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Trying to find some life on the Usenet (2020)

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Re: Trying to find some life on the Usenet (2020)

#191

Post by dredmorbius »

amiga386 wrote: post #187
dredmorbius wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It got spammed to death. 2. It lost control over its culture, and that culture was crucial to its functioning. 3. It was too problematic for ISPs (or others) to provide ready access to it: spam, harassment, child pornography, and copyright violations all posed massive concerns. 4. There was no viable business model for providing the service. https://web.archive.org/web/20230603024330/https://old.reddi... > (I'm au…

If you were to ask Usenet at the time, they would chiefly cite the eternal September (which you do mention in your article), although, clearly, it kept going for longer than that. Perhaps the eternal September is just one of the contributing factors to losing control of its shared culture and values? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

Usenet as the principle locus of online group discussion phased out ... within a few years of the Eternal September. I'd argue that the shine was clearly off somewhere in the 1997--1999 timeline, which is roughly when the first discussion sites such as Slashdot emerged.

Transitions aren't instantaneous, and aren't always clearly visible at the time. (Look at, say, the present ... evolution ... of Birdsite, The Front Page of the Internet, and the StackExchange empire.) But in retrospect inflection points become more clear.

(This is pretty much a constant in all of history, with eras, transitions, and labeling of these coming years, occasionally centuries, after the events themselves.)

The Eternal September was one of a growing onslaught of insults to Usenet which it ultimately succumbed to. Not instantly, but in time, and inevitably.

Re: Trying to find some life on the Usenet (2020)

#192

Post by Parker51 »

Sample .newsrc file for recommended newsgroups:

  alt.computer.workshop:
  alt.culture.usenet:
  alt.fan.usenet:
  alt.folklore.computers:
  alt.obituaries:
  alt.os.linux.slackware:
  alt.privacy:
  alt.tv.simpsons:
  ba.broadcast:
  comp.ai:
  comp.arch:
  comp.compilers:
  comp.dcom.telecom:
  comp.infosystems.gemini:
  comp.infosystems.gopher:
  comp.lang.c++:
  comp.lang.c:
  comp.lang.forth:
  comp.lang.misc:
  comp.lang.perl.misc:
  comp.lang.postscript:
  comp.lang.python.announce:
  comp.lang.python:
  comp.lang.raspberry-pi:
  comp.lang.tcl:
  comp.misc:
  comp.mobile.android:
  comp.mobile.misc:
  comp.os.cpm:
  comp.os.linux.announce:
  comp.os.linux.misc:
  comp.risks:
  comp.sys.apple2:
  comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action:
  comp.text.tex:
  comp.unix.shell:
  comp.windows.x:
  gnu.emacs.help:
  misc.legal.moderated:
  misc.news.internet.discuss:
  misc.taxes.moderated:
  news.admin.moderation:
  news.announce.important:
  news.announce.newgroups:
  news.groups.proposals:
  news.groups:
  news.software.readers:
  rec.arts.drwho:
  rec.arts.movies.current-films:
  rec.arts.sf.tv:
  rec.arts.sf.written:
  rec.autos.sport.f1:
  rec.aviation.soaring:
  rec.bicycles.tech:
  rec.food.cooking:
  rec.games.backgammon:
  rec.music.beatles:
  rec.music.classical.recordings:
  rec.music.opera:
  rec.radio.amateur.antenna:
  rec.radio.amateur.boatanchors:
  rec.radio.amateur.equipment:
  rec.radio.amateur.homebrew:
  rec.radio.amateur.misc:
  rec.radio.amateur.moderated:
  rec.radio.amateur.policy:
  rec.radio.amateur.space:
  rec.radio.info:
  rec.radio.shortwave:
  rec.sport.rowing:
  rec.woodworking:
  sci.astro:
  sci.electronics.design:
  sci.electronics.repair:
  sci.logic:
  sci.physics.relativity:
  sci.physics.research:
  talk.origins:
  uk.comp.sys.mac:
  uk.radio.amateur.moderated:
  uk.rec.sheds:
  uk.sci.weather:

Re: Trying to find some life on the Usenet (2020)

#193

Post by Parker51 »

readingnews wrote: post #146
the_af wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, interesting. To be clear, I also meant for specific communities: like for specific hobbies or tabletop games, or niche interests. They've all abandoned forums and, regrettably, moved on to Facebook or Discord. I'll never understand why they choose Discord, a closed chat platform, for forum type discussions. At this point I feel like Quixote tilting at the wind mills.

I am not so sure they all went FB/Discord, some I use(d) for example: https://www.watchuseek.com/ https://www.rolexforums.com/ https://www.audioasylum.com/ https://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/ https://el34world.com/Forum/index.php (A simple machines forum, this guy has been here forever, and he wrote his entire online shop himself) https://www.civicx.com There are a LOT of niche forums out there that are not FB/D…

https://www.qrz.com/

Re: Trying to find some life on the Usenet (2020)

#194

Post by fomine3 »

MysteryChessBox wrote: post #173
glimshe wrote: post #31

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…

Is this place really ugly though? I've always found this trend of claiming a website is ugly if it's content dense or minimalistic to be a bit disturbing. It does sound more like preference than anything else, I don't see anything wrong with what I perceive to be a clean design.

not ugly but unfriendly for mobile.

Re: Trying to find some life on the Usenet (2020)

#195

Post by rglullis »

bluGill wrote: post #190
rglullis wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right. Millions of years of evolution, thousands of mammal species, but none of them really could feed properly until Homo Sapiens came around with a proper "nursing 101" class and invented baby formula. Life would be impossible without it. (I do my best to avoid snarky responses, but do you realize how your comment amounts to pointless pontification?)

Evolution works for survival, at some point it 'decided' that since humans can teach other we don't need the instinct anymore. If you study at all you will find plenty of similar things across many different species.

Where is the study that teaches you to take a hint and stop with the midwit pontification?

What do you get by "Well actually"-ing me on a completely innocuous aphorism?

Re: Trying to find some life on the Usenet (2020)

#196

Post by dsr_ »

mavhc wrote: post #104
dsr_ wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/CyberShadow/DFeed README: DFeed is: an NNTP client a mailing list archive a forum-like web interface an ATOM aggregator an IRC bot

That seems to turn usenet into a forum

It's a multilegged bridge: any of the two-way methods are views and updates into the same dataset.

Re: Trying to find some life on the Usenet (2020)

#197

Post by mplewis »

rglullis wrote: post #195
bluGill wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution works for survival, at some point it 'decided' that since humans can teach other we don't need the instinct anymore. If you study at all you will find plenty of similar things across many different species.

Where is the study that teaches you to take a hint and stop with the midwit pontification? What do you get by "Well actually"-ing me on a completely innocuous aphorism?

Take it easy.

Re: Trying to find some life on the Usenet (2020)

#198

Post by boffinAudio »

zoky wrote: post #121
boffinAudio wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember turning on the modem bank of an ISP I helped build back in the day, with great anticipation to learn what the newcomers to the Internet were going to be doing with that amazingly fast new T1 line I'd slaved to get installed, only to discover after 3 weeks of logging that 95% of that fast connection was just being used to download porn, from our USENET server. Things haven't changed much since then.

Bro be acting like the motivation for getting the T1 installed in the first place wasn’t for porn… Remember what the Internet is for, after all.

The T1 was for the customers. The 128k Ricochet modems were for me. ;)

Re: Trying to find some life on the Usenet (2020)

#199

Post by F-W-M »

the_af wrote: post #138
throw0101b wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cool! I didn't know threaded conversations were a concept from usenet. Usenet and e-mail. Both message formats supported referencing the message being replied to since the early days: * https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc822#section-4.6 * https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc850#section-2.2.6 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversation_threading

I wrote a lengthy reply and then deleted it because I realized that I too used threaded email conversations. I think I forgot about them because Gmail doesn't have them, and it's been ages since I used Eudora or Thunderbird. (Or text-only Pine, but I honestly cannot remember if it showed threads).

GMail does not support threads?!

Re: Trying to find some life on the Usenet (2020)

#200

Post by F-W-M »

jwr wrote: post #48

I don't think the OP actually used Usenet back in the day. 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 si…

forum.dlang.org is NNTP with e-mail and forum interface.
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