Talk:BIFF (Usenet)

MOVED ACROSS FROM ORIGINAL LOCATION: Talk:B1FF

Etymology etc
I seem to remember reading that the Unix command "biff" which notifies the user of new mail was inspired by B1FF. I was going to add it to the article, but I'm really not sure. Does anyone else know? --cprompt 23:16, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * No, biff pre-dates B1FF by many many years. biff was named after a dog which barked very loud whenever the post was delivered. --anonymous_coward

Should all of those really be "BIFF" - or "B1FF"? --sv 23:16, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm confused. The tag states the document came from FOLDOC, yet the text is visible in an unwikified form on the Jargon File. Chris 21:41, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * FOLDOC copies a lot of material from the Jargon File. The actual FOLDOC entries say (Jargon File) on them. DopefishJustin (&#12539;&#8704;&#12539;) 23:27, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

Much of this article seems to be a direct copy of this. Jimbobbob 03:18, 2004 Nov 8 (UTC)
 * ESR typically has no problem with people redistributing the Jargon File - in fact, you can find (typically out-of-date) mirrors around the Interweb. Chris 06:23, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * True. Bear in mind also that Eric was one of the founding fathers of the OSS movement which actually led to such collaborative projects as wikipedia and the widespread uptake of RLS's GPL. Everyone with a liking for what we now regard as ordinary community undertakings on the web should have a read through his great little essay recounting the key moment in turning the idea from geek meme to mainstream mindset: Revenge of the Hackers
 * Saltation (talk) 00:01, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

major overhaul
I've done a major overhaul. Key points:
 * content upgrade: de-vandalisation, references, details, restructure, rewriting
 * moved from B1FF to BIFF: B1FF was only much later and only occasionally used for BIFF.
 * consequent shufflings of various existing redirects, various accidentally related articles' cross-references, and the disambiguation
 * ideally biff, b1ff, and BIFF should probably all have trailing clarifications, eg biff (email), b1ff (language), BIFF (caricature)
 * i have deleted the tags calling for content review and additional references, since that's what i've done. please whack them back in if you think the result warrants it. bear in mind that due to the adumbral state of the net when BIFF was around and the jokey reputation of the net at the time discouraging academic study, hardcopy references are extremely thin on the ground. perhaps non-existent.

Saltation (talk) 23:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

message from BIFF
HI THERE!!!! IM BIFF!!!! :-) :-)

MAN I FOUND A NICE LINK UPON A DISCUSSION BETWEEN RICHARD SEXTON AND JOE TALMADGE CONCERNING THE CREATION OF BIFF!!!!!!!!!

THE LINK: http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups/browse_thread/thread/a01025d8dab0f46f/5a8b82cd3ab82959?hl=en&lnk=st&q=%22joe+talmadge%22+BIFF#5a8b82cd3ab82959

IM GOING TO ADD THAT LINK TO THE MAIN ARTICLE!!!!

WIKIPEDIA ROOLZ!!!!!

IM BIFF (talk) 21:21, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * {A well-meaning editor deleted the above (twice), believing it to be vandalism. An easy mistake to make if one is reading too fast in copy-editing/anti-vandalism mode, rather than switching mental gears to fully take on board the contents of the specific article.  
 * However, for one with knowledge of the topic, it is clearly a deliberate tip of the hat to the topic, written in the spirit and style of the original BIFF. A key feature of BIFF is "BIFF forgeries" as acknowledged by "his" creators. 
 * And the discovered/contributed link is not only relevant but truly excellent.
 * I have reverted appropriately here, and incorporated the discovered link/reference in the main article.} Saltation (talk)
 * Heh.
 * Nice link, too.
 * I've incorporated it and its contents in the topic. Saltation (talk) 01:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

revision needed
The line "BIFF was apparently a pre-adolescent American who had no real computer skills (or social skills)" is an example of the kind of language being used in this article that kills its neutrality. Parts of it read more like the stuff you'd see in joke wikis documenting drama on the internet. The article is worth having, but definitely needs a clean up. I'm not familiar enough with this person to take that on, however.

198.166.32.75 (talk) 05:42, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, this article is terrible. An hour or so back I removed some of its worst parts but it's still terrible. -- Hoary (talk) 13:03, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I have half a memory of, at least from when I was actively reading BIFF posts, that the character came across as a "surfer dude" (imagine Sean Penn's character in Fast Times at Ridgemont High), and was making fun of clueless BITnet users whose style wasn't exactly well suited to Usenet.

Also, is that a real BIFF .sig in the article? It sure reads like it's actually a Kibo .sig. RadioKAOS (talk) 01:31, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what constitutes a "real" BIFF .sig, since many people portrayed BIFF at different times. Anything written in an approximate BIFF style and attributed to BIFF is as "real" as any other BIFFism, or so it seemed during BIFF's heyday. I wrote that .sig and stumbled across this article today. I intended it to be pure BIFF. Is it "real" BIFF? Define "real" in this context first. Whether it's appropriate for Wikipedia even on this topic is a different question and I'll yield to the experts on that one. Tom (talk) 19:59, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Quite analogous to "Biff" in "Back To The Future", eh?
He too was depicted as a complete idiot. Personally, I had always thought it was taken from that movie. But maybe it's got both influences (film and this R. Sexton stuff). -andy 77.191.205.168 (talk) 01:52, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I am Biff. No, really. Ask Joe, I talked to him last week.

Biff wasn't meant to be a surfer or an idiot particularly, he was meant to sound like an overenthusiastic 13 year old that spent all day on the net. You know, you're average alt.flame or rec.arts.startrek poster, the idea was to post as somebody very very inexperienced in both writing and the net, then have them agree with your opponent. It was usually reserved for really really stupid posts.

The original canonical biff sigfile was:

-- BIFF BIFF@BIT.NET -- BIFF BIFF@BIT.NET

It was there twice cause the newsresder (trn) put it in once and poeple were use to adding it themseleves so the jokes goes (ha ha) that this is why all of biff's messages had it. It was to poke fun in general at people that did this. I neevr ever posted one without this.

Anyone that doesn't believe this is me... jsut look at the spelling and therte'll be no doubt.

I really don't understand why this article is still, years later in flux. It's the easiest thing in the world to verify. Christ, email or call me or joe if you need to.

Cause, ya know, biffipedia.org wouldn't be that hard to do. If you're the type that's easily intimidated by a 15 year old and a C64 the feel free to perceive is as such.

VENGENCE IS MINE SEZ THE BIFFSTER.

Really. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.156.196.43 (talk) 05:29, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Merger Proposal
I believe that this article, B1ff should be merged with BIFF. There is a lot of overlap and the B1ff article is very short text-wise. As an additional note, B1ff has no citations, doesn't seem like it could get citations and probably isn't even that notable, and is getting a bit of vandalism here and there. Also, the BIFF article isn't that long. It can handle another paragraph, if one is even going to be added. Kingsocarso (talk) 00:59, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd say "no" - B1ff is the name for a character substitution system where you replace 1 with "i", 3 with "e", etc. B1FF is a b1ff of BIFF. BIFF is a pseudonym for a usenet newbie. Two different things. --Marc Kupper&#124;talk 20:42, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 18 September 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 12:48, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

BIFF → BIFF (Usenet) – The acronym or initialism has many uses, and this one seems very minor, old, poorly cited and with few pageviews. It doesn't seem to be even mentioned in the Usenet article, but I don't have any more time to investigate further. I'm just suggesting moving and redirecting BIFF to Biff, which is the DAB page. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 12:30, 18 September 2022 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support Google shows Biff Tannen.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:02, 19 September 2022 (UTC)