Re: Origin of ARS

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In article <3p0peh$p3@falcon.ccs.uwo.ca>, J. Kivi Shapiro <kshapiro@julian.uwo.ca> wrote:

>What was the origin of alt.religion.scientology?
i, after some lighthearted discussion with my wife nad a friend, created it one afternood in a fit of pique.

>Woody has said that the original poster proposed it as a joke,
partially true. i also partially created it so that there would be a place in USENET to talk about scientology. after all, every other crackpot group has its own newsgroup, why not scientology?

a.r.s was the first alt.religion group. :)

>that it was originally proposed with a different name (!),
it was never "proposed".

>and that the current name is somehow fraudulent.
the original control message was somewhat fraudulent, in that it was crafted to appear as if it has come from a "David Miscaviage (miscaviage@flag.sea.org)". however, putting false or misleading headers on a USENET message, in order to conceal one's own identity, is not forgery, in the strictest sense. nobody would, for a moment, presume that the post actually came from David M.; it was just a cute way to create the group anonymously.

>Can Woody or anyone else please give me more information on this please?
Woody is full of shit; please ignore him. i was there when the group was created (after all, i sent the newgroup message!). Woody was too busy counting clams to have been aware of it, let alone know anything about it.

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