Trippin' Down Memory Lane: alt.food.wine

My first foray into InterNet wine discussions groups was back in the early '90's (as I recall) on the UseNet alt.food.wine Site.
I'm pretty sure I met some of you, like BradHarrington, there on alt.food.wine.

As best I can tell, that UseNet group no longer exists, except as a GoogleGroup, I think. That thing was such a bif time-waster. Especially because I had to hook up my punched card reader thru a USB port to get to the InterNet)

I recall there was one lady, who worked in a tasting room up in MendoCnty, that was stalking me for awhile...until she came to her senses. Danged if I can remember her name, though.

So curious as to who here had their first wine discussions on alt.food.wine??? And who first met one TomHill there (and complained bloody-hell about his irritating use of ////'s in his TN's)??

Tom

actually AFW still exists (as a usenet group, though lots of people access via Google groups). But like all Usenet, it's nowhere near as busy as during its heyday (probably late 90s post Eternal September). WWW and Facebook drive discussion there days. I still post there, as does Dr Lipton on occasion, but volume is way down.
I don't remember you- I first got irritated at slashes at old WLDG.
Rosaphilia is actually on the client email list at my non-profit, if that brings back memories (what was name of winery she touted- Gabriela? )

actually AFW still exists (as a usenet group, though lots of people access via Google groups). But like all Usenet, it's nowhere near as busy as during its heyday (probably late 90s post Eternal September). WWW and Facebook drive discussion there days. I still post there, as does Dr Lipton on occasion, but volume is way down.
I don't remember you- I first got irritated at slashes at old WLDG.
Rosaphilia is actually on the client email list at my non-profit, if that brings back memories (what was name of winery she touted- Gabriela? )

You are a savior, Dale. Rosaphilia was the lady (?) and Gabriela was the wnry.
That's been bugging the heck out of me for the last several hrs.
Tom

[David M. Bueker]

I was too late for afw. Started here in 1998.

I was too late for afw. Started here in 1998.

Not at all, David. Traffic for AFW hit its high point in 2003 and has been steadily declining ever since.

Mark Lipton

[David M. Bueker]

Ok. So I just missed an opportunity to kill even more time!!

Rosaphilia is actually on the client email list at my non-profit, if that brings back memories (what was name of winery she touted- Gabriela? )

SamGabrielli started his wnry in 1989 w/ his wife, Bernadette Yamada-Gabreilli. They had a daughter they named Rosie.
Hence the handle Rosaphilia. Supposed Rosaphilia's real name was Anna Yamada... but that may have been an assumed
name for convenience. There is a Japanese body-builder by the name of Anna Yamada that looks pretty hot:
http://www.google.com/search?q=anna+yam ... =firefox-a
I'm pretty sure that was not the chick that was stalking me on AFW. Rosophilia may have assumed it to distract people.
It appears is still on AFW and continues to insult folks.
I gather Gabrielli is now out of business.
Tom

Tom, that blurb (I googled, found on wine.com) said winery started in 1989 and they then had a NEW daughter. Doubt a pre-teen was posting on AFW. Though Rosaphilia was clear she didn't drink (medications). I'm pretty sure AY is her real name, she never worked at winery (if you read the posts she was -and is- in NYC), is a cousin or something. and clearly has issues. The Rosaphilia name is pretty self-explanatory - she loves roses (and wants everyone to buy her rose plants).

Tom, that blurb (I googled, found on wine.com) said winery started in 1989 and they then had a NEW daughter. Doubt a pre-teen was posting on AFW. Though Rosaphilia was clear she didn't drink (medications). I'm pretty sure AY is her real name, she never worked at winery (if you read the posts she was -and is- in NYC), is a cousin or something. and clearly has issues. The Rosaphilia name is pretty self-explanatory - she loves roses (and wants everyone to buy her rose plants).

Well, Dale...guess you're a much better InterNet detective than I.
Tom

So curious as to who here had their first wine discussions on alt.food.wine???

Me. I was posting there at least as early as 1998 - that's the earliest post of mine that Google can find, but I suspect I was reading it and probably posting there considerably earlier. I vaguely remember Rosaphilia, too.

I used to post there, back in the day, before WLDG was started.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I never did AFW--my wine discussion experience dates back to about 1991 or 92 when I bought a new computer that would get me on the internet--then just CompuServe or AOL. I joined both wine groups and quickly quit AOL's--females got hit on the second they got in the door--and remember a lot of Compuservers seeming to have prior associations via AFW. Bob Foster was one, IIRC.

[Robin Garr]

My first foray into InterNet wine discussions groups was back in the early '90's (as I recall) on the UseNet alt.food.wine Site.

A few of us (hi, Jenise!) were on the old CompuServe Wine Forum starting around 1985 (!) and a few more were lured by the then less-empirical RMP to Prodigy a little later in that decade. AFW was a little too geeky for most of us non-engineers at the beginning, then one we had a pretty active community of our own, didn't really see the need.

And then, sadly, Spamford Wallace and his kin pretty much destroed the alt-verse, or did as far as we could tell from over here. I'd poke my nose in occasionally, but rarely posted, and then slithered from CompuServe to WLDG as soon as I could find a black-box html forum setup that I could get working. That was around 1995, I think.

Usenet, and especially the alt groups, had a general culture that the groups were unmoderated. This left them wide open to spamming. In fact, the term "spam" originated on Usenet. It originally referred to any Usenet article cross-posted to a large number of newsgroups, so that users kept repeatedly finding the same article in every group they visited, like the "Spam, Spam, Spam,..." chant in the Monty Python sketch.

The final nail in Usenet's coffin was the proliferation of web-based bulletin board systems such as phpBB. Usenet is text-only and its UUCP protocol was designed for slow dial-up connections.

-Paul W.

Ahhh, you bring back such memories, and I remember you from those old days, along with Dale and Mark L. and a hosts of others.

Usenet, and especially the alt groups, had a general culture that the groups were unmoderated. This left them wide open to spamming. In fact, the term "spam" originated on Usenet. It originally referred to any Usenet article cross-posted to a large number of newsgroups, so that users kept repeatedly finding the same article in every group they visited, like the "Spam, Spam, Spam,..." chant in the Monty Python sketch.

The final nail in Usenet's coffin was the proliferation of web-based bulletin board systems such as phpBB. Usenet is text-only and its UUCP protocol was designed for slow dial-up connections.

This is all true, Paul, but ignores one of the principal advantages of Usenet: distributed storage. Unlike Web-based fora, the long-term accessibility of Usenet posts is assured because there is no one repository for them. Whether one uses a flaky archive such as Google's, or a private one of one's own creation, posts can be preserved ad infinitum. Try finding a post you made to WLDG in 1999, for instance, to understand the importance of this feature.

Mark Lipton