Welcome! (Céad míle fáilte!)
Kevin's Pub is a virtual pub - a meeting place on the web. It was designed to mimic an actual pub, which can be difficult to find in Texas. Not a singles bar, not a disco, a pub - a quiet place to have a pint and a conversation. As in a real pub, there will be discussions, arguments and pints of Guinness. That was the original mission statement in 1994 or thereabouts. Almost instantly after creation (well, within a few years), I realized that a mailing list would be a more appropriate venue for a virtual pub, so the mailing list was created. (Please join - it's very quiet.)
Kevin's Pub grew out of Kevin's Tab - an actual bar tab at an actual bar - The British Rose Pub in Dallas. After work, any number of my co-workers from IntellAgent Control (RIP) would converge there to discuss the day's work. The waitress would always require a name to run a tab, and people learned to just say "Kevin", since the waitress required a name she remembered, but apparently did not need to actually see the person in question. (I'm not sure how I was elected as the common name, but my name was used whether I was there or not. As I have never received a statement, I assume the tab was paid or written off. Given the size of some of the tabs I was a part of, I would assume "written off" would not have been an option.)
So, the first version of the mailing list was "Kevin's Tab" which I realized pretty quickly didn't make much sense as a name, so it became Kevin's Pub. It was to be a vital lifeline connecting us as we fled the IAC implosion, except that most of us didn't really need a lifeline, since nobody really paid attention to the people who left - they were too busy trying to escape themselves.
There are still some of my co-workers on the mailing list today, but they are very quiet. In fact, the list is very quiet. Why would you send email to a bunch of people when you can just write something on their Facebook wall?
Maybe I should move Kevin's Pub to Facebook.
Interestingly, my manager at the time used Kevin's Pub as an example of a metaphor - that was one of his keywords at the time - and would tirelessly use it to explain to anyone who would listen that a metaphor was a way to project the real world onto the web. I never did mention that I had already found a mailing list to be a much better metaphor for a pub, even if it was not real-time. I suppose a mailing list pub is a lot like playing chess by mail. So, a metaphor for a substitute, as it were. |