NetNews Moderator's Handbook
Appendix C: Tributes
Any person who moderates a newsgroup for over 10 years should have
it documented somewhere so others can appreciate the effort and
dedication.
Our first tribute goes to Gene Spafford <spaf@cs.purdue.edu>.
For 12 years between April 1981 until April 1993 Gene (spaf)
maintained and posted *THE* "Usenet periodic postings" to the
net. The postings included the
- A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community,
- Introduction to news.announce,
- Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Usenet,
- Rules for posting to Usenet,
- Hints on writing style for Usenet,
- Usenet Software: History and Sources,
- What is Usenet?,
- How to Construct the Mailpaths File,
- List of Active Newsgroups,
- List of Moderators for Usenet,
- inet Checkgroups,
- non-inet Checkgroups,
- and others.
He also managed the moderators mailing list during that time.
The moderator community and the net as a whole owe Spaf a debt of
gratitude for his dedication and BS&T. Thanks Spaf!
"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea --
massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a
source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it."
--spaf