[gopher] Re: basic newb info

["Tom Copley" <tcopley@xxxxxxxxx>]

> We probably ought to have a FAQ/Wiki or something about this.
>
> --

John,

This is an excellent idea.  I recently joined this mailing list, but have
been seriously thinking about doing something like a world of gopherspace
wiki.  I've browsed some of the material on complete.org, and realize that
you've gone to very great lengths to open up information about what many
(who even know about it today) regard as essentially a dead medium.  I buy
into the argument that gopher can make a comeback as a completely
non-commercial medium for information without the popups and over-bloated,
gratuitous eye-candy of the WWWeb--or, in the immortal words of Sargent
Joe Friday of TV's _Dragnet_, "Just the facts, ma'am."
<http://www.timstvshowcase.com/dragnet.html>.

Starting in January of 1994, I taught an online workshop called the
"Go-pher-it Workshop" which introduced many thousands of librarians,
educators and students to the WWG (wonderful world of gopher). See
<http://lawlibrary.ucdavis.edu/LAWLIB/jun94/0019.html>.  It's very funny
to go back and read over the ad for this workshop, because so much of it
sounds anachronic and gopher-hypish. In 1994 some of us naively believed
that gopher literally could become a furry terror and conquer the world.
Our hopes were completely dashed on the rocks though almost before the end
of the year.  By yearend of 1994 Lynx (aptly named as a predator) was
already gaining considerable ground on the gopher clients as it could
browse both gopher and web servers. The alpha releases of Mosaic 2.0 were
picking up speed throughout that year as HTML forms, tables and many other
innovations were added. By 1995 it was all over for the lovable furry
varmint except the swan song.  From the standpoint of gopher, the advent
of the Web was really a sickening sight to behold.  However, it was an
exciting time to be in. It was quite obvious even at the time that the WWW
was going to completely reshape the world of online media.

I am considering reworking and updating my old Go-pher-it Workshop
material and using it to seed a gopherspace wiki.  The effort would be
non-commercial with the intent of placing the information in the public
domain.  I'd anticipate that by doing so it will build at least a little
interest in the post-WWW gopherspace of 2005.  While I greatly admire the
efforts of those who have struggled to keep the gopher spirit alive, I
feel in today's gopherspace that I am just staggering around in the ruins
of a city after an atomic blast.  However, I look forward to gopherspace's
eventual resurrection as a lean, mean information environment completely
free of gratuitous insults to intelligence.

Gopherspace wiki--good idea or bad?  Or, is it better to leave sleeping
dogs lie?  How do you feel about it? I'm really trying to decide in my
heart if I want to do this--it could be a lot of work. Feel free to email
me off list.

Whew! That was a lot, eh?  I beg the indulgence of those of you are just
here for technical info about gopher.

Tom


-- 
Tom Copley
tcopley@xxxxxxxxx