Matt just sent me this email.
Boy, those were the old days.... "Duke News", "Netnews A", "Netnews B", etc, etc.
When net news first started, anyone could create any news group. In late 1980 or early 1981, when I was at Bell Labs, the netnews software was installed on many of the systems, and I started net.rec.skydiving.
Back then, you usually only saw "netnews" at the Universities, Gov't contractors and some hi-tech firms. The volume of postings was low enough that the news was passed around on many sites via UUCP on 1200 baud modems.
There were a handful of jumpers who were posting questions and comments on this group. Unfortunately, every time you would post, you would get a ton of "Why would anyone... yada yada yada" or "I have always wanted to, what does it feel like", or "I want to make a jump, can you comment on dropzone XYZ"
As a result, activity on the newsgroup died out until ~1984 when it started getting active again. When I mentioned 3 other jumpers I was being sarcastic.
Thanks for digging up the old memories!