James Parry, commonly known by his nickname and username Kibo, is a Usenetter known for his sense of humor, various surrealist net pranks, an absurdly long signature, and a machine-assisted knack for "kibozing": joining any thread in which "kibo" was mentioned. His exploits have earned him a multitude of enthusiasts, who celebrate him as the head deity of the parody religion "Kibology", centered on the humor newsgroup alt.religion.kibology.
A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on the World Wide Web. Newsreader software is used to read the content of newsgroups.
There are a number of disputes concerning the Church of Scientology's attempts to suppress material critical of Scientology and the organization on the Internet, utilizing various methods – primarily lawsuits and legal threats, as well as front organizations. In late 1994, the organization began using various legal tactics to stop distribution of unpublished documents written by L. Ron Hubbard. The organization has often been accused of barratry through the filing of SLAPP suits. The organization's response is that its litigious nature is solely to protect its copyrighted works and the unpublished status of certain documents.
The Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology started in 1991 to discuss the controversial beliefs of Scientology, as well as the activities of the Church of Scientology, which claims exclusive intellectual property rights thereto and is viewed by many as a dangerous cult. The newsgroup has become the focal point of an aggressive battle known as Scientology versus the Internet, which has taken place both online and in the courts.
alt.sex.stories is a Usenet newsgroup for erotic stories created on May 7, 1992, by Tim Pierce as an alternative to pre-existing alt erotica newsgroups. The group was initially unmoderated, a feature that was not shared by some of the other Usenet or altnet newsgroups. This feature allowed for greater user freedom.
An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, is a digital encyclopedia accessible through the Internet. Examples include Wikipedia since 2001, the Encyclopædia Britannica since 2016, and Encyclopedia.com.
Sporgery is the disruptive act of posting a flood of articles to a Usenet newsgroup, with the article headers falsified so that they appear to have been posted by others. The word is a portmanteau of spam and forgery, coined by German software developer, and critic of Scientology, Tilman Hausherr.
Whitby Goth Weekend, abbreviated to WGW or nicknamed Whitby, is a twice-yearly music festival for the gothic subculture, in Whitby, North Yorkshire, England, organised by Jo Hampshire.
Projekt Records is an independent record label established by Sam Rosenthal in 1983, the label focuses on darkwave, ambient, shoegaze, gothic rock, ethereal, dream-pop, and dark cabaret releases.
The Music in Leeds ecompasses a variety of styles and genres, including rock, pop and electronic. While groups like Soft Cell, the Kaiser Chiefs, the Wedding Present, Utah Saints and the Bridewell Taxis have gained success in the mainstream, Gang of Four, the Sisters of Mercy, Chumbawamba and the Mission have helped to define genres like punk rock, gothic rock and post-punk.
The Toronto goth scene, the cultural locus of the goth subculture in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and the associated music and fashion scene, has distinct origins from goth scenes of other goth subcultural centres, such as the UK or Germany. Originally known as the "Batcavers", the term "goth" appeared only after 1988, when it was applied to the pre-existent subculture. Distinctive features included internationally recognized gothic and vampiric fashion store 'Siren', a goth-industrial bar named 'Sanctuary: The Vampire Sex Bar', and Forever Knight, a television series about an 800-year-old vampire living in Toronto. In Toronto, the goths did not seek to reject mainstream status, and achieved partial acceptance throughout the mid to late 1990s.
A Usenet personality was a particular kind of Internet celebrity, being an individual who gained a certain level of notoriety from posting on Usenet, a global network of computer users with a vast array of topics for discussion. The platform is usually anonymous, although users can get celebrity status, usually by being deemed different from other posters in some way.
Bats Day in the Fun Park, also known as Bats Day, Goth Day, Goth Day at Disneyland, The Spooky Trip to Disneyland Resort, CA., Bats Day in the Park and Bats Day Out, started in August 1999 as a joint effort between the promoters of the goth, industrial, and deathrock clubs Absynthe and Release the Bats. It has become an annual three-day event taking place in Anaheim, CA, United States near Disneyland. In previous years, the events commenced on the weekend before Labor Day. Since about 2008, Bats Day event weekends have usually happened on the first or third weekend in May.
VampireFreaks.com is an online clothing store and former social networking site for goths and rivetheads. VampireFreaks was launched as a social networking site in 1999 and added an online clothing store in 2001. The social network element was removed in February 2020.
Usenet, USENET, or "in full", User's Network, 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 was established in 1980. Users read and post messages to one or more topic categories, known as newsgroups. Usenet resembles a bulletin board system (BBS) in many respects and is the precursor to the Internet forums that have become widely used. Discussions are threaded, as with web forums and BBSes, though posts are stored on the server sequentially.
The Singapore Dark Alternative Movement (S.D.A.M.) is an informal, social collective catering to the needs of the Singaporean gothic and alternative lifestyle community. It also functions as a support/help group for members within the latter regarding issues such as suicide, gender and sexuality. Although cited by their official webpage as having the date of their creation as 1998, the name of the collective only surfaced in 2005 with the return of former leader Saito Nagasaki from Perth, Australia.
Orkus is a monthly German music and culture magazine published by the Zoomia Media Group. Despite its subtitle and its web tagline, it includes all popular music genres including metal, medieval rock, Neue Deutsche Härte, alternative rock, electro and futurepop. The gothic rock, dark wave and industrial music genres have had only a minor presence since the late 1990s.
