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

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

#321

Post by criticall »

mistermann wrote: post #311
criticall wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using AI LLM NoSQL low code 4G 6S chain based solution. Use LLM for summary. Then add a critical comment. Then generate summary again. If summary is influenced by comment, and comment is on topic, then comment is critical.

What definitions are you using for "critical" and "critical thinking" here?

(Not a native speaker) It was a joke. I mean that if summary of [original text + message] is different than summary of [original text], then message impacts original text in a major way. This can be used to differentiate impactful messages from nit-picking. For example, every message on HN can be evaluated for it impact on discussion using AI to found hidden infuencers implanted by an alien civilization or by Russians.

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

#322

Post by qznc »

TylerE wrote: post #84
qznc wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federation makes it easier for users to join. If you don’t need that, there are plenty self-hosted alternatives. For example, HN itself.

How exactly? Ever federated project has all this faff about "which instance should I use?". How is that possibly easier .44

Here is how the comparison looks to me: Assume you are a HN user and you heard about this interesting lobsters community.

Case 1: Different website, create an account there.

Case 2: ActivityPub vision, search for !lobsters, click join

Case 3: ActivityPub now, go to website, copy URL into your own instance, search returns nothing, try again minutes later, join.

I fully agree that Lemmy is currently not easier (case 3). Users understand multiple accounts (case 1) but managing accounts, they do not. I belief eventually the Fediverse will be easiest (case 2).

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

#323

Post by qznc »

sleight42 wrote: post #290
qznc wrote: post #65

https://join-lemmy.org/ Lemmy is a federated Reddit clone. It already works and is available. As far as I know currently the best alternative. Please, join a smaller instance currently. The biggest ones are already overloaded.

No. It is developed and run by tankies. This is a poison pill. See https://mstdn.social/@feditips/106835057054633379

Lemmy is evil because the devs host lemmy.ml and it links to the lemmygrad.ml instance which is evil? Too indirect an argument for me.

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

#324

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#325

Post by [deleted] »

sumedh wrote: post #236
_x14i wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the average person also doesn't know the website exists. You have a few layers of public knowledge: Twitter, Facebook, etc - everyone knows them. Reddit, Discord HN, presumably other domain-specific forums, IRC Fediverse (though less so as of late), lobste.rs, presumably many that I don't know about!

How do I get an invite to lobste.rs

[deleted]

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

#326

Post by bckr »

joveian wrote: post #310
bckr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why don’t we just build stuff on top of email?

There are still a number of discussion email lists around. Riseup hosts a bunch of them for example: https://lists.riseup.net/www/ One issue is that many email providers aren't really maintaining their system and can't always reliably send mail in the ways needed for spam tracking, even though DMARC is over a decade old at this point. The large providers seem to randomly classify mail as spam at times, which also doe…

Wow thank you!

So my idea is basically an alternate front end for email that would act as a social media platform.

Spam theoretically could be handled by filtering out any messages that aren’t from a list of users, which might be all platform users, verified users, or users within the network of the recipient.

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

#327

Post by e40 »

dn3500 wrote: post #102
e40 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was spam, for sure. There were also "kill files" for readers, which were immensely helpful in removing trolls from your stream. And there were some epic trolls, back in the day. Xah Lee comes to mind. He actually has an interesting website ( http://xahlee.info/ ), which I found recently when searching for a solution to an elisp problem. Yes, he was a troll on comp.lang.lisp.

Usenet started in 1980 and the first spam didn't appear until 1994.

Kill files were useful before 1994, as I used them to filter out obnoxious people, some of whom were trolls.

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

#328

Post by joveian »

bckr wrote: post #326
joveian wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are still a number of discussion email lists around. Riseup hosts a bunch of them for example: https://lists.riseup.net/www/ One issue is that many email providers aren't really maintaining their system and can't always reliably send mail in the ways needed for spam tracking, even though DMARC is over a decade old at this point. The large providers seem to randomly classify mail as spam at times, which also doe…

Wow thank you! So my idea is basically an alternate front end for email that would act as a social media platform. Spam theoretically could be handled by filtering out any messages that aren’t from a list of users, which might be all platform users, verified users, or users within the network of the recipient.

Working on the client sounds good too! Your anti-spam idea would work for one use case of social media, friends and family keeping in touch, but as soon as some of the participants don't know each other that is not enough. Even using regular email you can't primarily rely on email providers to manage spam since they will block the list if there is too much spam, although initial moderation of new list members should often be sufficient. Encrypting the email to the recipient might or might not help with deliverability (but would be a good idea for privacy), but if it does that would make your system more attractive to spammers.

Reliably seeing all messages that your friends and family (or anyone you follow) post would be a big advantage vs many current social media sites but regular email providers would defeat that by randomly sending messages to spam (which you could fix if you provide the client) or rejecting or disappearing them (which you can't).

I think an email provider that aimed at the "keeping in touch with friends and famnily" side of social media might be able to do small-scale well. I think a big part of the issue with email is that most of the end user providers seem to view email as something they must provide but not something they care about, only the marketing/transaction email providers actually care about it with few exceptions (and those exceptions seem to still be stuck in the past; it is depressingly difficult to find a provider with a reasonable set of features even based on what could easily be provided today).

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

#329

Post by Danathar »

safety1st wrote: post #225
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).

These days I think that isn't true anymore. There are a lot more ways to share files now, so if you threw up enough barriers people who want to do it would just go find another platform. I'd be completely fine with a Usenet type of protocol that disallows file attachments altogether, adoption might not be huge, but maybe that's fine - projects like Gemini and Mastodon are valuable for me even if they're not replacing…

I agree with this. Why go to all the trouble of getting around barriers when I could just post a DHT address of a trackerless BitTorrent swarm in a post?

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

#330

Post by anacrolix »

Danathar wrote: post #329
safety1st wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days I think that isn't true anymore. There are a lot more ways to share files now, so if you threw up enough barriers people who want to do it would just go find another platform. I'd be completely fine with a Usenet type of protocol that disallows file attachments altogether, adoption might not be huge, but maybe that's fine - projects like Gemini and Mastodon are valuable for me even if they're not replacing…

I agree with this. Why go to all the trouble of getting around barriers when I could just post a DHT address of a trackerless BitTorrent swarm in a post?

https://github.com/anacrolix/btlink
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