B1FF

B1FF was the most famous pseudonym, and the prototypical newbie, on Usenet.

Articles from BIFF were characterised by all uppercase letters sprinkled liberally with bangs, typos, "cute" misspellings (EVRY BUDY LUVS GOOD OLD BIFF CUZ HE'S A K00L DOOD AN HE RITES REEL AWESUM THINGZ IN CAPITULL LETTRS LIKE THIS!!!), use (and often misuse) of fragments of chat abbreviations, a long sig block (sometimes even a doubled sig), and unbounded naïveté. BIFF posts articles using his elder brother's Commodore VIC-20. BIFF's location is a mystery, as his articles appear to come from a variety of sites. However, BITNET seems to be the most frequent origin. The theory that BIFF is a denizen of BITNET is supported by BIFF's (unfortunately invalid) electronic mail address: .

[1993: Now It Can Be Told! My spies inform me that BIFF was originally created by Joe Talmadge , also the author of the infamous and much-plagiarised "Flamer's Bible". The BIFF filter he wrote was later passed to Richard Sexton, who posted BIFFisms much more widely. Versions have since been posted for the amusement of the net at large. - ESR]

See also:

• leet

The original version of this article was taken from FOLDOC, with permission