41–50 of 217 posts
> The most similar thing to newsgroups today is Reddit, and I really enjoy following some communities. Which in turn will die and give way to Lemmy (generally ActivityPub).
Having a blast on Tildes (Y) though.
I never did get into Usenet but the internet in the nineties and before was like that.
Your online niche was a bubble of private elitism and secret joy that people wondered about, but never knew. You were ensconced and free. People were amazed and curious about the images and magical pull into the future, that people who knew how to work computers, could access in front of them.
Your arcane knowledge of (what is now basic and made easy for us) connecting to the internet and plunging into this otherwordly language of buttons and code words... a different time. Contrasted to your father who wore a suit and tie to work at the bank and read the newspaper, and lived through the invention of the Television set.
You didn't need a reason to shout into what we now call an echochamber, it held all the hope and promise of working out to some unknown magical end anyway.
Is there more to the thread, actually looking at all 65k groups or a fair sample of them? Where can one find it?
First the BBSs, then Usenet... I think that one good thing from these services was the relatively high barrier of entry. Today, online services are all about low friction signup, which makes a lot of sense in the highly competitive Internet of 2023. But when computers were somewhat niche and you really had to figure out how to get things working, users were a lot more committed and thus the quality of discussions was…
However, there is another part of me that is glad this new Internet is so much more accessable. Don't get me wrong, I abhor the pervasive marketing, corporate fingers in everyrhing, and all the bloat that comes with it, but if I just focus on the fact that so many more people are even getting a mild, watered-down taste of why I love computers so much, that makes me a bit happy. Computers connect us, and during a crucial time in my life where I was feeling woefully disconnect from my peers (socially excluded, perhaps?) the BBS and newsgroup communities were there to welcome me.
First the BBSs, then Usenet... I think that one good thing from these services was the relatively high barrier of entry. Today, online services are all about low friction signup, which makes a lot of sense in the highly competitive Internet of 2023. But when computers were somewhat niche and you really had to figure out how to get things working, users were a lot more committed and thus the quality of discussions was…
Ignoring the hellthreads, the technical content here is pretty mid these days. The last year has been rough on this site. It's like reading a combination of r/linux and r/rust, a sort of nuance free assertion of FOSS-heavy technical preferences. If that's the echo chamber that you enjoy go for it, but even on Matrix I find a lot deeper content than here, let alone some Discords and smaller forums. What I do appreciate is the breadth on some more niche technical content (J and APL threads come to mind.) But IMO the glory days here are gone.
Social forums seem to "collapse" a few ways: die (like Usenet, many old IRC channels), calcify (many older forums I'm in, Lobsters), or become an echo chamber (Subreddits, this place.) I guess Eternal September comes for us all.
First the BBSs, then Usenet... I think that one good thing from these services was the relatively high barrier of entry. Today, online services are all about low friction signup, which makes a lot of sense in the highly competitive Internet of 2023. But when computers were somewhat niche and you really had to figure out how to get things working, users were a lot more committed and thus the quality of discussions was…
You filed an "request for discussion" and if approved, there would be a discussion for a month or so. Then you'd file a "call for votes" and people would email their votes to a mailbox and there would need to be two thirds in favour.
If not, just curious, what was the last newsgroup to be created this way?
The alt.* groups were always mostly a cesspool, there were very few usable ones past roughly 1995. The comp.* hierarchy was rather good and that's where the action was.
I feel sorry that USENET is gone. The experience of using a good NNTP newsreader was way way better than the terrible phpBB forums that supplanted it. And the next generation of programmers simply copied the phpBB ideas because they've never seen anything better. So now we have to live with those "forums" where you can't find anything, and you have to wade through screenfuls of decoration just to see any content at all.
What was also really good was that you had a single interface for accessing multiple groups. That's something we lost: if I have multiple interests today, I have to register for multiple "boards/forums", each one with different software, and I have to go around and check them all for new posts. That quickly gets problematic and tedious if you are interested in more than two things.
I have a nagging feeling that we've dumbed things down terribly.
What if they were spies in the field, exchanging coded messages? Like posting classified ads in newspapers, it's one of those places nobody will look at.
Or, they could all be Putinistas talking to each other, justifying their job of spreading propaganda. "Hey boss, I posted 3k messages just this month! Worth a few more rubles, right?!"
Or they could be experiments, AIs talking to AIs. That's the most cyberpunk explanation, and Usenet being a '90s thing, it's hence the most likely.