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2013, the year of Usenet

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Re: 2013, the year of Usenet

#71

Post by Steuard »

tomphoolery wrote: post #59
LandoCalrissian wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all I thought Usenet was used for at this point.

People still discuss stuff... :) Most people these days know of Usenet as a source for pirated content, but people still do talk there... https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/alt.callahans I always felt like Usenet was slow, and the idea that you'd have to ask the server for new changes (like email) rather than getting them pushed down to you is what I believe "killed" the platform. Plus, Usenet was distributed so…

I never spent any time there, but it warms my heart to hear that alt.callahans is still alive.

My impression of Usenet's death is closely related to your "hard to use" summary: it required people to install and configure a separate client, in an era when many forums were becoming available through the web browser folks already had. (Standalone email clients are far less popular today than they used to be, too. But Usenet didn't remain essential until web interfaces became usable the way that email did.)

Re: 2013, the year of Usenet

#72

Post by mtaubman »

na85 wrote: post #66
jere wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you're probably more knowledgeable about it than me. I was only observing that "things used to be better" is a constant theme and when one has nostalgia for a certain time, it's worth noting that people active then were reminiscing about an even earlier time.

Well sure, but all that seems to indicate to me is that things are always getting worse.

What's changed more over time -- "things" or your perception of them?

Re: 2013, the year of Usenet

#73

Post by stephenaturner »

na85 wrote: post #66
jere wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you're probably more knowledgeable about it than me. I was only observing that "things used to be better" is a constant theme and when one has nostalgia for a certain time, it's worth noting that people active then were reminiscing about an even earlier time.

Well sure, but all that seems to indicate to me is that things are always getting worse.

How about it's just an indicator that people always think things are getting worse.

Every generation is always nostalgic for the time just before the current generation...

Re: 2013, the year of Usenet

#74

Post by dredmorbius »

subsection1h wrote: post #67
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is more-or-less the Usenet of the masses, but without private messaging (and the fact that it's hosted on the World Wide Web).

plonk Reddit doesn't have killfiles. For me, the killfile is Usenet's killer feature.

RES offers "hide user" feature (among many others).

http://www.reddit.com/r/Enhancement/wiki/faq

That's effectively a killfile. Posts are suppressed, and you don't receive notifications.

The ability to tag users (you supply whatever text you want), or friend them (you can find their submissions more easily, but not their comments) are also pretty cool features.

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