20220625-lohmann_and_bitreich.txt
I have mixed feelings about Christoph Lohmann. He is the maintainer of
Bitreich and is a staunch supporter of gopher. That's all well and
good, but he has a few fatal flaws which I'll discuss here.

A year or two ago (2020, IIRC), he posted racebait in the Gopher
mailing list, which predictably was met with a flurry of messages. It
was meant as a sort of parody of Western civilization and racist
stereotypes, but it really wasn't the right place for it. It led to
him being suspended from the list for several weeks/months. I thought
that was a bit harsh and the guy leading the charge for the ban was
just a bit too serious about it. I'm not sure if he's returned to
actually posting in the mailing list or not. I think not, but that
mailing list isn't the most active. I can understand both sides, but
to me it was not the right place to post that.

Another issue I have with him is Bitreich itself. The gopher hole is
good except for a few things: Lohmann is obsessed with nonsensical
parody to the point where it's repellent. First, the http version of
the site is tilted at a 45deg angle. I mean I realize he doesn't want
people to use the website, but it's really not helpful or a good
introduction to Bitreich or Gopher. There's information on how to get
to the gopher server, but you have to load it in a browser that
doesn't implement CSS. The gopher server itself is filled with jokes
about how the WWW is spyware and surveillance. I mean he's not wrong,
but can't we just get to the GD point? This leads me to my next issue:
he's not keeping it simple.

Because of his unceasing "jokes" and "pranks", Bitreich isn't all that
minimalistic. Yes, it's still a gopher server, but it's one that has
too much useless junk on it. Floodgap, by comparison, is more
organized and clearly has a "Fun & Games" section. It seems like every
other link is some stupid joke that only Lohmann would find overly
humorous, like the VLA agreement. Yes, you don't like license
agreements and other needless complexity that infests the WWW. We get
it. Cool story, bro. Can I find something on Bitreich that is actually
useful now?

He's also not as knowledgable as one might think. He did a radio
interview in 2018[0] talking about Gopher and Bitreich, but in it he
says Gopher was created at MIT. This is a serious error and is
repeated at least once. MIT, of course, is the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. Their mascot is a beaver, not a gopher. UMN (University
of Minnesota) is where Gopher started. It's like thinking the Statue
of Liberty is in London.

It really is a shame. He clearly has some good ideas but they just
seem overpowered or at least obscured by the bad ones. I like the
Bitreich Manifesto. I like the Hacker Manifesto (written by The
Mentor). I love Keep It Simple Perfect. I do. I just don't see that
reflected in Bitreich's gopherhole, and it's a shame.


0. gopher://Bitreich.org/0/press/radio-interview-2018/english.txt