Newbies And Net Gods Interface On The Internet

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Some longtime users of on-line services have expressed annoyance at the growing number of "newbies" in their midst. The questions we asked: If you're a veteran of the Internet or commerical on-line services, how do you view the onslaught of newcomers? If you're a newcomer, how do you view the old-timers?

I'm a newbie and proud

As a newbie on Prodigy I've already learned quite a bit, from both the veterans and other newbies. Everyone has been friendly and helpful. I'm sure most users realize it is the continuing interest of us newbies that keeps online services going. Susan Santos RAKG57A@prodigy.com

Net Gods to Newbies

I have been a veteran of the Net going on five years now. I have seen many "newbies" arrive on the Net. I have not . . . forgotten what it was like to get started.

Lately, however, there has been a population explosion of sorts in cyberspace - a "newbie-boom." Many getting connected these days didn't have to go through the tooth-cutting period that many current Net gods have gone through. Getting access to Usenet through the nifty graphical interface of America Online isn't like having to slog through Unix commands or dealing with the Computer Lab Rats who may speak English - or computerese.

With a lot of new people out there, flame wars across Usenet seem to be happening with greater frequency. However, I believe most people will outgrow this stage, and learn.

If you are a new user, welcome to the Net. The more minds we have, the better. Just don't abuse what has been my home for nearly five years. Read the frequently asked questions (FAQs). Get a decent book to read when you are not electronically communing. And, if puzzled, just ask. Chris Sasaki csasaki@halcyon.com

Women on-line

I'm a 45-year-old woman. I've been signing on to eletronic bulletin boards and computer services for a dozen years now. The current onslaught of newcomers brings with it one very positive, very dramatic change - women on-line. Until about 1990, I was often the only female on-line on the wide variety of services I logged onto. Today, however, there are women everywhere and it's great. Susan Dennis s.dennis8@genie.geis.com

Hey! Check FAQs

I'm relatively a newcomer to the Internet (been on for six months), but I too get annoyed at the newbies who don't read the Frequently Asked Questions list and start irrelevant discussions on newgroups.

There is a forum for new user questions in the group news.newusers.questions. New users should also read news.answers, where many of the FAQs are frequently posted. Jeremy Schertzinger jeremys@connected.com

It's cool on the Internet

Since the Internet is available, usually for free, to almost every post-secondary student, this influx of newbies has been repeated each semester every year. So the types of behavior and posts follow a cyclical manner.

The recent interest has just caught some system administrators off-guard and things will balance out shortly. Peter Wong peterw@worldesign.com

Next topic: The subject of parental guides for computer and video games was the buzz at a recent meeting of game developers. Do you think computer and video games ought to be subject to a movie-like rating system? Is what's depicted in some of these games harmful to children, or is the issue overblown?