DS Usenet Newsgroup

[Gerard]

DS Usenet Newsgroup

mentioning the old Usenet Newsgroups makes me wax nostalgic.  I belonged to several back then, including the DS one (and there are cousins here who also did).  It was once a great forum, especially for those of us who use to belong to AOL.  It's a shame that they were all disolved; lots of good discussions went on.  And there was the occasional "fun" character.  Anyone remember that guy who use to spam virtually any and every Usenet Newsgroups, a real macadamian who believed that the model Heidi Klum was a goddess?  He called her "Our Lady" and he was the head of her new religion, being psychically connected to her, spreading the good news that she was preparing to take over the world and turn it into a utopia.  Oh, those were the fun days of Usenet. 

Gerard

(small bit of editing by admin.)

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I'm glad you have some happy memories of the DS Usenet Newsgroup, Gerard. And honestly there were some happy periods there. But I suppose my memory is mostly clouded by the hateful posts that were all too often made there. Not to mention by the frequent trolls who infested it and made it their mission to ruin just about everything about it. I'd mention some of the trolls' names - but they don't deserve that sort of acknowledgement - even though their reins of terror happened many years ago.

As for the Heidi Klum spammer, I don't remember him. I suppose either I ignored his spam posts or I was no longer visiting.

[Gerard]

Oh, my, yes, were there ever some hateful posts there, MB.  They came from people who hated DS (and quite a few from those who loved it).  Why people who hated DS would post there, I don't know.  Maybe for the same reason why I've posted on rare occasion on message boards about why I hate things like facebook and twitter.  Sometimes, we just love to rabble-rouse.  Guess there ain't none of us who like to be snot-nosed every once in awhile. 

But there were so many good discussions about DS on that old Usenet group.  Along with this group, the Usenet DS group was my favorite one.  I miss it and the other Usenet groups I once belonged to.  I made many internet friends on them.  I've lost touch with most of them.  When my mother died, even on the sites where we debated until we were ready to kill each other, they all came out with support and sympathy.  Yup, those were the days.

Gerard

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I'll grant you that in the beginning of its inception it was a fun place to post, back when it was actually populated by DS fans who liked nothing better than to discuss the show they loved. It was probably the second place on the Internet that I posted about DS (the first being the DS area on the defunct Prodigy service), and, yes, we did have some good discussions. But then we also had some good discussions on the Sci-Fi Channel's Dominion DS board (the third place that I posted about DS). The Dominion was the board where I first met many of the people who have been members of this forum practically since its inception. But the very sad thing is that once both places became overrun with trolls - and even had FBI/police investigations into the antics some of those trolls pulled - the taint on those boards was immeasurable for far too many people. 

[michael c]

when I first got into the series about a decade ago the old sci-fi board was my first exposure to "fandom"...


what an eye opener! i'm surprised I didn't run for the hills from the start. that godforsaken board was the sickest thing I've ever seen.

[David]

I never posted at the Sci Fi Board, but I did post at the Usenet Board, and I'm not proud of it.
I went to the board with the best of intentions, but when obscene, sexually graphic posts appeared about Frid & Edmonds (and I knew Louis personally, away from fandom) I lost my cool and fought back against the trolls.
With the best of intentions, I took part in a flame war, sometimes losing control of my better judgement, I'm now ashamed to say.
There are also flame posts at that board in which I was impersonated.
Yup, it was both.
I know for a fact that two members of the DS Festivals committee were posting at that board under multiple names, inflaming the trouble--a sad example of how sick fandom can be. One of those committee trolls has
since found the Lord--whatever. If that stops them from behaving as they did, more power to them.

To anyone at this board who might have seen anything I was actually involved in at Usenet, I humbly
apologize.
That was not my finest hour, but there were so many trolls carrying on over there that it was like a whirlpool everyone got sucked into.

I really do appreciate a board like DS Forums where the mods are firm but loving, and don't allow such things to go on.

[Patti Feinberg]

MB & Gerard...I remember...and I was on these, waaayy more than 10 years ago.
(Alot of you will remember me having an amniocentesis with my now 11-year old son, so that was at least 12 years ago, and IIRC, by then, it was here: DSBoards...I'm going back before VantageNet & there's a few on her who I remember fondly): Midnite, Castlebee, Nancy, Sheenasma, Gothick, Bobubus, and more.
(Sorry if I mis-spelled anyone's name.)

Patti

[Gerard]

Fantastic recall, Patti!  It was all a decade ago (or thereabouts) and much of memory is foggy, although I did enjoy posting on the DS board there (I think there might've even been two but maybe I'm wrong because of that gull-darn fog).  I'm now remembering, but vaguely, of a sudden increase in trolls and a whole lotta spam.  But, when things ran smoothly, it was a great deal of fun.

Gerard