A Few Thoughts on the Jihad
   by da katster

     Recently, I came across a book[1].  It was an interesting look
     into the life of a net.head, as the author willingly called
     herself, but the thing I found most interesting about this book
     was a chapter about alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die.

     I had been told about this book; one of our recruits in vrdet
     cited it as a partial reason he came online to find the B'harnee
     haters.  However, the book slipped out of my mind, and when I
     came across the book in a bookstore almost a year later, I
     almost did not recognize it.  When I realized the signifigance
     of the book in terms of my online life, I went ahead and bought
     it.  Call it my history major bias, but I'm always fascinated to
     see where the organizations I am a part of have been.

     Reading through the chapter on ab4d, I was struck by the
     realization of how different the newsgroup and the Jihad were
     back then.  While we now write operations and have a detailed
     universe to place our stories in, the newsgroup was a chaotic
     hodgepodge of battle reports and orders--almost like the West
     before it was won.  Of course, this analogy could be stated for
     the Internet as a while before the whole commericialization
     thing, it was especially true for ab4d.  Things had changed.
     Ab4d as seen in 1995 is completely different from the ab4d I
     know now in 1998.  The Jihad, as seen in 1995, is almost
     unrecognizable to somebody in 1998.  Somewhere along the line,
     the Jihad had changed.

     The reason for this change is very simple.  The faces that make
     up the Jihad now, are not the faces that made up the Jihad then.
     Admittedly, there are still some regular contributors to the
     Jihad who were Jihaddi back then, but by and large, most of the
     Jihad has been here three years or less.

     Let's take an example.  Although there are many names in the
     chapter I read that I recognize from the Jihad FAQ (Serbeus,
     Mystic Mongoose, Dave Brogden), there are only two names I see
     who are still active Jihaddi--J-Rock and Brian Bull.
     Admittedly, there were others around during this time, and
     remember the Jihad as it was, but the point should be fairly
     clear.  It is the induction and retention of what we refer to as
     "newbies" (or even more sarcastically, "damn ensigns" ;) ) that
     revitalize and remake the Jihad.

     This is a simple idea, noted time and time again even in that
     quagmire we so like to call Real Life.  For example, take
     Einstein.  He was one of the most brilliant men this planet has
     ever produced, rewriting the boundaries of science; however, he
     could not accept the Uncertainty Principle, and brought his
     contributions to science to a halt.

     It's not as drastic in the Jihad as it is in particle physics,
     but the input of newbies helps to keep even the oldest Jihaddi
     going.  The game just would not be as fun if there weren't new
     people joining in to make every adventure fresh and new.  Let's
     face it, killing the Wyrm would get kinda boring if we didn't
     have newbies who have never done it before to make it fresh and
     exciting.

     Who am I classifying as a newbie?  Well, I figure, probably
     somebody who's been in the Jihad less than a year.  Some shed
     their newbieness in six months or less, others take two years to
     emerge from their newbie cocoon.  But once that newbieness is
     shed, the person most likely will become a regular contributor
     in some fashion or another.

     It may sound rather goofy and very obvious, but I think that if
     a person can make it to their one year anniversary of being a
     Jihaddi, that person will probably stick around two or three
     years.  Sticking around between three and four is a little less
     common, and sticking around past four is simply amazing.
     (Insert applause here for those who have done it.) But I think
     that after your first year, you may not become a "respected"
     Jihaddi, but at least you have some idea of what kind of lunacy
     goes on here.

     The Jihad goes on changing due to the efforts of its members.
     Each new face adds a new element to the Jihad, and a new, fresh
     way of looking at the Cause[tm].  As the Cause[tm] is the thing
     that links us to our past, it implies a sense of connectedness
     to what has come before, and what will come after.  The Jihad is
     truly a diamond, with many different facets for the different
     people and their contributions, and the Cause[tm] is the force
     that holds us together.

   -fin-

   Footnote:
     {1] Surfing on the Internet: a nethead's adventures online by
     J.C. Herz.