- From other postings in scuba enthusiast groups, it’s clear that the reputation of alt.binaries.images.underwater was irreparably damaged: through lax moderation, it was dominated by NSFW photos, and the accompanying porn spam ads that come with it, with little else of value.
By August 1999, the group’s original creator decided he’d had enough of his wholesome underwater photography newsgroup being flooded with porn and spam, and banned it entirely from alt.binaries.images.underwater.
He created a second newsgroup solely for NSFW (but non-violent!) underwater photos, the unwieldy alt.binaries.images.underwater.non-violent.moderated, named to indicate content disallowed by moderators, but neglecting to mention that NSFW images were allowed. The newsgroup’s one-line description only reads, “No death/drownings/bondage (Moderated).”
The distant familiarity of this saga reminds me of the refrain from Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time:The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.
Oh man... I used to be a heavy user on Usenet, and spent a lot of time in the motorcycle area, rec.moto. We even formed our own internet motorcycle gang, called the Denizens of Doom! We had our own mascot (an ASCII art design of a goofy skull we named "Geeky") and a motto: "Live to Flame - Flame to Live" My current motorcycle even has our license plate frame! And the DoD still exists today on Facebook.