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Here's an "oldie but goodie" that made a lasting impression on me and I thought others would enjoy it. I still find the writing style to be humorous and engaging. "The Code of Abibarshim" -- which appears at the end of the linked page -- makes excellent recommendations, but I cannot say I entirely agree with all of them. Take the first one, for starters. I sense it is not so much that the name changed but that old names were allowed to persist, unchanged. As long as all instances of the old name are found and updated, I sense there is very little cause for concern. But I've already said too much. Do read the whole article! Why not take a few minutes and enjoy from some light-hearted reading? What did you like? What, if anything, would you recommend changing in his 10 conclusions?
Credit: As best I have been able to verify, this was originally credited to Paul Pendragon and published in "Production Engineering", July, 1981.
Beware the Wrath of Abibarshim!
I, Abibarshim, Great King, King of Kings, Ruler of Kish, Babil, Agade and Sankhar, and of the regions across the Hilla, conqueror of Ninevah, destroyer of Sepharia, having striven mightily and met with grief, lay down this Code that ye may not also strive mightily and meet with grief, nor fall flat on thy ass.
For I, Abibarshim, King of Kings, and all that, did buy many Aethyopeans and hire many artisans and scribes and masons and Makers of Engines and Designers of Buildings. And great was their craft and great their number, which was one hundred and forty four thousand, give or take a few job-shoppers. Yea, they did strive mightily, too, for they knew what would happen if they strove not mightily. And the name of my capital improvement project was the Tower of Babil.
Yea, great was their craft and wonderful to behold what the Designers of Buildings wrought on the papyrus. All who looked thereon did marvel at their genius. I, Abibarshim, did also look thereon and did declare their designs to have much nift.
But many days did pass, and many times did the moon wax and wane, and the tower was not yet builded.
So I, Abibarshim, King of Kings, did hie me to the palace by the Arakhtu where dwelt the Designers of Buildings and Makers of Engines. And there I found not Designers of Buildings and Makers of Engines, but Drinkers of Coffee and Tellers of Tales (whom men call hurlers of bull dung). So I vented my royal spleen, which did perturb them mightily.
"Look here, O King, etc.," said the Chief of the Makers of Engines. "Some things can't be rushed. If thou wantest us to get thy bloody tower builded on time, then thou hadst better give us a little respect. For canst thou build thy tower without us?"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2020, @01:46AM
I'll add a few things:
1. BBSes of all sizes had discussion boards which were lively, too, and full of well-done and time-intensive craft like this. Prior to BBSes, cafe philosophers, salons, etc. existed for exchange of prepared work like this.
2. "Older" crafts like leatherwork, woodwork, needlework, mending, drawing, painting, have also plunged. It's the rare kid today who whittles but in the 50s and especially earlier it was the norm in boys. Less pronounced but still visible is the decrease in forms of art like Abibarshim here.
3. This kind of time and creative investment to relay a message to peers/the world is now much more spent on visual (or audible) impact. Instead of taking 2-3h to write and edit this (for a fast and competent communicator having fun) a person might take the time to bake a cake with elaborate decorations, make an "epic" costume, or write and perform a short skit (cough tiktok), the image/video of which can be shared online.
4. "Bored" time is almost nil now. In the 80s, yeah some of us were "connected" and once on USENET or the larger BBS nets, there was an infinite interactive library of sorts available, but there was much higher friction in the system, and there was almost no incentivization outside of the exchanges themselves. That strongly influenced volume and quality and intent behind. Nowadays, everything online that can be, is gamified. Online access no longer tethers a person to a machine in a room, nor blocks other concurrent uses of a telephone line. Youth are simply never, ever truly bored. Even for houses with TVs, until cable ate the OTA cake, there were many times that there was "nothing good on" on the handful of channels at best.
5. Other venues provide lower-barrier outlets for this kind of thing. Look at the performance art of the RDT account here.
6. It does still happen, even this form. Look at medium.com and so on. It's true that the signal:noise is garbage now in comparison to "back then" for many different back thens, but there's gems among the dogpuke now.