[Sca-cooks] Speaking of the Rialto ...

[Harris Mark.S-rsve60]

Olwen asked:
>>--- Stefan li Rous StefanliRous at austin.rr.com wrote:
>>  > I did recently hear on the Rialto
>>
>>So, Stefan, do you know where it is and how I can
>>subscribe to it?
>
>The Rialto is rec.org.sca.  If you don't have a news feed, go to google and 
>click "groups".
>
>Ranvaig

What is the Rialto?
<<<<<<<
As mentioned above, the Rialto is the rec.org.sca newsgroup. Newsgroups reside on a series of servers and allow you to download and view the messages in a topic area which is on the server. Very similar to mail lists, although a bit more distributed. Mail lists tend to be run from a single server and mail each message or a digest of collected messages out to those on their subscription list. Newsgroup messages are available at any time you log in, at least those that haven't been purged from the newsgroup machine to clear out space. There are advantages and disadvantages of each type.

At one time, the Rialto was about the only SCA internet based communication medium. There were similar newsgroups on the Fidonet and similar networks. On the Internet there was only the Rialto and a SCA heralds newsgroup. The Rialto predates my joining the SCA in 1988 by a year or two. Shortly after that they debated starting more specialized newsgroups but it never happened. Around 1993 or so the number of SCA mailing lists started to expand exponentially. Unfortunately or not, now there are so many that much of the neat stuff never gets seen by most folks.  At one time the Rialto was getting hundreds of new messages a day. Now it gets 10 to 50.

The folks on the Rialto came up with the name, so that they could obliquely refer to the newsgroup at SCA events without being blatantly modern. The Rialto was and is a bridge in Venice. It was quite a gathering place in medieval times and a lot of gossip and news was communicated there. Folks thought this was thus an appropriate name for the newsgroup. This allowed the folks on the newsgroup to ask things like "What have you heard on the Rialto lately?" without jarring the mood around them. At one time there was a belt token of a scrap of netting worn by the folks of the Rialto and there were one or two gatherings, similar to our SCA-Cooks gatherings, at Pennsic.

Much of the early stuff in the Florilegium came from the Rialto and the Fidonet medieval group. In fact, my friend who hosts the Florilegium website, Jeff Rush, was the one who wrote the original fidonet protocols to create and support that nets newsgroups. Jeff occasionally goes to the Barony of the Steppes events (Dallas).

Stefan