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Eternal September or the September that never ended is
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Usenet and the internet were generally the domain of dedicated computer professionals and hobbyists; new users joined slowly, in small numbers, and observed and learned the social conventions of online interaction without having much of an impact on the experienced users. The only exception to this was September of every year, when large numbers of first-year college students gained access to the internet and Usenet through their universities. These large groups of new users who had not yet learned online etiquette created a nuisance for the experienced users, who came to dread September every year. Once ISPs like AOL made internet access widely available for home users, a continuous influx of new users began, which continued through to 2015 according to Jason Koebler, making it feel like it is always "September" to the more experienced users.
The full phrase appears to have evolved over a series of months on two separate alt.folklore newsgroups where a number of threads exist lamenting what they saw as an increase in low-quality posts across various newsgroups. Several members of the newsgroups referenced aspects of the "September" issue, typically in a joking manner.
In a thread on January 8, 1994, Joel Furr cross-posted asking "Is it just me, or has Delphi unleashed a staggering amount of weirdos on the net?", which garnered a reply from Karl Reinsch "Of course it's perpetually September for Delphi users, isn't it?" The day before, Furr had also posted the same message to alt.folklore.urban, where David Fischer responded with a joke call-to-action where he referred to the increasing numbers of Delphi users as the "Never-Ending-September". Fischer also replied to a different thread on January 25, 1994, in alt.folklore.computers saying, "It's moot now. September 1993 will go down in net history as the September that never ended." This quote has been suggested to have been the first reference.
Possibly the first use of the "Eternal September" phrase was a newsgroup post by John William Chambless in February 1994. He posted a rant including some excerpts of low-quality articles he found in one of his newsgroups that day, but titled the post "The Eternal September".
Eternal-September.org
sdate
a
Usenet
Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...
slang for a period beginning around 1993 when Internet service provider
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privat ...
s began offering Usenet access to many new users. The flood of new users overwhelmed the existing culture for online forums and the ability to enforce existing norms. AOL followed with their Usenet gateway service in March 1994, leading to a constant stream of new users. Hence, from the early Usenet point of view, the influx of new users in September 1993 never ended.
History
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Usenet and the internet were generally the domain of dedicated computer professionals and hobbyists; new users joined slowly, in small numbers, and observed and learned the social conventions of online interaction without having much of an impact on the experienced users. The only exception to this was September of every year, when large numbers of first-year college students gained access to the internet and Usenet through their universities. These large groups of new users who had not yet learned online etiquette created a nuisance for the experienced users, who came to dread September every year. Once ISPs like AOL made internet access widely available for home users, a continuous influx of new users began, which continued through to 2015 according to Jason Koebler, making it feel like it is always "September" to the more experienced users.
The full phrase appears to have evolved over a series of months on two separate alt.folklore newsgroups where a number of threads exist lamenting what they saw as an increase in low-quality posts across various newsgroups. Several members of the newsgroups referenced aspects of the "September" issue, typically in a joking manner.
In a thread on January 8, 1994, Joel Furr cross-posted asking "Is it just me, or has Delphi unleashed a staggering amount of weirdos on the net?", which garnered a reply from Karl Reinsch "Of course it's perpetually September for Delphi users, isn't it?" The day before, Furr had also posted the same message to alt.folklore.urban, where David Fischer responded with a joke call-to-action where he referred to the increasing numbers of Delphi users as the "Never-Ending-September". Fischer also replied to a different thread on January 25, 1994, in alt.folklore.computers saying, "It's moot now. September 1993 will go down in net history as the September that never ended." This quote has been suggested to have been the first reference.
Possibly the first use of the "Eternal September" phrase was a newsgroup post by John William Chambless in February 1994. He posted a rant including some excerpts of low-quality articles he found in one of his newsgroups that day, but titled the post "The Eternal September".
Legacy
Atongue-in-cheek
The idiom tongue-in-cheek refers to a humorous or sarcastic statement expressed in a serious manner.
History
The phrase originally expressed contempt, but by 1842 had acquired its modern meaning. Early users of the phrase include Sir Walter Scot ...
program called ''sdate'' outputs the current date, formatted using the Eternal September calendar (September ''X'', 1993, where ''X'' is an unbounded counter for days since that epoch
In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured.
The moment of epoch is usually decided by ...
). This is not the identically named ''sdate'', one of the sixty commands that comes with the First Edition of Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, an ...
, that is used to set the system clock. Named with similar humour is one of the few remaining free public Usenet servers (besides Internet Service Providers & colleges providing those for users)Eternal-September.org
See also
*July effect
The July effect, sometimes referred to as the July phenomenon, is a perceived but scientifically unfounded increase in the risk of medical errors and surgical complications that occurs in association with the time of year in which United States ...
References
External links
*sdate
a
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, an ...
program that outputs the date of Never Ending September
{{internet slang
1993 in computing
History of the Internet
Internet slang
September
September 1993 events
Usenet
1990s neologisms
1990s in Internet culture
AOL