Not sure why, but I just visited RSB, and it appears it's finally been declared legally dead. It provided an opportunity for a meaningful exchange of information between pool players and fans for quite a few years. Sad to see it that it's finally passed on.
RSB finally dead
- Thread starter Bob J
- Start date
What is "RSB"?
Yeah this!
Just took a peek and there are a couple of recent posts, one just a couple of hours ago about SW cues. Still, pretty "Walking Dead."
Lou Figueroa
RSB is rec.sport.billiards, which was a newsgroup and a predecessor of forums like AZ.
As a public forum, it was unmoderated. That didn't matter for years, and it was much like the AZ forums (but fewer participants). But then just a few nut jobs made it unbearable and it died (or went on life support).
Maybe it's time we took it back.
It is amazing to me that one vindictive person, almost single handedly, destroyed that site.
I think of the hours and hours, spent being hateful, and wonder what could have been accomplished, with that energy and commitment, had it been directed for good.
Every time I see a would be detractor, on here, or the other sites.
I can't help but compare their venom, to what I have previously seen.
The worst conflagration I ever witnessed on here, between a couple of old players, was like kittens playing with a ball of yarn, comparatively speaking.
I think of the hours and hours, spent being hateful, and wonder what could have been accomplished, with that energy and commitment, had it been directed for good.
Every time I see a would be detractor, on here, or the other sites.
I can't help but compare their venom, to what I have previously seen.
The worst conflagration I ever witnessed on here, between a couple of old players, was like kittens playing with a ball of yarn, comparatively speaking.
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That's too bad. Unbelievable how one idiot clueless poster could destroy an unmoderated forum.
That being said we had great discussions, much of them repeated here of course. It's all new to posters who werent around, but old stuff to the veterans.
Freddie <~~~ RIP RSB
I don't think he-who-shall-not-be-named is the real reason for the demise of RSB. I think it is the proliferation of the internet.
In it's heyday, the participants on RSB were the people on the internet at the time--academics, computer scientists, engineers, and so forth sharing a passion. The rules of engagement were understood and respected. Every contention required support, but at the same time there was a recognition that certain people earned a certain gravitas based on history. You don't have to accept what they say, but it makes sense to give it some thought.
Hell, there are only about 10 people who have responded so far to this thread, and several I met--and played pool with-- BECAUSE of RSB. There are many others, but I'll say a few things about these guys...
Bob J, who started the thread
Great guy...pool enthusianst... i met him when I went to Boulder CO for a meeting. He walked me all around Showcase Billiards--monster of billiard supply place--and I think we played some pool
Lou Figueroa....
He's smart, and you know what he's thinking... I played him in St Louis--9-ball, and lots of straight pool. He crushed me. And this is embarrassing, but to tell you how long ago this was, Lou is the guy who admonished me for bridging with my hand on top of the cue on top of the rail--a rookie error. And everytime--seriously everytime--I explain this to a new player, I think of Lou. Oh, and I held the cash when he played John Barton a few year ago ;-)
Gideon Wow....I don't think I've met him,. but I feel like I have.... Attorney in Toronto--fun and thoughtful guy...
Murray Tucker Cuemaker in FL.... Likewise I don't think I've met him, but I think he'd be at home in my living room.
Dan White
I think we met a couple times--CT and NJ. Chemical Engineer. Nice nice guy... We played straight pool--race to 400! at Comet Billiards in NJ--and he beat me! But I think it was like 400 to 380 or something--I was in it the whole
way
Cornerman This one is fun... Freddie and I go way back. We first met at Smiths in Springfield MA--which might have been like the oldest pool hall in the US or something. I was with my son, who now is 36 and lives in the UK. We had deep discussions of deflection/squirt at the pub below Smiths.... And then we continued those discussions a few years later over about 27 beers in Vegas with Royce Bunnell (rip)... There was an RSB tournament in CT one year with about 20 RSB regulars... Did I mention I won that tournament? ....
I shared a room with Cornerman Fred, playing a race to 4 8-ball for the room charge... Did I mention I won that ;-)
Seriously, there were a lot of great people in RSB, and I call many of them friends.
I think there are a lot of great people in AZB too. And I hope to meet many of you who I haven't already. But I'd say one out of four AZB posters is RSB-like.
And 3 out of 4 don't really understand or value rational, thoughtful discussions.
My plea to you AZBers? Be RSB-like.....
The arrival of the AOLers was thought at the time to be the beginning of the end for Usenet.
Turning RSB into a moderated newsgroup was considered. Every post would have had to be approved by one of the volunteer moderators. Retroactive moderation was also considered.
RSB was preceded by alt.sport.pool. I still have archives of alt.sport.pool (Feb 1993 - Jun 1998) and RSB (Sept 1994 - June 1998). "alt" was an "alternative" or "alternate" discussion group and did not require permission by the participating sites to be created, and they were not obligated to carry them. Communication was expensive -- originally over links as slow as 2400-baud dial-ups -- and junk groups were difficult to justify to management. Of course sometimes management did not participate in the decisions.
My management was thinking of charging us $10 per megabyte of internet traffic in/out of the department.Trivia: RSB was created by Dan Bernstein, that is, he sent out the "newgroup" message as one of the administrators who had the power to do so. He also represented himself in a free speech lawsuit against the US government that went to the Supreme Court. He won. He also wrote his own set of rules for nine ball.
This was the original charter of RSB:
CHARTER
rec.sport.billiard is about billiard sports, including pool, snooker,
and carom games. It is meant to replace alt.sport.pool, which will
disappear on 1 January 1995 if rec.sport.billiard is created. This is a
fine example of a medium-volume, noise-free group moving from the alt
hierarchy into the USENET mainstream.
Why not rec.sport.pool or rec.sport.billiards, you ask? Many billiards
players would expect a ``pool'' group to be dedicated to pocket games.
Similarly, some pool players would expect a ``billiards'' group to
be dedicated to carom games, since ``billiards'' usually refers
specifically to those. The adjective ``billiard'' is unambiguous: pocket
games and carom games and snooker are all billiard sports. Besides,
rec.sport.billiard won't attract people who think that rec.sport.pool =
rec.sport.swimming.indoor.
rec.sport.billiard is about billiard sports, including pool, snooker,
and carom games. It is meant to replace alt.sport.pool, which will
disappear on 1 January 1995 if rec.sport.billiard is created. This is a
fine example of a medium-volume, noise-free group moving from the alt
hierarchy into the USENET mainstream.
Why not rec.sport.pool or rec.sport.billiards, you ask? Many billiards
players would expect a ``pool'' group to be dedicated to pocket games.
Similarly, some pool players would expect a ``billiards'' group to
be dedicated to carom games, since ``billiards'' usually refers
specifically to those. The adjective ``billiard'' is unambiguous: pocket
games and carom games and snooker are all billiard sports. Besides,
rec.sport.billiard won't attract people who think that rec.sport.pool =
rec.sport.swimming.indoor.
We did meet. At the RSB Jimbo-Jambo in Ct in 2002 (that you mentioned above). It was the day after the huge power outage that took out much of the eastern seaboard. I drove down with Dave Malone and his wife, Ortelia.
One of the advantages RSB had was that it was smaller. You got to know more of the posters by screen name, and you could actually read all the threads. AZ is awesome, but too many people to keep track of and too much stuff to read it all.
I came late to the party when I started hanging out on RSB. It was my first experience posting anywhere. I was still on dial-up modem. I remember posting and having to wait sometimes 3, 4 hours before the post would appear. :grin-square:
It was a splendid place to get my initiation on what to do and what not to do on an Internet group.
It was Smorgie who actually invited me to AzBilliards when I emigrated on over here, as did most RSB-ers when the unnamed individual ruined the RSB experience.
It was a splendid place to get my initiation on what to do and what not to do on an Internet group.
It was Smorgie who actually invited me to AzBilliards when I emigrated on over here, as did most RSB-ers when the unnamed individual ruined the RSB experience.
I miss RSB. It has been amusing, in later years, looking back at some of my posts from the late 90's when I worked for Predator and realizing how little I actually knew about pool (and the physics of it). I sure was green but learned a lot from the group and many of the people that frequented RSB. Thank you all.
Met a lot of cool guys through RSB over the years. When I was traveling a lot I could go into almost any city in the country and meet up with guys I only knew through RSB. Often, when guys like Mike or Alex would pass through STL, I'd meet up with them to play.
There were tons of other guys that I'd eventually get to know and meet up with. In fact, it was through RSB I first encounter JB (back then JC). After one memorable exchange on RSB he sent he an email that read, in its entirety, "F*ck you, you f*cking f*ck." I was impressed the he was able to make one word a verb, adjective, and noun in such a short sentence
I know there were several reasons for RSB going away but IMO the fast one was the number one issue because of two reasons. First, his long, endless, racist, homophobic rants. And second, you could not filter him out. I had at least 50 of his aliases screened out and still he would create more like onehunglow, vinniethewop, and so on and so forth. He flooded the group with his hateful posts, you couldn't avoid them, so one-by-one we all migrated here. I think I was one of the last to leave.
Lou Figueroa
hope I remembered
to turn the lights
out
There were tons of other guys that I'd eventually get to know and meet up with. In fact, it was through RSB I first encounter JB (back then JC). After one memorable exchange on RSB he sent he an email that read, in its entirety, "F*ck you, you f*cking f*ck." I was impressed the he was able to make one word a verb, adjective, and noun in such a short sentence
I know there were several reasons for RSB going away but IMO the fast one was the number one issue because of two reasons. First, his long, endless, racist, homophobic rants. And second, you could not filter him out. I had at least 50 of his aliases screened out and still he would create more like onehunglow, vinniethewop, and so on and so forth. He flooded the group with his hateful posts, you couldn't avoid them, so one-by-one we all migrated here. I think I was one of the last to leave.
Lou Figueroa
hope I remembered
to turn the lights
out
When RSB was around I was pretty young. Not even old enough to have a drivers license, but I was still into pool so I would peruse occasionally. I don't think I ever posted. I had no idea it was even still around, or that any of the old usenet newsgroups were still around. I just assumed they were the relic of the early internet days of the 90s like AOL keywords, Angelfire sites, and AOL Instant Messenger.
Rest In Peace