Re: Slick's popping in-- FAQs history

[Slick@noSPAMplease.net (Slick)]

That was very interesting. I didn't know some of that, especially the part
about the major squabble on Delphi. I always wondered what exactly pissed
Nathan off so much that he deleted everything. BTW, since he's been gone
for years, is it now possible to optain a copy of Twilight II somewhere? I
always wanted to try that demo out, but I never could download a
DECOMPRESSABLE archive. ShrinkIt always said it was corrupt.



In article <3C20B4CD.7105DF1A@swbell.net>, Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net> wrote:

> Roy Miller writes ...
> > 
> > In fact, they were posted on Saturday, I can still "see" them. Do you want
> > me to email them to you?
> > 
> > BTW - Rubywand has appointed himself as the updater of the FAQs. Nathan
> > turned them over to someone else (I can't remember who that was) but before
> > I lost the bookmark, I hadn't seen any updates to Nathan's work by that
> > person.
> > 
>  ....
> 
> 
>      It may help to review the history of Csa2's Apple II FAQs.
> 
>      The first FAQs Keeper was David Kopper. He put together some Q&A and
> posted the first FAQs on 28 Nov 1990. The FAQs was distributed via net.answers
> starting on 17 Dec 1991.
> 
>      In June of 1992 there was a smooth transition and Dan DeMaggio
became FAQs
> Keeper. He reorganized the FAQs and continued to update and build it until the
> Spring of 1995. Although he posted no further updates, Dan, evidently,
remained
> the maintainer recognized by news.answers until August 1996.
> 
>      Nathan Mates officially became FAQs Keeper (recognized by
news.answers) in
> August 1996 with his first posting of an updated FAQs. Practically
speaking, it
> is probably fair to say that his tenure began in mid-1995 because he was
> already maintaining a very informative A2 web site to which he often directed
> users.
> 
>      Nathan added quite a bit of material to the FAQs and also created an html
> version which users could access from his site. Everyone was very impressed
> with the FAQs and pleased with the job Nathan was doing.
> 
>      In the Summer of 1997, Nathan decided to use access to the FAQs as
a means
> to drive a person with whom he frequently disagreed-- call him "X"-- away from
> the newsgroup. He began to deny access to his FAQs site to X and to anyone he
> believed supported him. Since the method denied access to everyone else using
> the same service as a banned person-- such as everyone on AOL-- many
users with
> no interest in the squabble were also denied access. He also ceased
posting the
> FAQs to the newsgroup and said the blocks to access would remain until X left
> the newsgroup.
> 
>      If the idea was to have everyone blame X for losing FAQs access, the
> strategy failed. Most users blamed Nathan. A series of long, fairly hot
> discussions erupted and the idea of starting a new FAQs emerged.
> 
>      By December, the discussions had produced a consensus that, if the blocks
> on access continued we would need a new FAQs. Also: the new FAQs could not
> contain any of Nathan's added material; but, it could contain material from
> FAQs produced before Nathan became Keeper. Since no one else seemed to
have the
> time, I began to put together a new FAQs-- mainly just a reorganized and
> slightly expanded version of Dan DeMaggio's work.
> 
>      Finally, in a posting, Nathan was asked point blank if he wished to
remain
> Keeper and be willing to end blocks to access. He made no response and
retained
> the blocks. So, on 25 December, the new FAQs was posted and Ground became the
> home site for the FAQs.
> 
>      It figures that X would then decide to leave the newsgroup. (He did,
> eventually, return.)  Nathan declared victory and removed the blocks and
> resumed postings via news.answers.
> 
>      Even so, I continued to maintain the new Faqs and to post them. It would
> be months before they were anywhere nearly as good as Nathan's; but, thanks
> largely to postings from gurus like David Empson and Supertimer, they did
> contain some new information and other features not included in the official
> FAQs. Chiefly, it was a matter of wishing to be sure that the newsgroup could
> never again be blackmailed via FAQs access.
> 
>      A funny thing about the FAQs competition over the next several months is
> that, aside from wishing some one would emerge to take over the new FAQs, I
> knew zilch about news.answers and really had no idea what Nathan was talking
> about when he said his FAQs were "official". I regarded Nathan as a competing
> FAQs Keeper who, via some arcane net trickery, managed to get his FAQs
> recognized by all sorts of net archives.
> 
>      Anyway, Nathan ceased posting his FAQs again after April of 1998.
In July,
> there was some sort of major squabble on the Delphi A2 forum which led to
> Nathan's wiping his site and abondoning the Apple II.
> 
>      Nathan was gone and no one seemed interested in continuing to have his
> FAQs posted; so, I finally dug into info about news.answers and submitted the
> new FAQs. Since there had been no updates of Nathan's FAQs for several months
> and since, by then, the new FAQs were both larger and more recent,
news.answers
> accepted them as the FAQs for comp.sys.apple2.
> 
>      17 October 1998 is when our FAQs became 'official' and I became,
> 'officially', the FAQs Keeper. Since then, the FAQs have expanded
greatly. Each
> month they are posted via news.answers to FAQs archives around the world. 
> 
>      Ground remains the home site ( ftp://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/Faqs/ ).
> The html version is maintained on my "II Computing" site at
> http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/A2FAQs1START.html . We are currently at 45
> releases.
> 
>      If some sites wish to offer the old FAQs, fine. They should be available
> somewhere and we will continue to maintain listings and links to the sites in
> the official Csa2 FAQs.
> 
> 
> 
> Rubywand