About: Meow Wars

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The Meow Wars was an early example of a flame war sent over Usenet where several newsgroup posters posted a large number of nonsense messages, effectively swamping on-topic communication in the groups with unwanted off-topic messages. They represent an early example of the attempted destruction of virtual communities. Meowers pioneered many disruptive techniques that have influenced the development of Web and other online forums. It also brought to light the weaknesses in early newsgroup servers.

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rdfs:label	Meow Wars
rdfs:comment	The Meow Wars was an early example of a flame war sent over Usenet where several newsgroup posters posted a large number of nonsense messages, effectively swamping on-topic communication in the groups with unwanted off-topic messages. They represent an early example of the attempted destruction of virtual communities. Meowers pioneered many disruptive techniques that have influenced the development of Web and other online forums. It also brought to light the weaknesses in early newsgroup servers.
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abstract	The Meow Wars was an early example of a flame war sent over Usenet where several newsgroup posters posted a large number of nonsense messages, effectively swamping on-topic communication in the groups with unwanted off-topic messages. They represent an early example of the attempted destruction of virtual communities. Meowers pioneered many disruptive techniques that have influenced the development of Web and other online forums. It also brought to light the weaknesses in early newsgroup servers. It began when some Harvard students, who had "colonised" an abandoned newsgroup, [news:alt.fan.karl-malden.nose alt.fan.karl-malden.nose], and were using it as a community newsgroup for such posts as "who wants lunch at 1.00pm", decided "invading" another group, in this case [news:alt.tv.beavis-n-butthead alt.tv.beavis-n-butthead], would be a good idea. One of the students - who was actually using a Boston University address, since he was an alumnus - announced the plan on Usenet on January 9, 1996. The original Meowers were denizens of the alt.tv.beavis-n-butthead newsgroup, who responded to the "invasion" by adopting a "scorched earth" policy of rendering the alt.fan.karl-malden.nose newsgroup unusable. The messages used in the battle with the Harvard students frequently contained the word "meow" and other feline references, all indirectly mocking a series of parodies of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood character Henrietta Pussycat, after a post by a Harvard student that had referenced the character.. These references were the reason for the "Meower" appellation. Once the Harvard students abandoned alt.fan.karl-malden.nose, it became the Meowers' base of operations for what they called their "UseNet Performance Art". The Harvard students retreated to a private news server. After taking over the newsgroup [news:alt.fan.karl-malden.nose alt.fan.karl-malden.nose] the Meowers decided to expand their campaign of operations, and spread throughout the alt.* hierarchy, to the so-called "Big 8" groups, and out to the wider Internet. The invasion and disruption of various groups lasted for over one year.

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