Internet technology arrived in Goa in the last decade of the twentieth century at a time when most of us in Goa were struggling to get a telephone connection and computers were not quite that common place as they have become today. Mind you, we had to struggle with dial-up connections then. Many places in Goa even today still have to make do with a dial-up while many villages like my Moira have got broadband after a tough fight with BSNL.
With the dawn of the IT age in Goa, a whole new window on the world was opened to us Goans. It began very innocuously with cheap Internet telephone calls and emails to loved ones overseas and then with instant money transfers. As the new world unfolded, a new dimension was added. This was the world of blogs and mailing lists and Internet communities. This is not to say that Goans who lived in the West were not exposed to these wonders but to us in Goa, it certainly was a great leap forward. I subscribe to a number of mailing lists. Some mailing lists are varied and interesting in content, while others are serious and technical in nature. Many are informative and entertaining. I generally wait eagerly for posts from my favourite mailing lists. It is a disappointing day when a mailing list does not have a post that provokes or requires mulling over or a reply. Some of the mailing lists are offer useful content like recipes, links to other websites or information and news. Other lists are purely social while some offer local news and tidbits of gossip. But mailing lists cannot exist without posters. There are posters and there are posters. As a member of a number of mailing lists, I have experienced a host of posters. Those who mail to mailing lists, come in no standard mould. Posters who provoke, who evoke outrage, who inform, who support or oppose a point of view, who slander others and who praise others, these are all the nuts and bolts of a mailing list. Then there is what I privately term specialist posters. An example is a class of posters who fancy themselves sharp as rapiers (Toledo steel comes to mind) where as in reality they are blunt as rusted butter knives. Most irritating are the 'poet mongers' (a self coined term) who sprout doggerel at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately, mailing lists which allow them also produce imposters, 'sock puppets' - people who write under assumed names usually because they are cowardly and do not want to face the consequences of their writing. The impersonal and anonymous nature of writing in your own private comfort zone sometimes temporarily unhinges some people. Now none of you guys are boring, poet mongers or sock puppets - so just keep posting away to your favourite mailing list. -- Tony de Sa Ph: +91 832 2470148 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] M: +91 9975 162 897 ----------------------------------------------------------- GIVE US A SENSE OF HUMOR LORD, GIVE US THE GRACE TO SEE A JOKE, TO GET SOME HUMOR OUT OF LIFE, AND PASS IT ON TO OTHER FOLK . ==============================
