Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#261

Post by rainonmoon » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 7:33 AM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #243

rainonmoon wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just join one. Portability is inherent to the software. If you don't like it, move to another one.

Yea, extra steps. Confusion. Uncertainty. The exact opposite of easier.

Registering for a website is not something most people find so mystifying. Short of being willfully obtuse, I would imagine most people who express discontent with online communities could exert the most cursory of efforts to understand how to do it. Typically it involves visiting a URL and then typing in an email address and a password. Please pass this on if you come across anyone struggling to comprehend it.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#262

Post by PMunch » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 7:35 AM UTC

mildred593 wrote: post #259

The issue with moderation is that not everyone agrees. Moderation should be plug-in and multilayer. Everyone should be able to choose which moderation they trust or distrust. Full p2p is technically complicated and does not work well for small devices not always connected, we should keep servers to host the discussions. The servers should be able to subscribe to a moderation. You don't want to host a discussion illeg…

I've been toying with similar ideas lately (haven't we all..) and I was thinking of also making user identities distributed. Or rather you create your identity, for example a DID, locally like an SSH key. Then similar to trusted lists of banned users you would also have trusted lists of verified users. So if I want to be verified I have to find a trusted verifier and complete their process (e.g. captcha and an email, or even a full passport check). This would also allow connecting accounts to actual people across the system.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#263

Post by psyfi » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 7:51 AM UTC

Why not email groups? (also known as mailing lists)

Email groups are still actively used, provides pretty much same user experience usenet provides, can be decentralized (federated), easier to filter spam, can apply moderation (approve contributions before publishing) and all of us already use email for a reason or another.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#264

Post by rainonmoon » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 7:55 AM UTC

forgetfreeman wrote: post #255

rainonmoon wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's part of the history books now. Ben Tarnoff's Internet for the People is a bracing but very accessible history of this and the potential futures we let slide off the table. Highly recommended reading.

Let slide my ass, they were intentionally yanked off the table by monied interests. I distinctly remember my reaction the first time I encountered an actual honest-to-fuck ad campaign in an online space. Shock, followed my a grudging smirk at the novelty of it, followed by months of concerned chatter among the "netizens" I interacted with about what it would mean for the web if advertising or any other form of money…

By "we let slide" I don't just mean the initial privatisation of the internet or the web, which I agree -- it's hard to imagine any citizen was in a position to change that against the interests motivating it. Instead I mean the ensuing 30 years in which we've constantly ignored the warnings and analysis of e.g. civil society about the dangers of surveillance and data acquisition, devaluation and diminishing of trust in the fourth estate, labour exploitation and consolidation around platform capitalism, etc. because the toys those privatising forces offered were too shiny. At every point we've had a chance to say: no thank you. Or to build slowly and with consideration instead of aligned to the profit motive. Well, you can see it in this thread: we're at one of those points now but ostensibly well-informed people are begging for more software-companies-as-benevolent-dictators. We have a chance to channel the current energy of frustration into a new generation of the web guided by a focus on values like community ownership. Unfortunately the responses of many of my fellow technologists don't inspire much hope! But I still believe we can yank a few of those things back.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#265

Post by kkarakk » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 7:59 AM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #188

e40 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was spam, for sure. There were also "kill files" for readers, which were immensely helpful in removing trolls from your stream. And there were some epic trolls, back in the day. Xah Lee comes to mind. He actually has an interesting website ( http://xahlee.info/ ), which I found recently when searching for a solution to an elisp problem. Yes, he was a troll on comp.lang.lisp.

Xah Lee falls into the "kook" rather than "troll" category. He was (is?) interested and engaged in the topics. I don't have the impression that he aimed to disrupt, or yank people's chains.

The group's tolerance for a troll defines the term.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#266

Post by mcluck » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:04 AM UTC

rainonmoon wrote: post #261

TylerE wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, extra steps. Confusion. Uncertainty. The exact opposite of easier.

Registering for a website is not something most people find so mystifying. Short of being willfully obtuse, I would imagine most people who express discontent with online communities could exert the most cursory of efforts to understand how to do it. Typically it involves visiting a URL and then typing in an email address and a password. Please pass this on if you come across anyone struggling to comprehend it.

Getting into a federated space brings a lot of questions for normal people. Why this instance? Why not this instance? Can I only join one? What if my friends join a different one? This one only has 100 people, is it weird if I join? This one has 1,000,000 million, isn't that basically Reddit/Twitter/whatever?

These are the sorts of questions that come to mind for normal people. By the time they've asked this pile of questions they've already decided it's not worth the hassle of finding the answers

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#267

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:15 AM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #4

Usenet thrived in a time where most of us trusted each other, traffic was an order of magnitude lighter, trolls were few, spam was unheard of, and moderation - if any - was cheap and painless. I honestly believe those times are past us. And I say that as someone that loved Usenet back in the day. What you're asking for, for free , isn't possible.

I think it can be possible, but only as a closed community of people who have all been vetted first and who, most importantly, can be can be banned for bad behaviour.

Setting up such a network might be profitabel (lots of people spend quite a bit of money networking), but it is also going to be very expensive and you are going to get a lot of negative press from people whom you didn't accept and from people who will point out that you are discriminating against certain groups because your user demographics over or underrepresents certain groups.

It is never a nice job to be the one who has to man the walls, and it is not glamorous, but no Constantinople without the Theodosian Walls.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#268

Post by valeg » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:18 AM UTC

80s nostalgia never ends. Usenet was cool back then, now it's dead. Not lindy. I prefer online forums. Web forums allow rich and structured content. There is an app, Tapatalk, if you crave reddit-like experience. The UX of some old-school engines is not the best but online forums are way more approachable and manageable than Usenet ever was.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#269

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:31 AM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #148

Hyolobrika wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you forbid it?

You make it socially unacceptable to run a server that emits spam. You make it socially unacceptable to work for a company that emits spam. At an interview: "OK, I see you worked for an oil company, right, and then a porn company, fine -- oh, you worked for a spammer. Sorry, we're done. I don't know how this happened, I'll need to talk to HR about their filters."

The problem with that is to agree on what is acceptable social behaviour.

Trust me, lots of places would have issues with oil companies, others with porn and so one.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?

#270

Post by ulfw » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 9:03 AM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #4

Usenet thrived in a time where most of us trusted each other, traffic was an order of magnitude lighter, trolls were few, spam was unheard of, and moderation - if any - was cheap and painless. I honestly believe those times are past us. And I say that as someone that loved Usenet back in the day. What you're asking for, for free , isn't possible.

You haven't used Usenet mate if you think "spam was unheard of". Honestly.