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Ghost of Usenet Postings Past

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  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

#818 — Ghost of Usenet Postings Past

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.

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#820

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

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#829

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.

  ° 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.

  ° 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.

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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#877

On 2014-02-24, Aragorn <thorongil@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
> 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. ;-)
>

Good post, I enjoyed it.  I'm not sure I'm worried.  Too late to pen out
a long response, but some anecdotal evidence include the interest that
drummed up in this site (we've seen something like 50 different users in
the past two weeks), the fact new hierarchies like my dictator.* are
being created and managed, and the life in some individual newsgroups.
Also, there's apparently a hell of a lot of life in
Usenet-for-downloading-binaries.  I just discovered sickbeard and it's
apparently got a huge following; it came preinstalled on my FreeNAS.
That's growth.

Usenet hit a peak that was unsustainable, as groups filled with casual
users who had no where else to go.  The only ones left are the ones who
really loved the format and the nuances of Usenet.  I think the
24K+groups will slim down to a handful, but the protocol and the
philosophy will remain - if only because not everyone honors cancels :)

Either way, I'll enjoy it while it lasts, and if it ever "dies" I'll
just open up a BBS.  Y'all can telnet in ...

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#901

On Mon, 24 Feb 2014 23:29:42 +0000 (UTC)
RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
some anecdotal evidence include the interest that
> drummed up in this site (we've seen something like 50 different users in
> the past two weeks)

just for shits and giggles, I went ahead and counted: 56 different user names here since the revolution.  Or one ambitious poster with 55 sock puppets :)  This is Usenet, after all.  That's bullshit you lying dorkwad.  Take that back you ignorant douchebag.  You wouldn't know what a douchebag is if you drowned in one.  So's your mother.  Oh yeah, I'd shut up if I were as stupid as you. Maybe you should shut up anyway you f*cking nazi etc. etc. etc.

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#913

On Tuesday 25 February 2014 11:27, RS Wood conveyed the following to 
comp.misc...

> On Mon, 24 Feb 2014 23:29:42 +0000 (UTC)
> RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> some anecdotal evidence include the interest that
>> drummed up in this site (we've seen something like 50 different users
>> in the past two weeks)
> 
> just for shits and giggles, I went ahead and counted: 56 different
> user names here since the revolution.  Or one ambitious poster with 55
> sock puppets :)  This is Usenet, after all.  That's bullshit you lying
> dorkwad.  Take that back you ignorant douchebag.  You wouldn't know
> what a douchebag is if you drowned in one.  So's your mother.  Oh
> yeah, I'd shut up if I were as stupid as you. Maybe you should shut up
> anyway you f*cking nazi etc. etc. etc.

Quoting from comp.os.linux.advocacy, are you? :p

-- 
= Aragorn =

         http://www.linuxcounter.net - registrant #223157

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#916

Aragorn wrote:

>
> Quoting from comp.os.linux.advocacy, are you? :p
>

Yeah, what a wretched place that is.  Such a cesspool.  So many other 
groups seem to be able to generally keep it together when a troll hits. 
  C.O.L.A. isn't one of them - it's a full-on brawl, basically all the time.

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#936

On Tue, 25 Feb 2014 16:05:48 +0100, Aragorn belched forth:

> Quoting from comp.os.linux.advocacy, are you? :p

... or every OTHER Usenet group!


-- 
Am I really conceited?  No, but I have every right to be!
conceitedjerk.blogspot.com / Twitter: @Conceitedjerk

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#991

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

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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#830

bad sector wrote:

>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
>

Thankfully I don't often need to use Google Groups, but it does
make one wonder. As a whole, the company manages to achieve some
amazing stuff, yet their interface with the usenet archive seems
to get worse with each iteration.

I find it hard to believe that they are doing it deliberately,
but can't fathom how little they seem to understand about how it
now appears to users back on usenet. 

Chris
-- 
Chris J Dixon  Nottingham UK
chris@cdixon.me.uk

Plant amazing Acers.

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#832

> I find it hard to believe that they are doing it deliberately
They do have an interest in people using their own groups instead of Usenet, so 
they have no incentive to support Usenet specific features.

regards
~tdk
-- 
View this thread at http://squte.com/node/4736#comment-10896

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#878

On 2014-02-24, tdk <forum.tdk@squte.com> wrote:
>> I find it hard to believe that they are doing it deliberately
> They do have an interest in people using their own groups instead of Usenet, so 
> they have no incentive to support Usenet specific features.
>
> regards
> ~tdk

I consider GG nothing more than a search mechanism.  I'd hate to post
from there, and dislike reading there.  Earlier versions were better but
later versions made a real mess of it.

And a lot of Usenetters have *.googlegroups in their permanent
killfiles, for a reason.

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#914

On Tuesday 25 February 2014 00:30, RS Wood conveyed the following to 
comp.misc...

> On 2014-02-24, tdk <forum.tdk@squte.com> wrote:
>>> I find it hard to believe that they are doing it deliberately
>> They do have an interest in people using their own groups instead of
>> Usenet, so they have no incentive to support Usenet specific
>> features.
>>
>> regards
>> ~tdk
> 
> I consider GG nothing more than a search mechanism.  I'd hate to post
> from there, and dislike reading there.  Earlier versions were better
> but later versions made a real mess of it.
> 
> And a lot of Usenetters have *.googlegroups in their permanent
> killfiles, for a reason.

I'm one of them. :p

-- 
= Aragorn =

         http://www.linuxcounter.net - registrant #223157

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#989

On Sun, 23 Feb 2014, bad sector wrote:

> 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
>
In the old days, everyone at least knew about usenet.

Then as the masses came, their internet experience was different, often 
learning from friends "there's this awesome thing called myspace...".

This is why fewer and fewer ISPs carry Usenet, not only is there less 
demand, but since the users are spread over a lot more ISPs, each has a 
limited number of users, and thus not worth the cost.  People should be 
giving a consideration to small ISPs, but unlike in the old days, what 
matters is price, and now you don't even have to have your email address 
tied to an ISP.

The days when the internet was revolutionary are gone, lost to the masses 
that make change by their mass rather than by intelligence and making 
actual decisions.

SO many have come so late that they don't even know the old internet. 
They can't see anything wrong with "yelp" becuase they never saw usenet, 
never saw the internet when commerce didn't come first.  And the illusion 
is that they are using facebook and twitter, but most of the time they are 
just following along, so they dont' think about how facebook puts a wall 
in the way, an announcement there may not be found from the actual 
internet.

I've seen groups that condemn advertising trucks (a pickup truck with a 
billboard in back, no purpose other than to show off the billboard) and 
commercial sponsorship of festivals think nothing of having a facebook 
page.

   Michael

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#905

On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 22:55:04 +0000, RS Wood <rswood@therandymon.com>
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).  

	Google killed DejaNews. Absolutely none of my postings from
1994- 1998 can be found on Google searches. I think they archived
Usenet and sold it to the intelligence agencies. One of the clauses of
DejaNew's sale should have been that Google kept the older posts
available to the public.
	As to Usenet now, the NSA scandal has killed the more serious
groups. Alt.comp.freeware has been reduced from a thriving community
to half a dozen troll posts. Nobody likes "chatting" with someone
looking over their shoulders. The ones that don't care are too stupid
to use Usenet. They sms,  whattsup, twitter, FaceKook or whatever.
	[]'s
	
-- 
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy  - Google 2012

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#925

On 2/25/2014 7:54 AM, Shadow wrote:
> On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 22:55:04 +0000, RS Wood <rswood@therandymon.com>
> 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).  
> 
> 	Google killed DejaNews. Absolutely none of my postings from
> 1994- 1998 can be found on Google searches. I think they archived
> Usenet and sold it to the intelligence agencies. 

I would think that the intelligence agencies already had their own
news servers and archives. And wouldn't want an archive that had been
mangled by Google.

One of the clauses of
> DejaNew's sale should have been that Google kept the older posts
> available to the public.
> 	As to Usenet now, the NSA scandal has killed the more serious
> groups. Alt.comp.freeware has been reduced from a thriving community
> to half a dozen troll posts. Nobody likes "chatting" with someone
> looking over their shoulders. The ones that don't care are too stupid
> to use Usenet. They sms,  whattsup, twitter, FaceKook or whatever.

Hrmph. There have always been lurkers in newsgroups, one must assume
far exceeding those who posted. At least it's that way with web forums
(where the proprietor has ways to actually count). Just the same as
one must assume there have always been web crawlers that don't honor
robots.txt. Those who want anonymity need to stay behind proxies and Tor.

Usenet suffered because it didn't have the eye candy (for the naive
user) and the ability to stuff adverts onto every page (for the
corporations), and because ISPs didn't want to be bothered maintaining
news servers.

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#961

On Tue, 25 Feb 2014 13:32:17 -0600, Dave Garland
<dave.garland@wizinfo.com> wrote:

>On 2/25/2014 7:54 AM, Shadow wrote:
>> On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 22:55:04 +0000, RS Wood <rswood@therandymon.com>
>> 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).  
>> 
>> 	Google killed DejaNews. Absolutely none of my postings from
>> 1994- 1998 can be found on Google searches. I think they archived
>> Usenet and sold it to the intelligence agencies. 
>
>I would think that the intelligence agencies already had their own
>news servers and archives. And wouldn't want an archive that had been
>mangled by Google.

	Well, maybe they could offer a "wayback" search service. The
data would have been declassified by now, and you would be getting
service for your tax dollars.
	;)
	<NSA_Bait> And they could profile you while you look up your
old posts ...
	</NSA_Bait>
	[]'s
-- 
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy  - Google 2012

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#995

On Tue, 25 Feb 2014, Dave Garland wrote:

> On 2/25/2014 7:54 AM, Shadow wrote:
>> On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 22:55:04 +0000, RS Wood <rswood@therandymon.com>
>> 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).
>>
>> 	Google killed DejaNews. Absolutely none of my postings from
>> 1994- 1998 can be found on Google searches. I think they archived
>> Usenet and sold it to the intelligence agencies.
>
> I would think that the intelligence agencies already had their own
> news servers and archives. And wouldn't want an archive that had been
> mangled by Google.
>
> One of the clauses of
>> DejaNew's sale should have been that Google kept the older posts
>> available to the public.
>> 	As to Usenet now, the NSA scandal has killed the more serious
>> groups. Alt.comp.freeware has been reduced from a thriving community
>> to half a dozen troll posts. Nobody likes "chatting" with someone
>> looking over their shoulders. The ones that don't care are too stupid
>> to use Usenet. They sms,  whattsup, twitter, FaceKook or whatever.
>
> Hrmph. There have always been lurkers in newsgroups, one must assume
> far exceeding those who posted. At least it's that way with web forums
> (where the proprietor has ways to actually count). Just the same as
> one must assume there have always been web crawlers that don't honor
> robots.txt. Those who want anonymity need to stay behind proxies and Tor.
>
Though oddly, in retrospect I would argue that the single shot posters or 
the newcomers to the newsgroup were a key part of those newsgroups. Yes, 
you have the people around forever, but the newsgroup stagnates if nobody 
new comes in.

That's some of the problem, the newcomers stopped coming so there wasn't 
much for the oldtimers to talk about, except off topic stuff.

> Usenet suffered because it didn't have the eye candy (for the naive
> user) and the ability to stuff adverts onto every page (for the
> corporations), and because ISPs didn't want to be bothered maintaining
> news servers.
>
But it's also suffered from people who turned out to not be interested in 
the medium.  Too many people left when they could find discussion 
elsewhere, leaving even less.

   Michael

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#907

On 2/23/2014 2:55 PM PT, RS Wood typed:

> Anybody remember this cartoon from 1996?
>
> http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GhostOfUsenetPostingsPast

I miss Dr. Fun. :(
-- 
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Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.

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#988

On Sun, 23 Feb 2014, 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.
>
Huh?

Usenet was never intended to be permanent.  I would argue that when 
dejanews came along, their work at archiving messages from that point on 
was a good thing, suddenly information could be found.

But dejanews didnt' save usenet, and all that google did when it took over 
dejanews' archive was save the archive from dejanews.  Google hasn't done 
anything particularly good for usenet, and since they've changed their 
interface twice to favor their own groups (and indeed often don't make it 
clear that usenet is something different) they are damaging usenet.

They allow replies to messages older than 30 days, so some idiot can ask 
"is this still for sale" 20 years after the original post.  Too often 
those messages don't even quote some of the original message. Messages 
from there are no longer wrapped properly, leaving a real mess ont the 
screen.  Since google let's the quoted material be hidden, we end up with 
endless pages of quoted text that the google poster doesn't realize they 
are including.  Just because it looks one way at google doesn't mean the 
rest of us see it that way.

I can't even access the google archive with a text only browser.  What a 
joke, a medium that is only text, and I have to use a graphic browser now 
to search for my old messages.  I don't even need a graphic browser for 
most of the web.

Google is the enemy of usenet.

   Michael

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