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From: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Is USENET stagnating?
Keywords: no, it's changing
Message-ID: <21653@gryphon.COM>
Date: 30 Oct 89 08:22:05 GMT
References: <40056@looking.on.ca>
Reply-To: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 41

In article <40056@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes:
>
>People have forgotten what USENET should be about.  USENET is about
>*doing* things in computer networking.  Not thinking up arguments why
>people shouldn't do them.

Originally, USENET was to exchange experiences with unix. That is,
today, to a large degree, a very minor part of USENET. Unix is now
``just'' a support mechanism to support the flow of information
about various other topics. This did not happen because of say,
.aquaria, it happened the moment more postings began flowing
over the net for IBM PC's and related toy computers (:-) for the
humor impaired) than about unix.

My word! With USENET increasing at the rate it is, and it's pervasivness
at changing peoples attitute towards written commnunication (``can
I just email you or do I have to put it in the mail or call you?'')
among a constantly growing and changing culture, I find contemporary
USENET a very exciting place.

The thing about the NET I personally find most exciting is the ability
of communicate with a peer group on a common interest and compile
information - this is easy as you already have it in a form which
is easy to manipulate. 

Severel project have evolved from the net in terms of printed
works - the r.h.f joke book, Brians recipes, Chuq's otherrealms.

Perhaps none are going to win a pulitzer, but I believe they signal a trend
and point the way towards one of the most significant things USENET
can do for society at large.

USENET is as stagnent as you see it. There are bad things about it
and there alway will be. But they remain a small constant, while the 
amount of good things that comes out of USENET is ever on the
rise.

-- 
  ``Hacker: a human being whose sense of humor has been surgically removed''
						 - Kent Paul Dolan
richard@gryphon.COM  decwrl!gryphon!richard   gryphon!richard@elroy.jpl.NASA.GOV