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Looming Groupocalypse: The Google Groupsspaggheddon Cometh

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Re: Looming Groupocalypse: The Google Groupsspaggheddon Cometh

#31

Post by mcv »

gerikson wrote: post #20
rightbyte wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't being a Reddit clone the point though?

Reddit recreated the social structure of Usenet. Shared infrastructure, but the subreddits managed themselves. Topics, threads... all similar to Usenet. Better multimedia support, of course. Even the phenomenon of anonymous posters (because accounts didn't require an email for a long time), flames, crossposting... all very like usenet.

The one thing Reddit didn't copy from usenet was the decentralisation. In that sense, I guess Lemmy is a step forward.

Re: Looming Groupocalypse: The Google Groupsspaggheddon Cometh

#32

Post by giancarlostoro »

splitbrain wrote: post #30

Wait. I'm confused. Google Groups was still interfacing with the Usenet? In a way that one could post to Usenet via Google Groups? I never knew that! I thought they were only hosting a read-only archive based on what they acquired with DejaNews. And I seem to recall a post about that having been discontinued... So this was somehow secretly all still alive? Damn.

Even so… now you cant even read it. Say goodbye to many historic messages like Linus announcing his Kernel, and many dead links on the web.

Re: Looming Groupocalypse: The Google Groupsspaggheddon Cometh

#33

Post by usrusr »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #12
RileyJames wrote: post #10

I’ve heard of Usenet, but never used it. It was once (maybe ~15 years ago) advertised as an alternative to torrents, but I don’t get the vibe that’s the primary use case. What can I do with Usenet? The internet has become so boring, I’d be open to exploring something else, but I’ve got no idea what Usenet is.

I'm open to correction, but I believe it's essentially a bunch of email lists. You can post to rec.games.roguelike.angband, your message will go to a server somewhere (theoretically, to every Usenet provider), and people who want to discuss, or read discussion of, Angband, can ask that server for the set of messages associated with rec.games.roguelike.angband. So email, if you sent mail to topics rather than to recip…

I've always assumed (never looked into it) that the protocol itself has little in common with SMTP. But the constraints of text-only messages (email before html formatting took hold), email address as user ID and client software that used the same UI for both (Netscape Navigator!) certainly made it feel like very much the same thing. Mailing lists, but more federated than irc.

One difference to mailing lists of more recent times, besides technological differences, is that there was more of a sense of shared culture across groups. Groups certainly differed (some topics might have even had parallel groups in regular and in alt.* hierarchies?), but not even remotely as much as mailing lists differ. Certainly more free for all babble (because it was) than the more moderated or even announcement-only end of the mailing list spectrum that is enabled by their centralised nature.

Re: Looming Groupocalypse: The Google Groupsspaggheddon Cometh

#34

Post by BryantD »

fmajid wrote: post #14

I stopped using Usenet a long time ago but the Google Usenet archive has posts of mine from the 90s that are not in Henry Spencer’s archive. Is someone’s backing up Google’s archive or should I start scraping their pages to have a backup?

Note https://archive.org/details/usenet?tab=collection -- I haven't reviewed it so I don't have a take on how complete it is, but the archive team there tends to be fairly completist.

Re: Looming Groupocalypse: The Google Groupsspaggheddon Cometh

#35

Post by layer8 »

fergie wrote: post #23

Practical question: How do you browse and search in mailing lists without Google Groups?

Traditionally if you're subscribed to a mailing list you'd basically have your own local archive of it and use your email client for search. If you wanted to incorporate messages from before you joined the list, you'd ask some old-timer to send you their mbox archive.

Public/centralized archives as the sibling notes became common at some point, though usability is generally worse than with an email client (at least the power-user ones).

Re: Looming Groupocalypse: The Google Groupsspaggheddon Cometh

#36

Post by fluidcruft »

rightbyte wrote: post #18
blashyrk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Lemmy for a bit and found it to be nothing more than a tiny Reddit clone. And I don't mean just the software aspect of it, rather the content and moderation.

Wasn't being a Reddit clone the point though?

Discoverability and fragmentation seem to be the problems on Lemmy. Groups are small (not really a problem, the smaller subreddits with active and engaged people are better IMHO) but it's really difficult and high-effort for groups to form. Reddit did seem to have that part working well. I think people have gone into Discord (which sucks/I cannot stand).

Re: Looming Groupocalypse: The Google Groupsspaggheddon Cometh

#37

Post by iggldiggl »

BryantD wrote: post #34
fmajid wrote: post #14

I stopped using Usenet a long time ago but the Google Usenet archive has posts of mine from the 90s that are not in Henry Spencer’s archive. Is someone’s backing up Google’s archive or should I start scraping their pages to have a backup?

Note https://archive.org/details/usenet?tab=collection -- I haven't reviewed it so I don't have a take on how complete it is, but the archive team there tends to be fairly completist.

uk.railway archives from that collection only go back into the early 2000s, whereas I know Google had posts going back into the 90s. (But unfortunately Google is currently blocking access on account of too much spam, maybe facilitated by Google Groups in the first place…)
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