Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#291

Post by sleight42 » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 12:50 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #119

_x14i wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The political views of some of the major developers (tankie, pro-china, castro-profile-picture communists) has put me off lemmy, particularly because they're (allegedly) removing anything critical of Russia/China and promoting genocide denial on their instance.

Whenever someone complains that a certain project or community harbors toxicity or right-wing views, the standard answer on HN is that should't matter, software should be judged strictly on technical merit, not politics. So start up your own instance with blackjack and hookers if you like, federate with whomever you want.

The "standard answer" is to swallow a poison pill. The legacy is problematic and cannot be separated from.

But, then, HN trends Utilitarian in the extreme, with its Libertarian roots.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#292

Post by dylan604 » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 1:51 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #239

dylan604 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bytes limits were overcome by segmenting rar files while including CRCs to overcome incomplete rar sequences. sharing of binaries will always happen. even if it's just to include a cat image (we all know that's not all, but just sayin).

I meant per user monthly or weekly byte limits by the people running servers and allowing access, not message byte limits. I'm well aware of how usenet worked, and the fact they can just split into an arbitrary number of payload messages was the point I was making earlier in that comment. The only way you can stop binary usage is if you limit the demand, as if there's demand the supply will find a way.

yes, limiting the demand has also always never worked. ask the war on drugs how it's doing on limiting the demand

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#293

Post by devilbunny » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 1:55 PM UTC

quesera wrote: post #175

Icathian wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very curious but my search-fu has failed me. What was the requirement? Is there a link or jargon file or something I could read? I love this kind of stuff. Thanks!

To post to a moderated group, you would add an "Approved" header to your post before submitting. The content of the header was not important, just the presence. Equally fun, your "From" address (just another header) was also under your control. So it was fairly trivial to post articles From: anyone, Approved: yes. In this way, it was pretty similar to SMTP email in the same era. Before EHLO and reverse lookups and se…

I know alt.hackers had a similar rule, and even had a testbed group (alt.hackers.test?) you could use to see if you had figured it out without polluting the main feed with test posts.

The FAQ hint was "it's moderated with no moderator". Everything else was up to you.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#294

Post by dontupvoteme » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

indus wrote: post #26

dragontamer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except Reddit moderators deal with these spam issues all the time. Hacker News is run by herculean efforts by the moderation team here, and I appreciate it. I'm ignorant of what their tools are, but I don't think that scales either. Its good for our community, but Hacker News will never be Reddit or Twitter scale. Reddit's model is that moderators basically complain to the Admins that tools are insufficient, then adm…

Basic tech needs to be redone. Assuming moderation can be automated using the recent advancements in AI

A lot of the tech/approaches are already used elsewhere. Some ideas

1. Require university or employer emails to register (Blind uses this). Still post via alias but have a verified root email tied to a person IRL, would really cut down on the trolling and spam and nonsense.. NEETs might be out of luck but, well, their domain is the imageboard and that's not exactly what you want on usenet most of the time..

2. Require some hashcash style calculation to prove the value of a post via computation. Use an algorithm which is ASIC resistant - maybe Ethereum's old PoW?

3. as you mentioned AI - Moderation endpoints, it would be interesting to see if that can be created from LLaMA or such (OpenAI has this available but no reason to become dependent on them). People have mostly been looking at them for generation but as a classifier they also may fit the bill

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#295

Post by dontupvoteme » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

themusicgod1 wrote: post #126

indus wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic tech needs to be redone. Assuming moderation can be automated using the recent advancements in AI

> Assuming moderation can be automated using the recent advancements in AI You're joking right?

https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/moderation/overview

It's not a bad start, but it's missing "trolling/shitposting".

(I'm hardly advocating that people start relying on openai for moderation, rather it would be great if people started figuring out how to do this locally with the tools we have. Their bias against chess players is pretty despicable)

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#296

Post by devilbunny » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 2:31 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #267

joezydeco wrote: post #4

Usenet thrived in a time where most of us trusted each other, traffic was an order of magnitude lighter, trolls were few, spam was unheard of, and moderation - if any - was cheap and painless. I honestly believe those times are past us. And I say that as someone that loved Usenet back in the day. What you're asking for, for free , isn't possible.

I think it can be possible, but only as a closed community of people who have all been vetted first and who, most importantly, can be can be banned for bad behaviour. Setting up such a network might be profitabel (lots of people spend quite a bit of money networking), but it is also going to be very expensive and you are going to get a lot of negative press from people whom you didn't accept and from people who will…

Usenet worked fairly well when you could really only get there by knowing someone. No commercial ISPs, so if you got banned, you really could face penalties at your university (I know because I was a witness at a student trial involving doing things they shouldn't on the Internet - not Usenet specifically - and while it was in no way criminal, the students were sanctioned). And you couldn't just open up a new email account with a new provider and ISP five minutes later.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#297

Post by BizarreByte » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

troad wrote: post #281

BizarreByte wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can still say whatever you want online. This is definitely not true anymore, but if I cite examples I will as always get flagged by people assuming I support said people/communities. The age of being able to say whatever you like online is dead when your ability to even host your own site can be removed.

> This is definitely not true anymore, but if I cite examples I will as always get flagged by people assuming I support said people/communities. You can say whatever you want on servers you control, just as you always could. You can't post obscene or extremist content on other people's mainstream platforms, but that's always been the case. Reddit / Twitter / etc are really no different from AOL / CompuServe / etc dec…

> You can say whatever you want on servers you control, just as you always could.

Increasingly not true, because you can never control all the services you have to use. Servers are one thing, but you still have to rely on ISPs, cert providers, payment processors, and all that other good stuff.

> You can now, as you could always, try to build your own audience

I'm not speaking of Reddit or Twitter, I'm talking about a fairly controversial website, Kiwifarms. That site is proof enough of what I'm claiming.

The internet isn't what it once was and the "create your own" argument ignores the realities of keeping a site online and accessible.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#298

Post by jandrese » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 3:30 PM UTC

beej71 wrote: post #211

jandrese wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The eternal September is living proof that no discussion system can scale without robust moderation. Usenet worked when it was a handful of academics, students, and professionals. Once the average Joe got access it went downhill in a hurry, especially on the groups that had the broadest appeal. rec.music was hopeless, but rec.music.classical.guitar would probably be pretty good. Even Reddit shows this, with the defau…

The only people who would be willing to sign everything and build a web of trust would be a handful of academics, students, and professionals. I wonder if that could act as a gateway.

I think PGP proved that the Web of Trust is not a scalable concept.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#299

Post by joezydeco » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 3:49 PM UTC

b33j0r wrote: post #6

joezydeco wrote: post #4

Usenet thrived in a time where most of us trusted each other, traffic was an order of magnitude lighter, trolls were few, spam was unheard of, and moderation - if any - was cheap and painless. I honestly believe those times are past us. And I say that as someone that loved Usenet back in the day. What you're asking for, for free , isn't possible.

I fear you might be right. But somehow, HN is a counter-example? I rarely even see a bad joke, because we’re a self-selected sample of people who care about the edges of professional computing. So I say, why not?

IMO the key adavantage HN/Reddit has over Usenet is the upvoting/downvoting, which is a clever form of self-moderation. Doesn't work in all cases but the less useful comments and posts never rise to the top.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#300

Post by joezydeco » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 3:52 PM UTC

ulfw wrote: post #270

joezydeco wrote: post #4

Usenet thrived in a time where most of us trusted each other, traffic was an order of magnitude lighter, trolls were few, spam was unheard of, and moderation - if any - was cheap and painless. I honestly believe those times are past us. And I say that as someone that loved Usenet back in the day. What you're asking for, for free , isn't possible.

You haven't used Usenet mate if you think "spam was unheard of". Honestly.

The Green Card spam was considered the start of Usenet spam, and that was 1994. I was on Usenet for a good 7-8 years before that. Things were different back then.