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Google’s Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles: Usenet

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Re: Google’s Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles: Usenet

#11

Post by cr0tus »

no, i for one am glad that their usenet offering is "in tatters". many of us said things on usenet in 1994 etc that we would never want search and archived for all time. in 1994 usenet forgot. that was part of its magic. i can say that had i known that one day it would be part of a global search product, i would never have used my real name.

now that people are aware of search, we are aware of how to stay out of search. farming usenet means asking the impossible: asking people in 1994 to act as if all comments would be perpetually searchable

Re: Google’s Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles: Usenet

#13

Post by arithmetic »

shrughes wrote: post #4
hugothefrog wrote: post #2

I used to participate in Usenet a lot, back in the mid 90s. Rather stupidly, I set the no archive header ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-No-Archive ) on all my posts. Now I can only find myself quoted in replies. Shame, really.

Well, I didn't set the X-No-Archive header. And now there's no chance that I'll ever get elected to be President of the United States.

Hmm, look at the glass half full. Someday when you're popular, people will find your Usenet remains and quote you on it. That's cool.

Re: Google’s Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles: Usenet

#15

Post by hugothefrog »

anigbrowl wrote: post #10

The sad thing is that if Google had had the foresight to build in decent browsing, filtering etc., and polish up NNTP a bit, they could own the vast internet message board space, and we would be reading this on alt.hacking.ycombinator or suchlike. It's not that people aren't interested in chatting to each other on the internet, I waste depressingly large quantities of time reading and posting in 5-6 different forums,…

I would much prefer to have all my web message boards available through a single interface, in a single program.

I haven't seen any web message board UI that truly brings something new to the threaded-discussion style that pretty much all the old Usenet clients used.

Which is a shame, really, because I'd much prefer to read blogs via an NNTP reader (I suspect, anyway).

Re: Google’s Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles: Usenet

#16

Post by nostrademons »

anigbrowl wrote: post #10

The sad thing is that if Google had had the foresight to build in decent browsing, filtering etc., and polish up NNTP a bit, they could own the vast internet message board space, and we would be reading this on alt.hacking.ycombinator or suchlike. It's not that people aren't interested in chatting to each other on the internet, I waste depressingly large quantities of time reading and posting in 5-6 different forums,…

There've been a bunch of companies that have tried to do just that - EZBoard comes to mind.

The problem is that individual communities almost always want to control the look & feel of their forums. So as they start growing, they eventually outgrow the hosted, consistent UI and get something like vBulletin that they can customize themselves. The biggest ones end up ditching third-party forums entirely and writing custom software that's integrated with the rest of their site.

Forums are not a natural monopoly - there's no economic reason for one company to "own" them. We have the option of creating a Google Group that's basically alt.hacking.ycombinator with a prettier name. Several hacking groups do just that. But this community is big enough that it has special needs, so news.YC arises naturally anyway.

Re: Google’s Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles: Usenet

#17

Post by zandorg »

Perceval wrote: post #12
zandorg wrote: post #6

Time to take back Usenet and build another archive independently of Google, somehow.

Machiavelli warned Princes about the danger of being an 'unarmed prophet.' He might similarly warn you about being an 'unfunded revolutionary.'

I'm not name dropping, but I have exchanged emails with Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive, and he's taken a couple of my ideas under advisement.

Re: Google’s Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles: Usenet

#18

Post by eli »

e40 wrote: post #5

When google first put the archive online, I could find 100's of posts I made in the 80's. Now, there are a few 10's. At this point, I don't even use the search for old stuff, assuming that the bits have just rotted so much that it's not worth it.

You mean when they first bought out Deja, right?

Re: Google’s Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles: Usenet

#19

Post by eli »

shrughes wrote: post #4
hugothefrog wrote: post #2

I used to participate in Usenet a lot, back in the mid 90s. Rather stupidly, I set the no archive header ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-No-Archive ) on all my posts. Now I can only find myself quoted in replies. Shame, really.

Well, I didn't set the X-No-Archive header. And now there's no chance that I'll ever get elected to be President of the United States.

Same here. Sheesh, remember when we all used to use our full names when posting online?

Re: Google’s Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles: Usenet

#20

Post by bootload »

anigbrowl wrote: post #10

The sad thing is that if Google had had the foresight to build in decent browsing, filtering etc., and polish up NNTP a bit, they could own the vast internet message board space, and we would be reading this on alt.hacking.ycombinator or suchlike. It's not that people aren't interested in chatting to each other on the internet, I waste depressingly large quantities of time reading and posting in 5-6 different forums,…

"... they could own the vast internet message board space, and we would be reading this on alt.hacking.ycombinator or suchlike. ..."

alt.games.programming used to be one such place.

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