alt.fan.warlord is a Usenet newsgroup dedicated to the dissection and flaming of signature files (sigs) used in other Usenet groups. The newsgroup was best-known during the early and mid-1990s, but can no longer be considered active. In its time, it was a notable "underground" Internet phenomenon. Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ... A newsgroup is a repository within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users at different locations. ... Flaming is the act of posting messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting, usually in the social context of a discussion board (usually on the Internet). ... A signature block (often abbreviated as signature, sig block, or just sig) is a block of text automatically appended at the bottom of an e-mail message, Usenet article, or forum post. ... The 1990s refers to the years 1990 to 1999; the last decade of the 20th Century, but in an economical sense The Nineties is often considered to span from the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 to the September 11 attacks in 2001. ... An Internet phenomenon (sometimes called an Internet meme) occurs when something relatively unknown becomes increasingly popular, often quite suddenly, through the mass propagation of media content made feasible by the Internet; however, the popularity of the phenomenon usually wanes as rapidly as it was acquired: the Internets lack of...

For the most part, alt.fan.warlord targeted sigs that violated a principle of Usenet netiquette known as the McQuary limit — i.e., the rule that a sig should be less than 80 columns wide (preferably 72 or less), and no longer than four lines. This limit kept Usenet messages reasonably short, conserving bandwidth, and ensured that an 80-column terminal — the most common display type — could display the sig properly without text wrapping to the following lines. The McQuary limit, sometimes referred to as the "McQ limit" and often misspelled "McQuarry," was named after George F. McQuary, a frequent contributor to alt.fan.warlord. Netiquette (neologism, a portmanteau formed from Internet etiquette) is a catch-all term for the conventions of politeness recognised on Usenet, in mailing lists, and other electronic forums such as internet message boards. ... Bandwidth is a measure of frequency range. ... A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device used for entering data into, and displaying data from, a computer or a computing system. ... A display device is a device for visual or tactile presentation of images (including text) acquired, stored, or transmitted in various forms. ...

Signatures in violation of the McQ limit sometimes stretched to hundreds of lines in length, including things such as ASCII artwork or long collections of favorite quotations — but no relevant information. In extreme cases, a signature could be several times as long as the post to which it was attached. ASCII art, an artistic medium relying primarily on computers for presentation, consists of pictures pieced together from characters (preferably from the 95 printable characters defined by ASCII). ...

A Usenet user with the handle "Death Star, War Lord of the West" became infamous among certain circles in the Usenet community for possessing such a sig. The process of mocking this signature became known as "warlording." This usage was later extended to the dissection and mockery of any excessive signature block. The newsgroup alt.fan.warlord was established as a forum for warlording, and its regulars continued to mock or flame any Usenet sigs they found ugly or impractical, including some which did comply with the McQuary limit. A pseudonym (Greek: false name) is a fictitious name used by an individual as an alternative to their legal name (whereas an allonym is the name of another actual person assumed by one person, usually historical, in authorship of a work of art; e. ...

Although warlording was sometimes little more than flaming, regulars of the group considered a "good warlording" to be one which contained sardonic humor or vicious wit. Common targets of mockery were BUAGs (Big Ugly ASCII Graphics) and BUAFs (Big Ugly ASCII Fonts) prevalent in newbie sigs. The BUAGs most often ridiculed on alt.fan.warlord were ASCII images of Bart Simpson, and in the case of Australian Usenet denizens, maps of Australia. There are 95 printable ASCII characters, numbered 32 to 126. ... A newbie is a newcomer to a particular field, the term being commonly used on the Internet, where it might refer to new, inexperienced, or ignorant users of a game, a newsgroup, an operating system or the Internet itself. ... Bartholomew Jo-Jo (Bart) Simpson (voiced by Nancy Cartwright) is a fictional character featured in the animated television series The Simpsons. ...

One should note that the Jargon File's description of "Warlord" (sic) as a "B1FF-like newbie" is inaccurate in light of his postings viewable in the Google Groups archives. The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... A newbie is a newcomer to a particular field, the term being commonly used on the Internet, where it might refer to new, inexperienced, or ignorant users of a game, a newsgroup, an operating system or the Internet itself. ...

Entries in the Jargon File

• Warlording
• McQuary limit
• BUAF
• BUAG

Original articles archived in Google Groups

• An example of an actual Usenet posting by "War Lord of the West," signature block included
• The first posting to the globally distributed alt.fan.warlord

Other external links

• alt.fan.warlord
• alt.fan.warlord web page
• RFC-1855, an IETF standards document from October 1995 which explicitly mentions the four-line limit with regard to email (Section 2.1.1 on page 5)