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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)

#211

Post by MichaelZuo »

jwr wrote: post #206
jwells89 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the topic of usability, I wonder if perhaps it's a matter of familiarity. I missed the heyday of Usenet by several years and instead landed right in the middle of the phpBB/InvisionBB/vBulletin era, but also made heavy use of RSS/Atom and was curious about other protocols, and so at one point played around with Usenet by way of the Panic client Unison[0]. It might've just been the client (though that'd be surprisi…

No, it is a matter of functionality. Web-based forums are objectively worse. The only thing they have working for them is that you can upload/include images. Otherwise, everything is terrible, beginning with their inability to hide stuff that you've already read. You have to wade in a sea of content every time you visit every forum. Add to this the terrible usability (for example, you only see several posts in a thre…

So the majority of internet users cared more about posting and viewing images then every other downside combined?

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

#212

Post by Technetium »

F-W-M wrote: post #199
the_af wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?!

It's called "Conversation View" and it DOES exist! It's just disabled by default. You can find it in: Settings -> All Settings -> General.

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

#213

Post by the_af »

F-W-M wrote: post #199
the_af wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?!

When they introduced labels they claimed threads were a thing of the past. I didn't even know you could still have them, Google certainly didn't advertise it (since they wanted us to use labels instead).

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

#214

Post by salad-tycoon »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #177
gte525u wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least my journey was more slashdot => digg => reddit. Reddit seemed to really take off when digg self immolated during their redesign.

Add Compuserve => AOL => Newsgroups to the beginning and same.

Fun. Let me try:

cave paintings => petroglyphs => pictograms => writing => printing => telegraph => telephone => wireless radio => television => compuserve => aol => newsgroups => digg => reddit ===> VR=====> neurolink ==========> “quantum ascension”

How’s this? Amazing how things have changed and how little foresight I have to see what comes next.

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

#216

Post by the_af »

wizofaus wrote: post #203
the_af wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So now we have to live with those "forums" Which forums do you mean? Every community I was part of has moved to facebook groups, Reddit or Discord. PhpBB has gone the way of the dodo (regrettably, since those were the "good old days" for me, since I never used usenet).

HN doesn't count?

At least for me, HN is not one of the "old communities" I used to follow; they all predate it.

Also, HN's custom forum software feels significantly different than phpbb and similar forums: no quote blocks, no different fonts and colors, no embedded images, etc.

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