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Eternal September
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eternal September (also September that never ended, perpetual September, or endless September) is a Usenet slang expression, coined by Dave Fischer, for the period beginning September 1993. The use of these expressions implies the belief that standards of discourse and behavior on Usenet have declined since 1993 due to an unending influx of new users.
Usenet originated among universities. Every year, in September, a large number of new university students got access to Usenet, and took some time to acclimate themselves to the network's standards of conduct and netiquette. After a month or so, the new users would (it is supposed) learn to comport themselves as normal Usenet users. September, thus, represented the network's largest regular influx of newbies.
“ Right now it's summer, and most schools are on vacation, and a sizable percentage of other people are in the same state. So the net is quieter. Yet it's still growing. Will the return of all these people, plus the usual growth, be the final straw for the net?”
- — Brad Templeton, posting to net.news, July 12, 1984[1]
In 1993, the online service America Online began offering Usenet access to its tens of thousands, later millions, of users. To many old-timers, these "AOLers" were far less prepared to learn netiquette than university freshmen. This was, in part, because AOL took few pains to educate its users about Usenet customs — or even that these new-found forums were not simply another piece of AOL's service. But it was also that the AOL users were inherently inferior — and their sheer numbers. Whereas the regular September freshman influx would soon settle down, the sheer number of newbies now threatened to overwhelm the existing Usenet culture's capacity to inculcate its social norms.
Since that time, the dramatic rise in the popularity of the Internet has led to a constant stream of new users — in some people's view, drowning out the old Usenet entirely. Thus, from the point of view of the pre-1993 Usenet user, the regular "September" newbie influx never ended.
The term was first used by Dave Fischer in a January 26, 1994, post to alt.folklore.computers[2]:
“ It's moot now. September 1993 will go down in net.history as the September
that never ended.”According to UTC, the Eternal September date as of the time this page was loaded was September 4969, 1993.
The gag is at times extended — for instance, the notional future date at which Usenet discourse will become sensible, mature, and educated has been called "October 1, 1993". An attempt to hurry the arrival of that date is being made by the proponents of Usenet II.
On February 9, 2005, AOL discontinued newsgroup access through its service (this was announced on January 25, 2005[3][4]). September 1993 is thus, according to some, finally over. Some feel that September ended a few years earlier, the first year that a majority of people on the Internet had been using it for over a year and thus outnumbered the newbies.
- ^ Brad Templeton (1984-07-12). "Is the death of the net coming in September?". net.news. (Google Groups). Retrieved on 2007-03-23.
- ^ Dave Fischer (1994-01-26). "Weeks? hah!!". alt.folklore.computers. (Google Groups). Retrieved on 2007-03-23.
- ^ "AOL ditches newsgroups", The Register, 2005-01-25. Retrieved on March 23, 2007.
- ^ "AOL Kills Usenet Access", Slashdot, 2005-01-25. Retrieved on March 23, 2007.
- TheSeptemberThatNeverEnded on MeatballWiki
- September that never ended in the Jargon File
- September that never ended in Ursine's Jargon Wiki.
- Wendy M. Grossman's net.wars, which cover Usenet, September, and AOL's arrival on Usenet in the chapters "The Year September Never Ended" and "AOL: the Making of an Underclass"