The Origin Story

Date: 17 May 1995 22:16:27 GMT
From: estephen@emf.net (E. Stephen Mack)
Organization: Winter Weather, Berkeley, CA

If all is going well, you are reading these words.  No matter where
you be: Finland, Stanford, Ohio, Korea, Cyberia, Wisconsin, Irrealis,
Cancun, Lucasberg or Dunkin' Donuts...for a brief moment, we can all
take a deep breath and rejoice that we are all reading the same
thing.  We're a gosh-darned community.  Thanks to David Guntner,
Partha S. Banerjee, Andrew Stephen Damick and the whole crew at
alt.config for helping to get the ball rolling.

We've had some software problems.  The newgroup was over a month ago.
Basically it took time and effort to get this newsgroup working, to get
the moderation working, et cetera et cetera, but now our only enemy is
bad propagation.  If you are reading this, please let me know.

You may begin submitting manifestoes for approval immediately.  Turn-
around time should be quick.  Please steer people in this direction
if you want them to post their motivations.  I'm hoping I can get
Kibo as the first official manifesto.

We are archived: all posts will appear at the following URL:
http://www.emf.net/~estephen/manifesto.html

If there are requests for FTP archiving, something may be arranged.


*** Hello, I am PARAGRAPH SIX.  I announce that A BRIEF HISTORY OF
A.U.M. follows below (but otherwise as a paragraph I don't do much).


Alt.usenet.manifestoes was originally proposed on alt.config, the
venerable newsgroup where new alt groups are discussed.  For
your edification, below is the initial proposal that led to the
creation of what you are now reading.  Enjoy.  This is folklore
in the making: the subject is you.  If you've ever wanted to be
a well-known usenet.personality, this group can serve as your
springboard.  Submit today.

(Note: In subsequent discussion, the proposal was modified so that
alt.manifesto became alt.usenet.manifestoes (moderated).  Just
soes youes knows.)


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X-Originally-From estephen@netcom.com Fri Jan 27 00:15:46 PST 1995
Newsgroups: alt.config
Subject: PROPOSAL: alt.manifesto
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 09:52:06 GMT

WHY WE NEED alt.manifesto -- A PROPOSAL BY ZEIGEN (with footnotes)

This is a long post, intended to be saved, printed out, digested
like fine wine, regurgitated like fine sewage, processed, approved,
debated, re-processed, re-approved, re-ingested, then returned
to sender, i.e., Re: Re: Re:.


* BACKGROUND:

Usenet is growing.  Each day, hundreds of new people discover
newsgroups and recognize that they have found their home, their
calling, their hobby, their whole damn life -- a special place for them
to focus their energies and hours (oh yes, hundreds of hours) into
creating cyber-personas that post dozens and dozens of posts, from rec
to soc to alt to harrastus to hell and back.

Sure, some of them won't make it.  They'll lack the stamina.  They
will lack the necessary abundance of personality.  They will fade
into oblivion.

But a few will arrive: maybe not A Sane Man (1), or a Furr (2) or a
Timo or a Rhodes or a Kibo (who?) or a Carasso or a Canter/Siegel,
but they'll be someone, dammit.  A personality.  Even with 100,000
newsgroups for their splintered world audience to choose from, they'll
be net-wide infamous:  renowned, flamed, archived, kill-filed, best-of-the-
internetted, hated, loved, ignored.  Finally they'll end up on
someone's kook list.  Then there'll be net.legend and rtfm entries,
a Wired/Tired designation, possibly a Rolling Stone Random Note with
digitally-enhanced photo, and then the inevitable book'n'movie deal.

The problem?  It takes too long for everyone to find out about the new
personalities.  I only read a few groups, I can't keep track of everyone
I'm supposed to watch out for and neither can you, even if you're Dave
DeLaney.

The solution?  A place for every net.wannabe to post their manifesto,
their plea to the void for recognition as they make their first,
tentative steps out on their journey.  Treacherous, thankless?  Aye,
even a single step must start with a journey of a thousand miles
hereabouts.  

Think about it -- where would you begin so that everyone will know you as
Someone?  For example, I've been posting for ten years and I'll bet
you've never heard of me.  That's okay, I don't know who you are
either.  Unless you're a regular on soc.culture.tamil.tall.hairy,
sci.lang.infix.affix-hopping, rec.music.instrument.nose-harp,
comp.os.bob.advocacy, alt.post-post-post-modern, netcom.whine, or
us.la.pasadena.south-side.12th-through-14th-streets.12th-street.d.  You
see what I mean.

But we could all have a common ground, a low-traffic place where we
could each present our introduction, our Modus Operandi,
our Raison d'Etre, our ... our ... net.manifesto.  By god yes.


* PROPOSED FOR DISCUSSION: alt.manifesto

It used to be that you could just post your plea for attention to
net.general (3) and everyone would see you.  But those days are gone;
some people want to know that you're about to try and become a
major thorn (or dweeb, pest, saint, net.god, whatever) -- but there's
no central gathering place where you can post your pitch for all
to see.  So, all of us will want to read alt.manifesto and post
belittling followups and whithering spelling flames, whether necessary
or not.  This group's not for everyone, but if you're already reading
alt.config, you're the target audience.  Both they and you will
want to be introduced to each other.


For your newsgroups file:
alt.manifesto	Painfully sincere cries to a silent void.  Art is dead. (4)


Artists, writers, politicians, cult leaders, world religions, multi-
national corporations -- all have manifestos.  They can
post them on alt.manifesto if they want.  They'd be welcome.  Especially
ascii artists, writers who specialize in flaming, personality disorders
or pointless discordia (c.f. Mercury Vapor) and businesses/scam artists
trying to fleece the suckers (c.f. alt.seduction.fast).


* THE INEVITABLE OBJECTIONS:

Oh, sure, it's a new top-level hierarchy.  Well, I shalln't try 
to point out the hundreds of other top-level hierarchies of a
similar level of relevance.  No, no, we all know the response to
that strawperson.

Instead, we must all look inward for just three moments, then admit:

	We.
		See.
			A.
				Great.
			Need.

Mailing list: no, too splintered.  Too hard to direct the emerging
ones to where they need to introduce themselves.  No chance for someone
to stumble across it in between alt.magnus_and_ketis and
alt.materials.simulation.

Co-exist with existing groups: Fine, but where?  Where else can we
see the personality emerge unhindered by material distractions? 
Where else can the naked desire of the other to BE SOMEONE be so poignantly
placed under our microscopes of contempt-tinged-with-admiration?

Moderated: If you insist.  Okay.  I'll volunteer.   Simple rules:
No cross-posts, no cascades, no OAOUBTITK,TIIC,TE (5).

Other names: alt.current-events.net-abuse?  No, they haven't
abused anyone.  Yet.  alt.kooks, or its variants?  No, they
have not yet achieved that level.  Plus, it misses the point if
someone TRIES to be a kook.  Let's not pronounce judgements, just
yet.  We simply provide a forum for one's most sincere statement
of intentions.

I'll post mine if you like.



* IN CONCLUSION:

I'm dead-set serious.  No irony, no sarcasm intended.  If I didn't
insult you/pay tribute to you personally, sorry, I'll catch you
next time.

I'd newgroup it myself, but I wanted you all to know, to agree,
to anticipate it.  After all, it's the forum ALL of US wanted,
like having a yearbook page to ourselves.  A much wider audience
than a home page, but with all the narcissism.

Just seven days, and you can post your own manifesto so that the
world may tremble at your sincerity.


* FOOTNOTES:

(1)  Yes, that dates me.  So he's not famous anymore, who cares?
(2)  Okay, that was to score points only.
(3)  It used to be unmoderated!  Because there WAS no moderation!  Sorry
     for the exclamation points.
(4)  Well, I could work on that part.  Straightforward description might
     be a little elusive here.
(5)  Opaque Acronyms Only Understood By Those In The Know, The Inner
     Inner Circle, The Elite.
(6)  Intentional Redundancy.
(7)  Organization included for identification purposes only; not
     intended to stand for anything in particular.



* ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, LEGALIA:

This post created in vi and rn.  No mice, of any number of buttons,
were harmed, or used, in the making of this post.

This sentence will self-destruct if quoted, saved to disk spool or DAT Tape (6),printed, quoted, forwarded, or otherwise manipulated in any form.
Warning: the preceding sentence is infected by the same tab virus as found
in GOOD.TIMES.

All contents (C) 1968
by Craig Shergold.  If you enjoyed this post, please send a postage-due
postcard sellotaped to a brick to Newt Gingrich.  All rights reserved,
except that brief quotations in followups are permitted for
book jacket copy or for cross-posting to alt.flame.  Entertainment
Weekly should pay Thor or else they won't be allowed to quote me either.
Did you know I instituted the practice of "cross-posting"?  I invented
the phrase "Have a Nice day" too.  This post is a project of the
ACLU (7) and is sponsored by Death Cigarettes.

Accept no substitute.  Vote early, vote often, but not in alt.config.
Newgroup today.  Thank you.


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[No voting necessary: we have lift-off.  Submit your manifesto today.]


__________________________________________________________________________
-- Zeigen (E. Stephen Mack)                               estephen@emf.net
        Zeigen's Dilemma Home Page: http://www.emf.net/~estephen/

"[Y]et Geek Points' drummer, Nigel Hasteworth, doesn't even appear halfway
knowledgeable of I.P. spoofing or Star Trek humor, which hurts the overall
charade somewhat.  He is loud though." -- Rolling Stone, page 163, 5/12/95