alt.fan.john-c-dvorak
John C. Dvorak: his columns, books, and broadcasts.
Charter, rationale, and FAQ for a proposed Usenet newsgroup, in memory of John C. Dvorak (1946–2026).
This page is the charter, rationale, and FAQ for alt.fan.john-c-dvorak, a proposed unmoderated Usenet newsgroup for discussion of John C. Dvorak and his work. Dvorak died on July 20, 2026, after more than forty years of columns and nineteen years of the No Agenda podcast. His readers and listeners have no permanent public place to gather. This group is meant to be that place, on the medium of the era he helped define.
For your newsgroups file:
alt.fan.john-c-dvorak John C. Dvorak: his columns, books, and broadcasts.
Status
Proposal published: November 11, 2026.
Now: discussion of the proposal in alt.config.
Next: a newgroup control message follows the discussion period, if no significant objections stand.
This page is the group's permanent home. The charter, the FAQ, and the group's status live here from proposal through creation and after.
Charter
alt.fan.john-c-dvorak exists for discussion of the life and work of John C. Dvorak (1946–2026), the American technology columnist and broadcaster: his columns, essays, and books; his television, radio, and podcast work; his career and his influence on technology journalism; and the technology he covered, discussed through his work.
On topic
- His columns and essays, from the early 1980s on, in PC Magazine, InfoWorld, Forbes, MacUser, MarketWatch, and elsewhere, and on his own site, dvorak.org
- His books, and the books he co-authored
- His broadcasts and podcasts, including Silicon Spin, CrankyGeeks, Tech5, X3, and the No Agenda podcast he co-hosted with Adam Curry from 2007 to 2026
- His career, his predictions and his record, and his place in the history of personal computing
- Memories: meeting him, hearing him speak, corresponding with him, reading him over the years
- Archival finds: old columns, recordings, interviews, and photographs, with sources credited
- The products, companies, and trends he covered, discussed through his writing and his commentary
Off topic
- Spam and commercial advertising
- Binary postings of any kind; link to files instead
- The Dvorak keyboard layout and August Dvorak; both belong in other groups
- Personal abuse aimed at other posters
The group is unmoderated. Post in plain text, quote only what you are answering, and keep signatures short. Postings are distributed to news servers around the world and archived permanently. Write accordingly.
Rationale
No Usenet group covers John C. Dvorak. The alt.fan hierarchy holds groups for the writers and broadcasters of his era, and his name is absent from it. Discussion of his work today is scattered across podcast communities, Reddit, Discord servers, and comment threads. Those venues are private or semi-private, searchable only in part, and closed or deleted at a platform's discretion.
Usenet is the opposite arrangement: a public, distributed archive that no single company owns, carried on independent servers worldwide. It is also the medium of the era Dvorak helped define. He began his columns when Usenet was the public square of computing, and the audience that built that square is his audience. A newsgroup gives that audience a permanent address.
The readership exists. His columns ran for more than forty years. No Agenda ran for nineteen years and about 1,915 episodes. The proposal asks for one unmoderated text group, the smallest durable unit Usenet has.
About John C. Dvorak
John Charles Dvorak was born on April 5, 1946, and died on July 20, 2026, in Albany, California. He wrote about personal computing from the early 1980s until his death. His PC Magazine columns began in 1986, and he also wrote for InfoWorld, Forbes, MacUser, MarketWatch, Boardwatch, PC/Computing, and The Vancouver Sun, among others. He wrote or co-authored more than a dozen books on software and technology.
He was on the start-up team at CNET, hosted Silicon Spin on TechTV, served as a vice president of Mevio, and hosted CrankyGeeks, Tech5, and X3. He co-created the Dvorak Awards, given from 1992 to 1997. From 2007 to 2026 he co-hosted the No Agenda podcast with Adam Curry. The show ran about 1,915 episodes and ended on October 29, 2026, by agreement with the Dvorak family, after his death. He remarked on No Agenda show #600 that he sometimes posted online under the name Mark Pugner. His own website was dvorak.org.
How to Join in 2026
- Get a Usenet account. Eternal September runs a free news server at
news.eternal-september.org; register for a free account at eternal-september.org. Any other provider that carries the alt hierarchy works as well. - Point a newsreader at the server and sign in. Every platform has newsreaders, most of them free.
- Subscribe to alt.fan.john-c-dvorak once the newgroup control message has propagated, and post.
One caution: Google Groups has been read-only for Usenet since February 2024. Its old archives remain readable, but it cannot post and it does not carry new groups.
FAQ
- Is the group moderated?
- No. alt.fan.john-c-dvorak is unmoderated, in the alt tradition.
- Is the group official?
- No. It is an initiative of his readers and listeners. It is not endorsed by the Dvorak family, his estate, or the No Agenda show.
- Why is it not called alt.fan.dvorak?
- Dvorak is also a keyboard layout, designed by August Dvorak, and the short name invites the wrong traffic. The full name says whose group this is.
- Where does keyboard discussion go?
- To the existing keyboard, typing, and ergonomics groups and forums. It is off topic here.
- Can I post photographs, audio, or video to the group?
- Link to them. Binary postings are off topic in a text group, and many servers drop them.
- Who do I contact about this page?
- Chris Abraham, chris@gerriscorp.com. He proposed the group and maintains this page.