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Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past

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On Mon, 24 Feb 2014, Aragorn wrote:

> On Monday 24 February 2014 00:19, bad sector conveyed the following to
> comp.misc...
>
>> On 02/23/2014 05:55 PM, RS Wood wrote:
>>> Anybody remember this cartoon from 1996?
>>>
>>> http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GhostOfUsenetPostingsPast
>>>
>>> I first saw it attached to this Salon article about the geeks who
>>> saved Usenet (by helping Google archive DejaNews and other archives a
>>> while back).
>>>
>>> http://www.salon.com/2002/01/08/saving_usenet/
>>>
>>> It's a great read, if you haven't already seen it.  Highly
>>> recommended.
>>
>> I'm worried about the survial of usenet, so many newcomers get sucked
>> right into web hosted forums that usenet *is* dying and in that
>> respect google ain't no help
>
> I'm not so sure that Usenet would be dying, but there are indeed a few
> negative tendencies playing out, i.e.:
>
>  ° Spam.  Many news providers maintain good spam filters, but even
>    then still some of that junk gets through, and not all news
>    providers do maintain spam filters.  The phenomenon of spam does
>    tend to cause certain people to unsubscribe from the more targeted
>    newsgroups.
>
Most of the time someone complains in a newsgroup about spam, that poster 
is viewing from google, another problem with google.  It lets the spam in, 
and does nthing to erase it from the archive.

>  ° The fact that due to the above, many GNU/Linux distributions have
>    opted to abandon Usenet and resort to moderated mailing lists.
>
>  ° The fact that Usenet is being abused for the distribution of
>    illegal/copyrighted content, which has caused many ISPs to drop
>    their own Usenet support, and many independent news providers
>    to drop binary newsgroups altogether, because of the legal
>    implications.
>
>  ° Nymshifting trolls and paid shills.  They're everywhere, and they're
>    getting increasingly more resourceful at circumventing killfiles,
>    and this is something for which web-based forums and moderated
>    mailing lists provide a solution.
>
YOu think that doesn't happen on the web?  Endless bloggers who will write 
whatever gets sent to them, an ego boost that they are noticed so they 
don't question what's being said.

I called the local Fringe Festival a "Festival of Discovery" and 
eventually that Fringe used it as a promotional tag.  It was terribly 
amusing to see the bloggers repeat that back, and then ignore it, writing 
about the things they want to see (and which were often peripheral things 
that the festival had added around the core shows that are unjuried and 
which make it a festival of discovery.

One reason we are safe is because the masses aren't here.  Yet it does 
happen, people copying and pasting old news stories, so often 
entertainment related, to newsgrups.  I dont' care what some reality show 
contestant tweets, yet there are others willing to be a part of that, 
without even considering what they are doing.


>  ° The dumbing down of society and the catering to ignorance.  Whereas
>    Usenet and IRC were once all the rage, the masses now tend to go
>    with web-based forums with animated icons and instant messengers.
>    The fact that MSN Messenger used to come pre-installed in Microsoft
>    Windows by default was no help in that matter, but even before MSN,
>    there was already ICQ.
>
Of course, in the old days, one had to be part of a subset of society to 
get here.  Once everyone needed the internet, it had to be dumbed down. 
And most of their experience is shopping, consuming "news" and retweeting 
or filling out a wikipedia entry after reading the book. Or talking to 
their friends, which they were already doing via the phone.

The things that are being done in a massive fashion is what gets the 
attention, but that doesn't mean what's being done is useful.


    MIchael

> Still, I do believe that the more erudite members of the computer-
> interested populace will still remain aware of Usenet and of IRC -
> irc.freenode.net is still one of the biggest IRC networks in the world,
> and it is still the home of all Free/Libre & Open Source Software
> developers.
>
> I've been on Usenet since the year 2000 - which is relatively late, of
> course - but I can't say that I see it dying (and I sincerely hope that
> it doesn't).  Sure, some newsgroups have been abandoned (for various
> reasons), but others have in the meantime been created and are still
> quite active, and some of the groups I've been in since my first
> introduction to Usenet are still just as active as they were back then.
> I even see some of the same people still around in those same
> newsgroups.
>
> Your mileage may vary, of course.  I can only judge what I see, and
> although I do have quite a list of newsgroups that I'm subscribed to -
> all of which are related to GNU/Linux or UNIX in general, except for
> this one here - it is still only a small subset of the enormous amount
> of newsgroups in existence, especially given the very narrow scope of
> the groups I chose to subscribe to.  So your perspective may be
> different from mine. ;-)
>
> -- 
> = Aragorn =
>
>         http://www.linuxcounter.net - registrant #223157
>

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Thread

Ghost of Usenet Postings Past RS Wood <rswood@therandymon.com> - 2014-02-23 22:55 +0000
  Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> - 2014-02-23 18:19 -0500
    Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past Aragorn <thorongil@telenet.be.invalid> - 2014-02-24 08:33 +0100
      Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-02-24 23:29 +0000
        Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-02-25 10:27 +0000
          Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past Aragorn <thorongil@telenet.be.invalid> - 2014-02-25 16:05 +0100
            Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-02-25 15:22 +0000
            Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past Conceited Jerk <cj.speakeasy@AAARGHgmail.com> - 2014-02-25 15:42 -0600
      Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2014-02-26 13:34 -0500
    Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past Chris J Dixon <chris@cdixon.me.uk> - 2014-02-24 07:39 +0000
      Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past "tdk" <forum.tdk@squte.com> - 2014-02-24 03:52 +0000
        Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-02-24 23:30 +0000
          Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past Aragorn <thorongil@telenet.be.invalid> - 2014-02-25 16:06 +0100
    Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2014-02-26 13:27 -0500
  Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past Shadow <Sh@dow.br> - 2014-02-25 10:54 -0300
    Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> - 2014-02-25 13:32 -0600
      Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past Shadow <Sh@dow.br> - 2014-02-26 11:12 -0300
      Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2014-02-26 13:48 -0500
  Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> - 2014-02-25 06:03 -0800
  Re: Ghost of Usenet Postings Past Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2014-02-26 13:22 -0500

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