USENET, like any other communications media, would be nothing
without people. In fact, USENET depends on people more than any
other media, since it is all live, all user-driven content. Among
the many thousands of postings each day, there are thousands of new
posters delurking, there are many repeat posters, some regulars,
and, far above the rest, are net.personalities.
A net.personality is someone who not only a regular poster to a group, but is instantly recognized on that group, and is himself or herself a common subject of conversation within the group. Above this rarefied level of net.society is a net.god(dess).
In the beginning, there was one net.personality who rose to this highest-of-all level on USENET. He's still probably the most notorious of the pantheon that exists today. We know him as Kibo.
"HOW LONG HAS KIBO BEEN ON USENET?" Since about '87. He's had e-mail access since '85.[2]
James "Kibo" Parry ( kibo@world.std.com) got his start about the same time I did (though he had e-mail access a couple of years earlier), about the time USENET-as-we-know-it arose out of the ashes of the Great Renaming of the newsgroups. His fame came from the fact that if you mentioned "Kibo" in a posting, any posting, to any newsgroup, he would post a bizarre reply. This amazed folks on USENET at the time. How did he do it? Was he really an "artificial intelligence" program, like those rumored on talk.bizarre? Did he really read all the newsgroups?
The answer was simple. Kibo had invented the Net's first agent. At the time, he just used the UNIX grep command to search through the news directory for any instances of his netname in any of the files. The devices used for an agent got more elaborate later, as USENET volume increased, but the effect was the same; Kibo had the semi-godlike ability to hear his name "spoken" anywhere in the world of USENET, and made his presence known with surreal, funny replies.
Kibo on Kibo:
Somehow, in the process, he gathered a great following, and was the result of the net.religion "Kibology". Also, there came a host of newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology, alt.religion.kibology.orthodox , alt.exploding.kibo, alt.happynet, alt.imploding.kibo, alt.silly-group.asieoniezi, alt.silly-group.beable, and alt.politics.kibo.
Kibo on humor:
It is hard to describe the appeal of Kibo. It is weird to see actual postings by Kibo, since he's a celebrity, and celebrities in any other medium are inaccessible, far away. Kibo is famous, popular, and right there on the same level as his fans, despite his net.godhood.
"WHAT ONE WORD WOULD KIBO USE TO DESCRIBE HIMSELF?" "Kibo."[2]Kibo has dropped off the face of the Net a few times, once for a longish period in which many of the net.personalities that associate themselves with Kibo actually ran for the office of Kibo (does anyone know if someone was elected Kibo?), until he finally returned. He is, as of the writing of this article, missing in action:
kibo . James "Kibo" Parry Login Sat 6-May-95 6:30PM from annex1 Project: .project files are for people who know how to use editors. [1546,1546] ; Group: kibo Shell: /bin/tcsh Groups: compilers4 kibo kibo has new mail as of Mon 16-Oct-95 1:13PM last read Sat 29-Jul-95 5:23AM [New mail is forwarded to \kibo,"|/usr/ucb/vacation,kibo"] Plan: (last modified Wed 7-Apr-93 1:31AM)Although it would be a great loss if Kibo were gone from the Net forever, his disciples live on, as does his "religion".
2. -- The alt.religion.kibology FAQ
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