From: slavins@hearsay.demon.co.uk.NOJUNK (Simon Slavin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Apologies (Was: Glass Flows!)
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 18:42:11 +0100
In article <5i3ud2$p8h$1@fremont.ohsu.edu>,
hughesg@ohsu.edu (Grant Hughes) wrote:
> [snip] I have unwittingly passed
> this bogus idea on to others. For that I am eternally ashamed.
This month in alt.folklore.urban: apologies.
From "sorry" through "I am eternally ashamed." to the creative
masterpiece of Rick Tyler (which I will not sully by trimming to
quote), alt.folklore.urban strives to obtain the best apologies,
both in quality of language used, and in contrition. To this end,
we pledge to maintain
- a newsgroup with a name and charter which imply that almost any
remark could be on-charter
- a FAQ so long it takes more than a day's light-reading time to
absorb and understand
- not one but two dedicated web sites which are so large that a
mere catalogue of their structures and filenames constitutes an
education in anthropology and sociology
- a group for which everyone with USENET access thinks they have
an appropriate question or a relevent contribution
- a postership educated in a vast number of different ways and
to different levels, able to produce viewpoints and examples
from a huge number of environments
- a set of group in-jokes, some in contravention of normal USENET
custom and others in contravention of published dictionaries,
which enable us to instantly zero-in on those who haven't read
the FAQ
- a high media-profile, guaranteed to attract not only people new
to urban folklore, but people new to USENET
- the expectation that each person posting a question or comment
will have read the group for the last few months or consulted
DejaNews before posting
- degreed, experienced and/or published contributers, willing and
able to find references for events, theories and research at the
drop of a hat
- a charter which makes contradiction of published works a mundane
by-product of intelligent conversation
- high expected standards for literacy and understanding of logic
Thank you for your kind attention.
Simon.
