I'm not currently active on Usenet, but most people I've gotten to know there have been pretty worthwhile folks.

I'm coming to wonder about the tendency in the rest of the online world to caricature Usenet as some kind of constant flaming sewer. It's not, of course. It's quite various. A great deal of it consists of people helping one another out.

You're right, of course, Patrick. For Usenet Personality, please substitute "Internet troll" -- spam and boorish behaviour are not unique (or even especial) to Usenet.

Whatever chestnut you favor to explain it -- I like the theory of the combination of anonymity and absence of body-language -- the Internet seems to bring out the shithead in a small but significant fraction of the computer-using public.

You and I can both name people who are relatively harmless in person, but who are breathtakingly unsufferable online, to say nothing of the drive-by trolls like Moo Cow, Joo Joo, That Guy, and the other hit-and-run tourettics who've graced these message boards with their directionless and pointless bile.

Usenet groups vary SO much. I'm currently active on ONE group, rec.models.rockets. It has a few obnoxious goofballs, but they're not Internet Trolls. Probably because a great many are older guys . . . 35 and older. A different generation of geeks.

Contrast this with "R.A.SF.W.", which has a lot of prickly people and a few irate nut-jobs.

And most people are reading Usenet without a killfile.

I've been active on USENET for, um, eleven or twelve years now.

Some people are smart, intelligent, fun, interesting, and worth knowing. Some (a smaller number) are complete fuckwits. And the vast majority lurk, or post misspelled and slightly clueless questions (albeit without an ounce of malice intended).

Usenet is just another place. (Although I do have a creeping nostalgia for the way it was before 1994 and AOL opening up their gateway.)

Incidentally, Cory, don't underestimate the drive-by trolls that boingboing has attracted: some of 'em seem to have taken a dislike to me, to the point of posting knocking reviews on Amazon. Malice on Usenet or other discussion systems can have real-world side effects.

I abandoned Usenet years ago. The problem wasn't so much the fukwits as it was the amount of work involved in filtering them out. Yeah, it's not that hard. But my time's limited and I'm technologically challenged, and since I turned 40 I have noticed a much stronger tendency for me to walk away rather than waste my time.

You forgot to give credit to the writer of this filk, well known humouristic fantasy and historic novel writer and filker Tom Holt.