Khematite, or anyone who might know, does Brown University still own the rec.music.dylan archive/database? I think we discussed somthing about the history of the database a few years back and that we thought it was then owned by Brown. I worry that Google, despite its pledge to keep the archive searchable via https://groups.google.com/g/rec.music.dylan, that it is likely to vanish from Google soon. Do you have expectations that, if Brown is the owner, it will still be accessible for searching even if Google drops it?

williamgwilliams wrote:
>
> Khematite, or anyone who might know, does Brown University still own the rec.music.dylan archive/database? I think we discussed somthing about the history of the database a few years back and that we thought it was then owned by Brown. I worry that Google, despite its pledge to keep the archive searchable via https://groups.google.com/g/rec.music.dylan, that it is likely to vanish from Google soon. Do you have expectations that, if Brown is the owner, it will still be accessible for searching even if Google drops it?

That would be great, since who knows what's going to happen with Google in the future.

Hi Willie. The listserv at Brown that served as an archive stopped updating in August 2021. Fortunately, most of what was worthwhile about rec.music.dylan happened before that date and remains accessible. I would hope that the Dylan archive at Tulsa would, at some point, make a copy of the entire archive, keep it updated, and make it available in perpetuity. How long Brown will keep its archive up, I can only guess. I have no idea how often (if ever) Brown does some house cleaning and drops listservs with little or no activity. In any event, we all know that forever is a very long time.

https://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9701C&L=HWY61-L&P=R6930

Thanks much, K, for the link to the Brown "HWY61-L Archives" listserve. I see that its archive goes back to February, 1995. You posted this in a June, 2019 thread where I'd asked if someone owns RMD:

============================================================================================

In reviewing information about Usenet and the newsgroups that comprise it, I've never seen the term "owner" used, except with regard to listservs. Usenet was originally set up at the University of North Carolina and Duke University, but as far as I can tell, neither of those institutions claims "ownership" of Usenet as a whole. Each newsgroup within Usenet had a founder or founders, but they too have not claimed ownership (although some have sought to maintain a level of control by becoming "moderators" of the group they founded.

http://www.harley.com/usenet/usenet-tutorial/how-are-newsgroups-created.html

The closest thing to ownership of newsgroups is moderation. In setting up a group, the founders could designate it as a "moderated" or "unmoderated" group and presumably claim that title for themselves. Moderated groups have a moderator who clears all posts for publication and there's usually also a process in place to replace moderators who no longer want to perform that function. Rmd has, to the best of my knowledge, never been moderated and has certainly never been "owned."

Rmd appears to have been founded by Tom Buckley (i.e., Buckley filed the original petition for creation of a Bob Dylan newsgroup with what's known as the Big-8 Management Board that approves forwarding the proposal for a new group to those who participate in Usenet). From the rmd FAQ: "This particular Usenet newsgroup was founded July 31, 1989 by Tom Buckley." A 1999 post from John Howells, an early contributor to rmd and long-time disseminator of the rmd FAQ, hailed the upcoming tenth anniversary of rmd. Rmd, he noted, was born on July 31, 1989 when "voting was completed and the group passed."

As the website linked to above says: "When the need arises for a new newsgroup, somebody will post an article to news.announce.newgroups proposing the creation of the group. This type of proposal is called an RFD ("request for discussion"). Once the RFD is posted, discussion begins in news.groups.proposals. . . After a certain amount of discussion, if the need for the newsgroup is well established, the Big-8 Management Board, following certain well-defined procedures, decides whether or not to create the group."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: rec.music.dylan birthday
From: how...@best.com (John Howells)
Date: 4/29/99 2:43 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id: <howells....@shell4.ba.best.com>

We have now been able to determine conclusively that the actual birth date for rec.music.dylan was July 31, 1989. This is the date that voting was completed and the group passed, so on that day rec.music.dylan was born. We're about three months away from celebrating the 10th anniversary of that milestone. The countdown begins...

July 31, 1989: a day to remember.
====================================End of Khematite post======================================

I can't find anything via searching in the Google Group before May, 1995, but I assume, since what I do find there isn't "startup" material, that the group was active before then. I wonder if it's possible to find posts before that. The Google Group search seems to correspond to the Brown listserv archive start date, so that does seem to be what we've all been using. Great idea about hoping the Tulsa museum picks it up from Brown.

- Willie

And it turns out that David Chalmers is now well-known enough to warrant his own Wikipedia entry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chalmers

Here are the first three posts to rmd, from August 1989. At least, these are the first three found on his system, by David Chalmers of Indiana University

>> Here are the first three articles on my system:
>>
>> Article 1 of rec.music.dylan:
>> From: dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
>> Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan
>> Subject: Hello, concert review, etc.
>> Message-ID: <24421@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
>> Date: 8 Aug 89 22:34:54 GMT
>> Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington
>>
>> So rec.music.dylan finally made it up? Well, how 'bout that. I'm
>> going to take this opportunity to be the first poster to the group
>> on _my_ system at least. No doubt others around the country have
>> already claimed the same privilege.
>>
>> Obvious topic: the tour, and the concerts. I only made it to one show,
>> the one at Deer Creek (near Indianapolis) on July 8th. My memory of
>> it is somewhat fuzzy, but here is a review: [...]
>>
>> -----
>>
>> Article 2 of rec.music.dylan:
>> From: rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro)
>> Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan
>> Subject: the 1966 tour
>> Message-ID: <44010@bbn.COM>
>> Date: 8 Aug 89 23:21:44 GMT
>>
>> One of the reasons I wanted to see r.m.dylan was to straighten out the
>> tangled mess of Dylan bootleg records, especially the ones from the
>> tour of the UK and Ireland in 1966. There's tremendous confusion about
>> what recordings come from what concerts. And of course it's always
>> nice to know about sound quality etc before plunking down $$ for these
>> things. I realize that some people are troubled by the ethics of
>> bootlegs; nevertheless... [...]
>>
>> -----
>>
>> Article 3 of rec.music.dylan:
>> From: howells@krypton.arc.nasa.gov (Einstein disguised as Robin Hood)
>> Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan
>> Subject: Royal Albert Hall
>> Message-ID: <2787@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>
>> Date: 8 Aug 89 18:08:09 GMT
>> Organization: Aeroflightdynamics Directorate
>>
>> Ok, here's one I've been trying to find out for awhile.
>>
>> The "Royal Albert Hall" bootleg: classic concert from 1966 w/The Hawks (later
>> to become The Band). Excellent sound, fantastic performance, fierce sparks
>> between artist and audience. Thing is, this is NOT from Royal Albert Hall in
>> London. According to the notes in Biograph, the concert was actually recorded
>> in Manchester. Regardless of where it was recorded, I have always wondered
>> what happened to the acoustic half of the concert. [...]
>>
>> So, it looks like by posting time, the first article was John Howells' on
>> Royal Albert Hall, as you suggest. The first really lengthy thread,
>> surprise surprise, was on the "best album" topic.
>>
>> Tom Buckley disappeared from the net suddenly around February 1990, right
>> in the middle of a poll he was running on album titles; I haven't heard
>> from him since. I don't know where he is or whether he still follows
>> the group (Tom?). And who knows what he would think of what the group
>> he was responsible for has become.
>>
>> On a nostalgia kick...
>>
>> --
>> Dave Chalmers (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)
>> Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.

khematite wrote:
>
> Hi Willie. The listserv at Brown that served as an archive stopped updating in August 2021. Fortunately, most of what was worthwhile about rec.music.dylan happened before that date and remains accessible. I would hope that the Dylan archive at Tulsa would, at some point, make a copy of the entire archive, keep it updated, and make it available in perpetuity. How long Brown will keep its archive up, I can only guess. I have no idea how often (if ever) Brown does some house cleaning and drops listservs with little or no activity. In any event, we all know that forever is a very long time.

> https://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9701C&L=HWY61-L&P=R6930

Cool...!

williamgwilliams wrote:
>
> Thanks much, K, for the link to the Brown "HWY61-L Archives" listserve. I see that its archive goes back to February, 1995. You posted this in a June, 2019 thread where I'd asked if someone owns RMD:

> ============================================================================================

> In reviewing information about Usenet and the newsgroups that comprise it, I've never seen the term "owner" used, except with regard to listservs. Usenet was originally set up at the University of North Carolina and Duke University, but as far as I can tell, neither of those institutions claims "ownership" of Usenet as a whole. Each newsgroup within Usenet had a founder or founders, but they too have not claimed ownership (although some have sought to maintain a level of control by becoming "moderators" of the group they founded.

> http://www.harley.com/usenet/usenet-tutorial/how-are-newsgroups-created.html

> The closest thing to ownership of newsgroups is moderation. In setting up a group, the founders could designate it as a "moderated" or "unmoderated" group and presumably claim that title for themselves. Moderated groups have a moderator who clears all posts for publication and there's usually also a process in place to replace moderators who no longer want to perform that function. Rmd has, to the best of my knowledge, never been moderated and has certainly never been "owned."

> Rmd appears to have been founded by Tom Buckley (i.e., Buckley filed the original petition for creation of a Bob Dylan newsgroup with what's known as the Big-8 Management Board that approves forwarding the proposal for a new group to those who participate in Usenet). From the rmd FAQ: "This particular Usenet newsgroup was founded July 31, 1989 by Tom Buckley." A 1999 post from John Howells, an early contributor to rmd and long-time disseminator of the rmd FAQ, hailed the upcoming tenth anniversary of rmd. Rmd, he noted, was born on July 31, 1989 when "voting was completed and the group passed."

> As the website linked to above says: "When the need arises for a new newsgroup, somebody will post an article to news.announce.newgroups proposing the creation of the group. This type of proposal is called an RFD ("request for discussion"). Once the RFD is posted, discussion begins in news.groups.proposals. . . After a certain amount of discussion, if the need for the newsgroup is well established, the Big-8 Management Board, following certain well-defined procedures, decides whether or not to create the group."

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Subject: rec.music.dylan birthday
> From: how...@best.com (John Howells)
> Date: 4/29/99 2:43 PM Eastern Daylight Time
> Message-id: <howells....@shell4.ba.best.com>

> We have now been able to determine conclusively that the actual birth date for rec.music.dylan was July 31, 1989. This is the date that voting was completed and the group passed, so on that day rec.music.dylan was born. We're about three months away from celebrating the 10th anniversary of that milestone. The countdown begins...

> July 31, 1989: a day to remember.
> ====================================End of Khematite post======================================

> I can't find anything via searching in the Google Group before May, 1995, but I assume, since what I do find there isn't "startup" material, that the group was active before then. I wonder if it's possible to find posts before that. The Google Group search seems to correspond to the Brown listserv archive start date, so that does seem to be what we've all been using. Great idea about hoping the Tulsa museum picks it up from Brown.

> - Willie

Outstanding, I do wish someone would permanently archive our alt.arts.poetry.comments in this fashion...

williamgwilliams wrote:

> Thanks much, K, for the link to the Brown "HWY61-L Archives" listserve. I see that its archive goes back to February, 1995. You posted this in a June, 2019 thread where I'd asked if someone owns RMD:

> ============================================================================================

> In reviewing information about Usenet and the newsgroups that comprise it, I've never seen the term "owner" used, except with regard to listservs. Usenet was originally set up at the University of North Carolina and Duke University, but as far as I can tell, neither of those institutions claims "ownership" of Usenet as a whole. Each newsgroup within Usenet had a founder or founders, but they too have not claimed ownership (although some have sought to maintain a level of control by becoming "moderators" of the group they founded.

> http://www.harley.com/usenet/usenet-tutorial/how-are-newsgroups-created.html

> The closest thing to ownership of newsgroups is moderation. In setting up a group, the founders could designate it as a "moderated" or "unmoderated" group and presumably claim that title for themselves. Moderated groups have a moderator who clears all posts for publication and there's usually also a process in place to replace moderators who no longer want to perform that function. Rmd has, to the best of my knowledge, never been moderated and has certainly never been "owned."

> Rmd appears to have been founded by Tom Buckley (i.e., Buckley filed the original petition for creation of a Bob Dylan newsgroup with what's known as the Big-8 Management Board that approves forwarding the proposal for a new group to those who participate in Usenet). From the rmd FAQ: "This particular Usenet newsgroup was founded July 31, 1989 by Tom Buckley." A 1999 post from John Howells, an early contributor to rmd and long-time disseminator of the rmd FAQ, hailed the upcoming tenth anniversary of rmd. Rmd, he noted, was born on July 31, 1989 when "voting was completed and the group passed."

> As the website linked to above says: "When the need arises for a new newsgroup, somebody will post an article to news.announce.newgroups proposing the creation of the group. This type of proposal is called an RFD ("request for discussion"). Once the RFD is posted, discussion begins in news.groups.proposals. . . After a certain amount of discussion, if the need for the newsgroup is well established, the Big-8 Management Board, following certain well-defined procedures, decides whether or not to create the group."

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Subject: rec.music.dylan birthday
> From: how...@best.com (John Howells)
> Date: 4/29/99 2:43 PM Eastern Daylight Time
> Message-id: <howells....@shell4.ba.best.com>

> We have now been able to determine conclusively that the actual birth date for rec.music.dylan was July 31, 1989. This is the date that voting was completed and the group passed, so on that day rec.music.dylan was born. We're about three months away from celebrating the 10th anniversary of that milestone. The countdown begins...

> July 31, 1989: a day to remember.
> ====================================End of Khematite post======================================

> I can't find anything via searching in the Google Group before May, 1995, but I assume, since what I do find there isn't "startup" material, that the group was active before then. I wonder if it's possible to find posts before that. The Google Group search seems to correspond to the Brown listserv archive start date, so that does seem to be what we've all been using. Great idea about hoping the Tulsa museum picks it up from Brown.

> - Willie

Absolutely, great idea.

The problem of the missing posts from about July 1989 up until about March 1994 actually goes back to the DejaNews archive, which is what Google acquired in February 2001.

"The first Usenet archive was called Deja News, and assembled a database of Usenet postings going back to 16 March 1995."

khematite wrote:

> The problem of the missing posts from about July 1989 up until about March 1994 actually goes back to the DejaNews archive, which is what Google acquired in February 2001.

> "The first Usenet archive was called Deja News, and assembled a database of Usenet postings going back to 16 March 1995."

So a lot is missing, too bad....