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Re: Slick's popping in-- FAQs history
George Rentovich wrote:
> Hi,
> As far as Nathan was concerned, if you were not with him you were against him.
> There was no middle ground. He would rather have software die a bit death than,
> than let a deprotected copy go any where to be preserved.
> He was very talented, injected religion into almost everything, & was judgmental of
> everyone.
> I bought his HD off him when he was selling off all of his Apple II/IIgs items.
> After all was sold, he then claimed we were all ripping him off because we would
> not give what we felt it was worth.
I bought Nathan's ZipGS, and he never complained to me about the price.
I think I bought a few other things from him, but I don't recall for sure now.
> Have not time to look at it, but I am sure he
> formatted it and wrote zeros to every block at least a few times.
Well, he announced that he had low level formatted them...
Roy
>
> Take Care
> George
>
> Slick wrote:
>
> > 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