OFF: More list history trivia...

[Damon C Capehart]

On Tue, 25 Jun 1996, Stephen Swann wrote:
> The server that died wasn't the University of Buffalo server.  I'd
> left the University of Buffalo, and given over control of the list to
> a pair of co-moderators: because Ben had a great "resume", while I
> had what I thought was a good friendship with Billy Barron.  And of
> course, because I was utterly paranoid, and didn't want to leave my
> beloved list in the hands of just one person without safeguards
> against catastrophe!  :)
Hey!  I didn't know Billy Barron was on this list!  (Actually I did, but
you just reminded me, and Hey!  I didn't know Billy was that involved
with the list!)  He is (was?) the head sys-admin of utdallas.edu who has
a link to a HW page of sorts.  Hard to believe that there is more than
one person at UTD who has been on this list at one time or another.
There is only one other person at UTD who even knows who Hawkwind is
(besides those who know merely that which I have mentioned and then say
"Whatever"), and he can barely write a decent complete sentence, much
less have any sort of meaningful communication on the internet (besides
with his net GF, who apparently can't write a decent e-mail either... I
know, I'm just picky about grammar/punctuation).

> Anyway, my worst fears were realised. [cue dramatic music] Billy
> quit/lost his job on a moment's notice, without transfering the
> subscription list to Ben, and his boss closed down his machine and the
> BOC-L mail server.
I think I remember this... when exactly did it happen?  If it happened
anytime after fall '92 I certainly remember some of what was going on...
basically the U.T. System was cracking down on extra-curricular usage of
U.T. students' internet accounts.  It seems that there is an "understood"
obligation of any person with a U.T. internet account to use it solely
for academically-related purposes, since, after all, the account is paid
for by student fees.  Therefore, the authorities cracked down on anything
on the UTD server that was "just for fun".  That may be why Billy
temporarily lost his job at UTD - because he, the sys-admin, had BOC-L
here at UTD.

Then again, I may be mistaken. :)

Damon Capehart          | "I think we should eliminate semicolons from the
aka Le Monsieur         |  English language; nobody uses them anymore
dcapehar at utdallas.edu   |  anyway." - one of Dilbert's anonymous coworkers

P.S.:  Apparently authorities aren't as strict about the policy as they
were during "the incident".