"Bumpy" <Bumpy@large.not> wrote in message
news:bg95gv$j2h$1@news8.svr.pol.co.uk...
>
> "Tom Bishsop" <aklsdjdf@054-here-39.nu> wrote in message
> news:3f2763d5_2@corp-news.newsgroups.com...
> > the following article is found at the following URL on 2001-11.
> > http://member.newsguy.com/~shpxurnq/meow.html
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > The One True History of Meow
> >
> > By The 2-Belo
> >
> >
> > The Meow Wars The largest flame war in Usenet history, involving
hundreds
> of
> > people from over 80 newsgroups, lasting over forty-five weeks. It was
the
> > Usenet equivalent of World War II. It was The Flamewar to End All
> Flamewars.
> >
> > It was the best of times.The Meow Wars It all began innocently enough: a
> > small group of students at Harvard University - a band of future
> > bloodsucking ambulance-chasing lawyers, medical specialists who phone in
> > diagnoses from mobile phones on yachts, and caffeine-crazed computer
> > programmers with way too much time on their hands - began to use Usenet
as
> a
> > local dorm room bulletin board/gossip clique area.
> >
> > The newsgroup they chose, apparently at random from among the hundreds
of
> > empty Usenet joke-newsgroup wastelands: alt.fan.karl-malden.nose. [The
> > circumstances surrounding the birth of this newsgroup can now be told,
> > thanks to the location of the original newgroup control message.]
> >
> > This small group of posters set up their little regime in this forgotten
> > newsgroup, posting daily schedules and post count summaries, talking
about
> > this class and that event and this and that and the other. Eventually,
> they
> > tired of posting articles about their immensely boring daily lives, so
> they
> > turned their attention to the computer network world around them. First
> they
> > tried their hand at penny-ante crossposting, branching out to claim
other
> > empty newsgroups, such as alt.fan.ok-soda and alt.fan.pooh. This soon
grew
> > stale as well, as each poster moved into a new group only to find the
same
> > bored people he/she left behind.
> >
> > Apparently as a result of the Ivy-League uppity belief that all the
world
> > should be like them (and also as a result of trying to avoid studying
for
> > exams), one of the posters suggested that they "invade" a real,
populated
> > newsgroup and "rile up the stupid people". When Matt Bruce, another of
the
> > Harvard band, heard this, he wrote this response:
> >
> > "I suggest that we start either posting or crossposting to
> > alt.tv.beavis-n-butthead. I also suggest that we use big words and
perfect
> > grammar, and refuse to write as the young ruffians in question speak.
> >
> > "This could lead to some interesting 'dialogue.' "
> >
> > This article was posted directly to alt.tv.beavis-n-butthead. The
regulars
> > at that group, wondering what the world was coming to, scoffed at the
> notion
> > of a couple of stuck-up geeks from Harvard calling them "ruffians", and
a
> > few unpleasantries were exchanged. This crosspost-tossing attracted the
> > attention of an unknown poster going by the name of Dontonio Wingfield.
> > He/she discovered that one of the Harvard posters, Chuck Truesdell,
placed
> > "meow meow" (a reference to Henrietta Pussycat of Mr. Roger's
Neighborhood
> > fame) in many of his posts as a sort of calling card, as his initials
> spell
> > "C.A.T.". Matt Bruce picked up on this practice for one post (the quote
at
> > the top of this page), and someone, for some reason, took that article
out
> > of afk-mn, crossposting it to a dozen newsgroups as a troll against the
> > "Nosers" (as the Harvard students called themselves). Dontonio Wingfield
> > either instigated this troll, or was the first to reply to it:
> >
> > "What the hell is this shite? Would you mind keeping it the hell out of
> > HERE?"
> >
> > The Dontonio Wingfield persona then, of course, vanished. The posters in
> the
> > targeted groups, noting the "meow meow" elements, began to retaliate
> against
> > the supposed original crossposter, Matt Bruce. These posters entered the
> > 'Nose and found it full of other Harvard students like Matt, and the
> > counter-invaders flamed and spewed "meow" with vigor, In time, flames
> > containing the word "meow" would start popping up all over the place,
> aimed
> > mostly at areas where the high-class uppity Ivy-League snots were known
to
> > congregate, such as alt.college.college-bowl. Other flames targeted
> snobbish
> > college kids who regularly huffed their freckled noses in newsgroups
such
> as
> > alt.music.nin. Some of the more daring souls decided to forge articles
in
> > Bruce's name, spreading the "meow" attacks to more and more groups,
> > including afk-mn, to add to the onslaught against him and his
> > "intellectually elite" cohorts.
> >
> > When the real Matt Bruce caught wind of the uproar, he and the other
> Harvard
> > students first tried to write his attack on atbnb as a "joke". When no
one
> > bought his story, he attempted more forcefully to get the attackers to
> stop,
> > which only sounded like more condescending talk:
> >
> > "Please stop. Cease and desist. You are only making yourselves look
> silly."
> >
> > When this only fanned the flames further, he threatened to cancel all
> > articles containing the word "meow", and to netcop all the "meow"
article
> > forgers. This "Cancellation Notice", posted about a month and a half
after
> > the first "meow" troll, was apparently the proverbial last straw. A
person
> > crossposting into 12 newsgroups, then claiming it a "joke", when he
> > obviously had no sense of humor? This pissed off the Usenet Performance
> > Artists to no end. it was time to teach Matt Bruce - and the rest of his
> > gang of snots - a lesson. Suddenly, afk-mn, alt.college.college-bowl,
and
> > scores of other groups were flooded to the gills and beyond with
hundreds
> > upon hundreds of huge meow articles from all corners of Usenet.
Cascades,
> > ASCII cats, hundred-line "meow" hello-world-type flood posts, and more
> were
> > posted, reposted, munged, pureed, and regurgitated all over the servers
of
> > the world. The Harvard kids' protests were quickly lost in the feline
> tidal
> > wave. Every post by a Harvard snot would result in fifty cascade
> follow-ups.
> > alt.college.college-bowl, a known regular haunt of Matt Bruce, was
reduced
> > to a smoldering crater, so inundated with meows that its regulars could
no
> > longer use it. After a couple of weeks of this, Usenet in general looked
> > like Chernobyl, or the Marina district of San Francisco after the 1989
> > earthquake, or downtown Nagasaki the day after the fall of the Fat Man.
> >
> > A number of the attackers, calling themselves the "MEOW MEOW ARMY", were
> > bent on taking over afk-mn and occupying it as their own. It soon was -
> the
> > Harvard students, seeing a fire raging out of control in their cyber
> Dunster
> > House, were compelled to escape to a local, non-propagated newsgroup on
a
> > Harvard server.The meow hurricane, however,simply refused to die:
> > alt.college.college-bowl continued to be attacked until almost a year
> after
> > Matt Bruce's now infamous post, and the Meowers now in afk-mn began to
> > redecorate their new home (with the legendary Fluffy, formerly Matt
> Bruce's
> > pet, claiming ownership of all of Usenet), merging with the verbal abuse
> > powerhouse known as the Mighty Alt Dot FlameTM.
> >
> > Today, afk-mn remains as a sort of Usenet posting relay hub. The first-
> and
> > second- generation Meowers also became alt.flame regulars. Other bases
of
> > Usenet Performance Art, such as alt.alien.vampire.flonk.flonk.flonk,
> > alt.non.sequitur, and alt.stupidity, long bases of Meow action, also
> traded
> > regulars with the Nose. These groups fused together to form what is now
> > known as the Empire of Meow.
> >
> > This empire is still growing as you read this, as in 1998 the groups
> > alt.flame.niggers and demon.local were recently annexed much in the same
> > fashion as the 'Nose. There are hundreds of groups throughout the alt.*
> > heirarchy who have at least heard of the Meow movement... every so
often,
> a
> > troll warning will be posted to these groups, sometimes even warning the
> > inhabitants about elements that the Empire has nothing to do with:
> >
> > "You will be able to recognize a troll and an impending invasion from
> > alt.syntax.tactical by cascades, numerous appearances of the word
'meow',
> > and crossposts to alt.fan.karl-malden.nose..."
> >
> > Also, throughout its lifetime, the actions of the Empire have seemingly
> > become a convenient scapegoat for real Usenet abuses. In February of
1997,
> > several inhabitants of the 'Nose were placed under a Usenet Death
Penalty,
> > or UDP, for over a week by a certain self-made Usenet "spam canceller".
> The
> > crime: cascades. Also, in 1998, Meow became the whipping boy for those
> > persons who wanted a UDP imposed on Altopia News Service, which many
> Meowers
> > use to post to Usenet, because of the few Altopia users who were
> committing
> > blatant acts of abuse such as mailbombing and post flooding. These
> accusers
> > were wont to include relatively harmless acts of off-topic crossposts
and
> > cascades in with the real problems. Apparently, there will always be
> those,
> > like the Harvard kids, who will not tolerate the right that all
Usenetters
> > have to act silly, or to have a sense of humor, or to have the view that
> > nothing should be taken too seriously. It should, however, be noted that
> > without the existence of tight-sphinctered conservative snots, there
would
> > be no Meow in the first place. Hated or not, it would thus seem that the
> > phenomenon known as MEOW, and its practitioners known as MEOWERS, have
> > forever carved their place among the legends of Usenet, along with the
> likes
> > of Kibology and the first MMF chain letter. Clealy, sir, the Empire of
> > Meow's feline vocalizations will be heard forever more throughout Usenet
> > history.
> >
> > Meow.
> >
>
>
> HOW GIVS A SHITE , THIS GROAP IS ARES NWO EWE DUM HISTORYN !
taht wos rilly grate!!!!!!!!
ORL RODES LEAD TWO AMWP!!
except it oar doned...
posi
>
>
> ==========================================================
> AMW-P
>
> BUMPY- LOTTENED.2nd FOLLOWUR OFF'V WOW
> ==========================================================
>
> Whaur's yer Wully Shakespeare noo?
>
>
|
|