Herky History!
Czar George recently answered a question on the history of the Herky list with this short essay:
From gmiller@cybermarket.com Fri Dec 13 02:37:41 1996
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 15:27:13 +0000
From: George Miller
Subject: HERKY: Herky History for Janece
janece valentine asked about Herky's origins & history:
Herky was started the year we went to the NIT in bball, which would make it
about February/March 1995 I believe. Do any of the Old Timers remember
exactly when it was?
In addition to my paying job, I'm a partner in a small business that does
Internet consulting/web design work. My partners (gopher fans, no less)
were kind enough to agree to donate space for Herky with me on a server we
have connected to the Internet. One of my partners is the creator/keeper
of the software that we use to run the mailing list (majordomo). I
maintain the list, which means doing the administrative functions (and
keeping the Dr. Tom debate from getting out of hand ;^)) rather than the
programming. (Herky runs on a Micron p133 Unix box; the mailing list
software we use is Majordomo for those that are interested)
I started the list with around 6 people who I had met through the
basketball newsgroup; most of the original 6 are still upstanding members
of Herky. The Old Timers know who they are.
We've grown from that 6 to about 600 currently. In the beginning I didn't
tell anybody about the list, but through word of mouth it grew fairly
quickly to around 100. The Alumni Quarterly has done a story about us now,
as did the football program for the Arizona/IOWA football game.
The volume of traffic on the list has grown, but not as fast as the
subscriber base. I think I noticed that we had something like 14,000
emails for the year so far the other night. With the bounces I get because
of bad addresses, server problems out there, etc.. I get about 200 to 300
emails per day through Herky. It makes the job of running the list a bit
harder as it grows, but it's worth it. It's the only way to get news about
the Hawks up here in the frozen wastelands of Minnesota.
Hope this helps you out! Let me know if you have any other questions that
I didn't cover here.
George
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HERKY INFO:
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. . .and Chris Bryant reposted this article about Herky from a recent football program:
Subject: HERKY: Iowa football program article about Herky
Date: 15 Dec 1996 23:35:47 -0000
From: "Chris Bryant"
This will be my third attempt to successfully get this posted to Herky. The
following article appeared in the Iowa/Arizona game program on September 7,
1996.
CYBER-HAWK GEORGE MILLER by Carol Harker
By day he's a product manager at Marigold Foods in the Twin Cities area, but
once he's put in his time at the job that pays, George Miller, '87BA, becomes a
cyberczar. And in his kingdom are about 500 rabid Hawkeye fans, all grateful
for the initiative that Miller took in establishing a mailing list called
Herky.
In little more than a year, Miller has created a community that now extends
beyond the computers that link Herky subscribers to each other. These loyal
Hawkeyes sometimes band together at tailgates or help other list members get
tickets, and they do what they can to keep the group well informed about their
beloved sports teams at the University of Iowa.
It all started in the spring of 1995, when the basketball Hawkeyes were
invited to the N.I.T. and Miller was stuck in Gopherland, where news from Iowa
is hard to get. Having seen posts from several Hawk fans on a basketball
newsgroup he belonged to, Miller started e-mailing the others--all six of them.
To ease communication, he soon decided to start a mailing list devoted solely
to the Hawks.
"It started with the six of us and before long there were 50," Miller
recalls. "Now there are close to 500 people on Herky. Most of them are from
the Midwest, but we have active members in Europe, Japan, Canada, and the
Middle East, too. Herky is its own little community. it's not like America
Online, where people sometimes use vulgar or insulting language. Even though
some topics become old and tired, Herky subscribers are almost always great
people."
One member--a prominant UI psychiatrist--did his utmost to keep others
informed about how the basketball Hawks were looking prior to this year's NCAA
tournament. He'd spring over to Carver-Hawkeye Arena to watch the team
practice and then post his observations. Herky-Net had its own scout!
And members are good to post game updates at halftime so that "David From
Russia" and "Michael from Germany" and other subscribers know how well the
Hawkeyes are doing, even if they can't listen to the games live.
Miller says that one of the most amazing things that's happened on herky
occurred in May 1996, when basketball talk was getting old and football was
still months away. Still, subscribers found items of interest to
share--including the letter that Nile Kinnick wrote to a close lady friend in
Des Moines. For some reason, a Herky subscriber in California was moved to
post the letter, which has been published in A Hero Perished: The Diary and
Selected Letters of Nile Kinnick.
To Miller's amazement, David in Russia responded, "I had been off the list
for a long time until tonight, and Stephen's post concerning Nile Kinnick's
last letter kind of stunned me. His "lady friend" is my Aunt Celia...."
It's a small world. Linked by computer technology and a love for the
Hawkeyes, Herky subscribers are virtual pen pals.
Posted by Chris Bryant
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Last revised Saturday, 23-Nov-2002 15:00:49 CST