Getting out of the hobby

[Richard Schauer]

On Fri, 14 Oct 2016, Noel Chiappa wrote:
> do go back that far, so it doesn't look like we're missing much. The earliest
> ones there are from 13 March 1997, so we may be missing a few, but not many;
> the first posts are clearly 'hi, here's who am I' kind of things, apparently
> in response to an earlier message, which does alas seem to be missing.

I'm searching the alt.folklore.computers group (on Google; my ISP no 
longer runs a NNTP server) and I can't find Bill's initial invitation 
message.  I find a later one from June 1997, cross-posted to lots of 
comp.sys.* groups, advertising the (existing) group, and a couple from 
some comp.sys.* groups from March 13th in which he says the list "just 
started."

In the March 13th messages, he gives the reasons why he required the 
little introduction message-

"I require the letter of introduction for several reasons. 1 - Only people 
who really want to be on the list will bother. 2 - If you can't follow 
directions I won't hear from you. 3 - It helps me get an idea of who's on 
the list and what they hope to get out of it. 4 - I like to respond 
personally to new members rather than run a robot list."

The first discussions started from Bill's replies to these messages, and 
when the list opened the ice was thus already broken.

Richard Schauer