On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 10:03:43 -0500, Silvan
wrote:

That's not really true. Back before the doors were opened to the public at
large, spammers got kicked off the net after just one or two
transgressions. When the net was purely for academic purposes, anything
smacking of commercialism was dealt with swiftly, and with a very heavy
hand. We hadn't even invented the term "spam" yet, I don't think. No one
had ever seen a top post either.

Since the net has been open to the general public then. You're right,
when I first got access to Usenet back in '86, it wasn't like this,
but there weren't that many of us out there either. Far too many
people point to the 'good old days' just a couple years ago and seem
to have very selective memories.