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3.3 KiB
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22 lines
3.3 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>backbone cabal</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../B.html" title="B"/><link rel="previous" href="back-door.html" title="back door"/><link rel="next" href="backbone-site.html" title="backbone site"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">backbone cabal</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="back-door.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">B</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="backbone-site.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="backbone-cabal"/><dt xmlns="" id="backbone-cabal"><b>backbone cabal</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> A group of large-site administrators who pushed through the
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<a href="../G/Great-Renaming.html"><i class="glossterm">Great Renaming</i></a> and reined in the chaos of
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<a href="../U/Usenet.html"><i class="glossterm">Usenet</i></a> during most of the 1980s. During most of its
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lifetime, the Cabal (as it was sometimes capitalized) steadfastly denied
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its own existence; it was almost obligatory for anyone privy to their
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secrets to respond “<span class="quote">There is no Cabal</span>” whenever the existence
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or activities of the group were speculated on in public.</p><p>The result of this policy was an attractive aura of mystery. Even a
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decade after the cabal <a href="../M/mailing-list.html"><i class="glossterm">mailing list</i></a> disbanded in
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late 1988 following a bitter internal catfight, many people believed (or
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claimed to believe) that it had not actually disbanded but only gone deeper
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underground with its power intact.</p><p>This belief became a model for various paranoid theories about
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various Cabals with dark nefarious objectives beginning with taking over
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the Usenet or Internet. These paranoias were later satirized in ways that
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took on a life of their own. See <a href="../E/Eric-Conspiracy.html"><i class="glossterm">Eric Conspiracy</i></a>
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for one example. Part of the background for this kind of humor is that
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many hackers cultivate a fondness for conspiracy theory considered as a
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kind of surrealist art; see the bibliography entry om
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<i class="citetitle">Illuminatus!</i> for the novel that launched this
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trend.</p><p>See <a href="../N/NANA.html"><i class="glossterm">NANA</i></a> for the subsequent history of
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“<span class="quote">the Cabal</span>”. </p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="back-door.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../B.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="backbone-site.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">back door </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> backbone site</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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