. It also serves as a repository for other related discussions of supposed "control" figures and groups that some net.kooks swear are out to get you. Be forewarned. Note--This FAQ is frequently posted to such groups where a question of clarification of the Cabal's role or history is deemed needed. II. Why was it created? In late 1994 and early 1995, a reorganization of the news.* hierarchy was proposed and eventually passed. During the inevitable flame war that took place, the opposition accused the proponents of attempting to consolidate power to control USENET, and began throwing the concept of a Cabal around (not for the first time, see part IV). A relatively amused bystander decided that it would be a Good Idea to take these discussions out of the groups they were currently in (alt.current-events.net-abuse and most of the news.* groups) and place them in a group were the legions (actually, there were only 5 or 10, but they were awfully vocal) of paranoid naysayers could discuss the group amongst themselves. III. Who created It? Matt Schnierle (pyld@oak.grove.iup.edu) sent the original control message in early February of 1995, after the group had been proposed and discussed in alt.config. IV. What the heck is a cabal? According to Webster's Dictionary, a cabal is "a small group of secret plotters" or "the plots and schemes of such a group." When referring to a cabal in terms of present day USENET, one pictures a group of people who secretly meet in a smokey back room, have private mailing lists, and meet in exotic spots in California, North Carolina, and Virginia, all the while plotting the future of USENET, its content, and its users. The "original" cabal was comprised of news administrators of the major "backbone" (those willing to pay huge long distance bills in the days of UUCP, and who moved a great majority of USENET traffic) sites. These individuals had a large say in the creation and naming of groups, simply because they could _seriously_ hurt a group's propagation by not carrying it. During the "Great Renaming," it was these people who oversaw the dismantling of the net.*, mod.*, and fa.* hierarchies and reorganized them into the system we have today (comp.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, soc.*, sci.*, talk.*). The Backbone Cabal came apart for many reasons. The voting system was brought into play, which reduced much of the Cabal's power. Brian Reid, whose recipe group was somehow eliminated during the renaming, began the alt.* hierarchy (which was originally carried via alternate distribution means, therefore avoiding the Backbone). The introduction of NNTP allowed news to be distributed over the Internet, which reduced the power of the Backbone by offering separate and better means for high volume traffic handling. Eventually, the Backbone Cabal and its mailing list, ceased to exist. V. But I thought they broke the Backbone Cabal! They did. But there are many doomsayers, who to this day _insist_ that there is a Cabal that continues to control USENET, while trying to gain and consolidate even more power. Despite the fact that USENET is cooperative by nature, and that any administrator's influence ends at the gateway to his site, these seemingly normal (although this characterization is used loosely) humans cling to the notion that there is a Cabal. In order to combat this slightly warped view of the world, the readers of USENET have developed the following regulation: USENET Rule #0: There is no Cabal. There is, however, a net-wide conspiracy designed solely to lead Dave Hayes (dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov) to believe that there is a Cabal. (Rule courtesy of David DeLaney's net.legends FAQ) This rule explains many things, the foremost being the existence of alt.conspiracy.usenet-cabal. When someone rants about the evil Cabal, their post is met with the inevitable response "Remember--there is no Cabal." And life goes on. Even though There is No Cabal, you can find out more about the Cabal at http://www.usenet.com/. Also, there may or may no be a separate alt.* Cabal. Refer to the above URL for details. VI. So, There is No Cabal. Exactly. Hence alt.conspiracy.usenet-cabal. ~~~~~~~~~~ VII. Credits and other information This document would not be possible without the input and writings of a great many people. Much of the information regarding the Great Renaming and the Backbone Cabal was gleamed from many postings and FAQ's which are too numerous to entirely list. However, the following documents were of great assistance in compiling this FAQ: The Net.Legends FAQ: Maintained by David DeLaney (dbd@panacea.phys.utk.edu) The Great Renaming FAQ: Lee S. Bumgarner (lsbumgar@vax1.acs.jmu.edu) The USENET Cabal Homepage: http://www.usenet.com/ (Remember, there is no homepage) As always, there were many USENET posters whose thoughts, ideas, and debates had a rather large influence on the content of this FAQ, in addition to many e-mail correspondences. I'm sure some of them will be surprised that they are on this list; I can simply say thanks. The authors who heavily influenced this FAQ include: Jonathan Grobe, Paul Phillips, Henry Edward Hardy, Joel Furr, Brad Templeton, Chris Lewis, Richard M. Miller, Dik T. Winter, Dave Hayes, Steve Boursy, Andrew Steven Damick, David DeLaney, Lee S. Bumgarner, Mike Chapman, David Barr, Abby Franquemont-Guillory, Brian Edmonds, Tim Pierce, Michael Grubb, @who cabal, Gene Spafford, David Lawrence, UVV, Ian Kluft, CancelMoose (tm), Ron Newman, the folks from *.answers, root@cabal.com, and many others who go unmentioned.... VIII. Where this FAQ can be obtained This FAQ can be located at the following places: FTP: USA--rtfm.mit.edu in /pub/usenet/news.answers/usenet Europe--ftp.iaehv.nl in the /pub/users/perry World Wide Web: http://www.ma.iup.edu/~pyld/faq.html Faq Maintained By: Matt Schnierle (pyld@oak.grove.iup.edu) _________________________________________________________________