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Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share

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  Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-01-25 06:00 +0000
    Re: Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-01-25 10:55 -0500
      Re: Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-01-28 10:32 +0000
        Re: Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2016-01-28 10:45 +0000
          Re: Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-01-28 13:41 +0200
          Re: Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share Whiskers <catwheezel@operamail.com> - 2016-01-28 12:56 +0000
            Re: Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2016-01-28 12:59 +0000
              Re: Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share RS Wood <rswood@therandymon.com> - 2016-01-28 22:02 +0300
                Re: Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2016-01-28 19:31 +0000
                Re: Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-01-28 20:41 +0000
                  Re: Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-01-30 11:00 +0300
                    Re: Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-01-30 11:12 -0500
            Re: Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2016-01-28 19:26 +0000
          Re: Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-01-28 11:58 -0500

#10114 — Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share

http://ils.unc.edu/callee/gopherpaper.htm

Quoting from the URL above:

   In this paper, I explore the rise and fall of Gopher as the dominant
   protocol for file search and retrieval over the Internet. After its
   creation in 1991 at the University of Minnesota, use of Gopher exploded.
   The popular press lauded it as an important step beyond File Transfer
   Protocol (FTP), in terms of both usability and ease of implementation.
   The growth of Gopher was soon overshadowed, however, by the World Wide
   Web. A major milestone is this direction was the release of the Mosaic
   graphical browser by the University of Illinois National Center for
   Supercomputing Applications [NCSA] in 1993.

   The popular media were soon describing Gopher as an obsolete predecessor
   to the Web, rather than one of the protocols available along with
   Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) through most browsers. By juxtaposing
   today's Web with today's Gopher, it is easy to come to a technologically
   determinist conclusion about the reason for Gopher's seeming demise.
   Searching the Web through an engine like Alta Vista using Netscape
   Communicator 4.5 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0, for example, is
   much more effective in most cases than trying to conduct the same search
   in Gopherspace through that same browser or even using a dedicated
   Gopher client. But the current technological situation was not
   inevitable. The superiority of the early text-based Web over its
   Gopherspace contemporary was by no means obvious.

   I investigate potential explanations for the rise and fall of Gopher.
   Why is Gopher not commonly used as a protocol for corporate intranets?
   Why have most libraries abandoned their efforts to maintain a presence
   in Gopherspace? Why have so few people heard of HyperGopher or Gopher+,
   yet the popular technology press makes front-page news out of almost
   every minute advancement related to Web browsers, HTTP and HTML? In an
   attempt to provide at least partial answers to these questions, I use
   Requests for Comments (RFCs), project documents (such as FAQs and
   publicly posted email messages), and published interviews with the
   developers of both HTTP and Gopher; and popular literature (information
   science professional magazines and journals being heavily represented)
   from 1991 to the present that reflects the media's position on Gopher.

   ...

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#10117

On Mon, 25 Jan 2016, Rich wrote:

> http://ils.unc.edu/callee/gopherpaper.htm
>
> Quoting from the URL above:
>
>
>   The popular media were soon describing Gopher as an obsolete predecessor
>   to the Web, rather than one of the protocols available along with
>   Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) through most browsers. By juxtaposing
>   today's Web with today's Gopher, it is easy to come to a technologically
>   determinist conclusion about the reason for Gopher's seeming demise.
>   Searching the Web through an engine like Alta Vista using Netscape
>   Communicator 4.5 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0, for example, is
>   much more effective in most cases than trying to conduct the same search
>   in Gopherspace through that same browser or even using a dedicated
>   Gopher client. But the current technological situation was not
>   inevitable. The superiority of the early text-based Web over its
>   Gopherspace contemporary was by no means obvious.
>
McGill University kept using gopher until relatively late, though now I 
can't remember when "late" was. They had classified ads for students and 
faculty, and it used gopher.  I think it was still in place in 2001, when 
I found an ad for a used computer that I bought.  For "a long time" I was 
able to say "but McGill has a gopher" whenever gopher came up, but I can't 
remember when they moved to webpages for this.

Those classified ads seemed to work better with the gopher than as web 
pages, but that may be other factors coming in, like more venues to sell 
things.

   Michael

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#10162

On 2016-01-25, Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Jan 2016, Rich wrote:
>>   Gopher client. But the current technological situation was not
>>   inevitable. The superiority of the early text-based Web over its
>>   Gopherspace contemporary was by no means obvious.
>>
> McGill University kept using gopher until relatively late, though now
> I can't remember when "late" was. They had classified ads for students
> and faculty, and it used gopher.  I think it was still in place in
> 2001, when I found an ad for a used computer that I bought.  For "a
> long time" I was able to say "but McGill has a gopher" whenever gopher
> came up, but I can't remember when they moved to webpages for this.
>
> Those classified ads seemed to work better with the gopher than as web
> pages, but that may be other factors coming in, like more venues to
> sell things.
>
>    Michael

Gopherspace is still out there, for those who care to look, and it
offers simplicity and organization, a total lack of banner ads, stats
scripts, javascript madness, and 3rd party cookies.

Not hard to understand how ASCII porn failed to compete with other
mediums though, or how U. Minn's tight-fisted grip on its software
turned developers to other technologies. 

Still, gopher is very much alive.  Check out comp.infosystems.gopher for
more - this article was discussed there as well.  As users get fed up
with the risks and complications of the modern WWW's obese webpages,
gopher remains a parallel universe, much like Usenet.

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#10164

RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> writes:
> Gopherspace is still out there, for those who care to look, and it
> offers simplicity and organization, a total lack of banner ads, stats
> scripts, javascript madness, and 3rd party cookies.

What content does Gopherspace contain?  Simplicity and organization (and
a lack of certain pathologies) are irrelevant unless it has things I
need or want to read in it.

-- 
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

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#10167

Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk>:

> RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> writes:
>> Gopherspace is still out there, for those who care to look, and it
>> offers simplicity and organization, a total lack of banner ads, stats
>> scripts, javascript madness, and 3rd party cookies.
>
> What content does Gopherspace contain? Simplicity and organization
> (and a lack of certain pathologies) are irrelevant unless it has
> things I need or want to read in it.

It reads in the Book of Anhur that Moloch hid the Amulet of Yendor
there.


Marko

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#10168

On 2016-01-28, Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> writes:
>> Gopherspace is still out there, for those who care to look, and it
>> offers simplicity and organization, a total lack of banner ads, stats
>> scripts, javascript madness, and 3rd party cookies.
>
> What content does Gopherspace contain?  Simplicity and organization
> (and a lack of certain pathologies) are irrelevant unless it has
> things I need or want to read in it.

<http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/> for an HTTP proxy to gopherspace,
if you haven't got a real gopher client.  (Lynx can handle gopher URLs
such as <gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/>).

-- 
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
--  Whiskers 
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

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#10169

Whiskers <catwheezel@operamail.com> writes:
> On 2016-01-28, Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> writes:

>>> Gopherspace is still out there, for those who care to look, and it
>>> offers simplicity and organization, a total lack of banner ads,
>>> stats scripts, javascript madness, and 3rd party cookies.
>>
>> What content does Gopherspace contain?  Simplicity and organization
>> (and a lack of certain pathologies) are irrelevant unless it has
>> things I need or want to read in it.
>
> <http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/> for an HTTP proxy to gopherspace,
> if you haven't got a real gopher client.  (Lynx can handle gopher URLs
> such as <gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/>).

I didn’t ask “how do I get at it”, I asked why I would bother in the
first place.

-- 
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

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#10172

Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> Wrote in message:
> I didn’t ask “how do I get at it”, I asked why I would bother in the
> first place.


And you got your answer: go have a look around.  It's all
 personal, zero corporate, so it's got lots of whatever individual
 users care to post and provide.  Or check out gopherpedia, a
 gopher interface to wikipedia. I like it better than wikipedia
 itself.  Start at floodgap and "go down the hole."

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#10174

RS Wood <rswood@therandymon.com> writes:
> Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> Wrote in message:
>> I didn’t ask “how do I get at it”, I asked why I would bother in the
>> first place.
>
> And you got your answer: go have a look around.

That’s not an answer to the question I actually asked.

> It's all personal, zero corporate, so it's got lots of whatever
> individual users care to post and provide.  Or check out gopherpedia,
> a gopher interface to wikipedia. I like it better than wikipedia
> itself.  Start at floodgap and "go down the hole."

Great, it’s got Wikipedia ... which I can already use directly.  Going
via a Gopher gateway or finding a Gopher client doesn’t sound like an
improvement.

-- 
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

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#10175

RS Wood <rswood@therandymon.com> writes:

> Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> Wrote in message:
>> I didn’t ask “how do I get at it”, I asked why I would bother in the
>> first place.
>
>
> And you got your answer: go have a look around.  It's all
>  personal, zero corporate, so it's got lots of whatever individual
>  users care to post and provide.  Or check out gopherpedia, a
>  gopher interface to wikipedia. I like it better than wikipedia
>  itself.  Start at floodgap and "go down the hole."

Because it's not hyper-linked, you can't "go down the hole" like you can
from a web page.  As a result, randomly exploring is very hard.  The
floodgap menu just offers a set of (to me) uninteresting menu choices
which seem extraordinarily parochial.

Gopher always worked best with a search, but you can't usually "go down
the hole" with a search -- you either find the document you want or you
don't.

None of my trial searches showed any pages from gopherpedia so it looks
like it's a hard boundary -- there's a gopher interface but none of
wikipedia has been brought into gopherspace.

I don't currently see a use-case for me but, because I like the old
technology, I'll try every once in a while to see if anything I'm
looking for turns up there...

-- 
Ben.

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#10204

Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> Wrote in message:
> 
> Because it's not hyper-linked, you can't "go down the hole" like you can
> from a web page.  As a result, randomly exploring is very hard.  

That's a really good point.  Each user has to include a gateway
 elsewhere or you don't get very far.  I've had luck digging
 through the list of 99 newest servers.  One guy out there has a
 really neat collection of epubs.

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#10206

On Sat, 30 Jan 2016, RS Wood wrote:

> Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> Wrote in message:
>>
>> Because it's not hyper-linked, you can't "go down the hole" like you can
>> from a web page.  As a result, randomly exploring is very hard.
>
> That's a really good point.  Each user has to include a gateway
> elsewhere or you don't get very far.  I've had luck digging
> through the list of 99 newest servers.  One guy out there has a
> really neat collection of epubs.
>
But there were things for gophers.  Veronica was there, and so was WAIS.

But that was really quite early compared to the boom just a bit later. It 
would have been much easier for a central location to database all that 
existed back then, and probably not get much duplication.

   Michael

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#10173

In article <slrnnak3vu.165.catwheezel@ID-107770.user.individual.net>,
Whiskers  <catwheezel@operamail.com> wrote:
><http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/> for an HTTP proxy to gopherspace,
>if you haven't got a real gopher client.  (Lynx can handle gopher URLs
>such as <gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/>).

They also have an add-on for SJWfox that enables it to handle Gopher.  They
also have a Chrome extension, but it only works with a narrow range (19-23)
of long-obsolete Chrome versions.

  _/_
 / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/           Top-posting!
 \_^_/                              >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

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#10170

On Thu, 28 Jan 2016, Richard Kettlewell wrote:

> RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> writes:
>> Gopherspace is still out there, for those who care to look, and it
>> offers simplicity and organization, a total lack of banner ads, stats
>> scripts, javascript madness, and 3rd party cookies.
>
> What content does Gopherspace contain?  Simplicity and organization (and
> a lack of certain pathologies) are irrelevant unless it has things I
> need or want to read in it.
>
I think most of what's there is simply for the sake of showing off Gopher.

The stuff that used it migrated at some point, like that McGill University 
classified ad site that I mentioned.  So people want to show off Gopher 
now, but that's primary rather than the contents.  I think.

   Michael

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