Python Forum
pyDev
I would like to let the community know that there is a new web-based
forum for Python enthusiasts over at PythonForum.org (http://
pythonforum.org). Web-based forums is a preferred method by Python
newcomers to get help in exploring the world of Python and programming
overall. The main goal of PythonForum.org is to popularize Python by
welcoming all newcomers. Recently the forum got "attacked" with
questions by users just starting out with Python. I hope here will be
someone ready to welcome and help newcomers to enter the beautiful
world of Python.
Thank you,
Einars
Simon Brunning
> I hope here will be
> someone ready to welcome and help newcomers to enter the beautiful
> world of Python.
Just send them here, or to
<http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor>. We'll be happy to
help.
--
Cheers,
Simon B.
Stefan Behnel
> I would like to let the community know that there is a new web-based
> forum for Python enthusiasts over at PythonForum.org (http://
> pythonforum.org). Web-based forums is a preferred method by Python
> newcomers to get help in exploring the world of Python and programming
> overall.
It's not how the English speaking community works, though. There are two
main mailing lists (mirrored as/from newsgroups) around which the larger
community gathers: python-list (c.l.py) and python-tutor. I doubt (or
rather put my hope against it) that a forum will attract a critical mass of
Python cracks to make it attractive to newbees, and I would certainly
prefer an effort to get them into joining python-tutor instead. There is
not much to gain from splitting the community.
Stefan
Bruno Desthuilliers
> Hello,
>
> I would like to let the community know that there is a new web-based
> forum for Python enthusiasts over at PythonForum.org (http://
> pythonforum.org).
YetAnotherUselessWebForum :(
> Web-based forums is a preferred method by Python
> newcomers to get help
Oh yeah ? Chapter and verse, please ?
Do the world a favour : replace your whole forum with a static page
explaining how to join the "official" MLs and/or c.l.py.
> in exploring the world of Python and programming
> overall. The main goal of PythonForum.org is to popularize Python by
> welcoming all newcomers.
Newcomers have always been welcomed here. And yet another forum *where
the helpful experts won't post nor correct wrong posts* is certainly not
the best way to "popularize" Python.
Adam Tauno Williams
> pyDev a écrit :
> > Hello,
> > I would like to let the community know that there is a new web-based
> > forum for Python enthusiasts over at PythonForum.org (http://
> > pythonforum.org).
> YetAnotherUselessWebForum :(
+1
Yuck; no better way to make new users hate your product than have a web
forum - where they post questions.... and never get answers... because
the people with the answers are over on the much-easier-to-use mailist
[what an awesome feature: the questions just show up in my INBOX!
Sweet.].
> > Web-based forums is a preferred method by Python
> > newcomers to get help
> Oh yeah ? Chapter and verse, please
> Do the world a favour : replace your whole forum with a static page
> explaining how to join the "official" MLs and/or c.l.py.
> > in exploring the world of Python and programming
> > overall. The main goal of PythonForum.org is to popularize Python by
> > welcoming all newcomers.
> Newcomers have always been welcomed here. And yet another forum *where
> the helpful experts won't post nor correct wrong posts* is certainly not
> the best way to "popularize" Python.
+1
--
Adam Tauno Williams <awil...@whitemice.org> LPIC-1, Novell CLA
<http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com>
OpenGroupware, Cyrus IMAPd, Postfix, OpenLDAP, Samba
Terry Reedy
> forum for Python enthusiasts over at PythonForum.org (http://
> pythonforum.org). Web-based forums is a preferred method by Python
This is the second time today I have read a post with a useless link
wrapped over two lines. Email lists and newsgroups (this is both) are
text, not html based. Put a link on one line by itself, with no
punctuation. The above, if posted at all, should have been
forum for Python enthusiasts over at PythonForum.org.
http://pythonforum.org
Ben Finney
> On 6/2/2010 4:04 AM, pyDev wrote:
>
> > forum for Python enthusiasts over at PythonForum.org (http://
> > pythonforum.org). Web-based forums is a preferred method by Python
>
> This is the second time today I have read a post with a useless link
> wrapped over two lines. Email lists and newsgroups (this is both) are
> text, not html based. Put a link on one line by itself, with no
> punctuation.
Or better, follow appendix “E. Recommendations for Delimiting URI in
Context” of RFC 2396 <URL:http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt>. This
allows the text to flow more naturally than breaking every URL onto a
separate line, while still delimiting URLs within the text in a standard
manner that most text processing tools will recognise.
--
\ “We can't depend for the long run on distinguishing one |
`\ bitstream from another in order to figure out which rules |
_o__) apply.” —Eben Moglen, _Anarchism Triumphant_, 1999 |
Ben Finney
News123
I fully agree with the feedback, that creating a new forum is not such
an excellent idea. currently the critical mass seems to be here and I
appreciate this a lot.
However, whether we like it or not:
Fewer and fewer newcomers are willing, knowledgable, aware of nntp
If you think, that newbies are unlikely to use nntp, then create a
forum, web front end or whatever, which looks very nice and cool, which
will automatically relay messages (forward and backward) to this group.
In my opinion new forums should integrate nntp and not try to replace it.
An nntp gateway on just another server is also not as nice as just
communicating with the existing feeds.
N
Ben Finney
> However, whether we like it or not:
> Fewer and fewer newcomers are willing, knowledgable, aware of nntp
If so, isn't that an indication that better education about the benefits
is required? Perhaps in combination with improving the tool support for
the NNTP protocol?
> If you think, that newbies are unlikely to use nntp, then create a
> forum, web front end or whatever, which looks very nice and cool,
> which will automatically relay messages (forward and backward) to this
> group.
>
> In my opinion new forums should integrate nntp and not try to replace
> it.
For this purpose, Papercut may be useful:
Open source news server written in Python. Its main objective is to
integrate existing web based message board software, like Phorum
which is supported, with a Usenet front-end.
<URL:http://pessoal.org/papercut/>
--
\ “To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to |
`\ unlearn old falsehoods.” —Robert Anson Heinlein |
_o__) |
Ben Finney
Adam Tauno Williams
> > I would like to let the community know that there is a new web-based
> > forum for Python enthusiasts over at PythonForum.org (http://
> > pythonforum.org). Web-based forums is a preferred method by Python
> > newcomers to get help in exploring the world of Python and programming
> > overall. The main goal of PythonForum.org is to popularize Python by
> > welcoming all newcomers. Recently the forum got "attacked" with
> > questions by users just starting out with Python. I hope here will be
> > someone ready to welcome and help newcomers to enter the beautiful
> > world of Python.
> I fully agree with the feedback, that creating a new forum is not such
> an excellent idea. currently the critical mass seems to be here and I
> appreciate this a lot.
> However, whether we like it or not:
> Fewer and fewer newcomers are willing, knowledgable, aware of nntp
So? NNTP is the living dead. Time to let it go.
Most people use this list via e-mail, which everyone has access to and
knows how to use.
The best solution I've seen is what is used by the Mono project; which
provides both a "web forum" and a mail list interface.
<http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list>
<http://go-mono.com/forums/>
It works very well; and everyone [except the 3 or 4 NNTP hold outs] are
happy.
Pierre Quentel
Hi all,
I agree that it's not efficient to split the community by creating
another forum. But we can't ignore the fact that c.l.p's activity has
been decreasing in the last years :
2000 42971
2001 55265
2002 56774
2003 64521
2004 55929
2005 58864
2006 59664
2007 49105
2008 48722
2009 44111
which certainly doesn't match the popularity of the language itself
So the OP's initiative should be an incentive to think on the format
of the interaction between all the range of Python users, from newbees
to gurus. We are in the 2.0 era, with social networks all over the
place using a pleasant interface, while c.l.p has a rather austere
look and feel, with text only, no way to present code snippets in a
different font / background than discussions, and even an unintuitive
way of entering links...
I'm not saying that pythonforum.org is the best solution but it
certainly looks more attractive than c.l.p. to the new generation of
Python users
- Pierre
Martin P. Hellwig
<cut>
> I'm not saying that pythonforum.org is the best solution but it
> certainly looks more attractive than c.l.p. to the new generation of
> Python users
>
> - Pierre
On the other hand it might not be so bad that you don't get questions
from users here who are unable to use a nntp reader or news to mail service.
Other 'forums' that specifically target users unaware of their opposable
thumbs certainly have a right of existence, though you wouldn't find me
there.
--
mph
Adam Tauno Williams
> I agree that it's not efficient to split the community by creating
> another forum. But we can't ignore the fact that c.l.p's activity has
> been decreasing in the last years :
> 2000 42971
> 2001 55265
> 2002 56774
> 2003 64521
> 2004 55929
> 2005 58864
> 2006 59664
> 2007 49105
> 2008 48722
> 2009 44111
> which certainly doesn't match the popularity of the language itself
I'm not sure that means what you imply it does. I'm involved in several
projects and technical groups. List traffic is down across-the-board.
I remember [physical] UG [of various flavors] meetings of 30+ people,
now you average ~10. I see two factors: [a] much better documentation,
more traditional training, and simply that many of the hard nuts have
been cracked. It is much easier to develop [regardless of language] or
sys-admin than it was ~5 years ago. [b] The "cool" has moved onto
something else. Don't dismiss this factor, it was certainly visible in
the UG space. "The Internet" and "IT" were the *it* thing, Open Source
and the web were a intriguing and mysterious novelties. Now they are
mainstream, ho hum. Coolness seekers have moved on to graze in other
fields [SEM and SM mostly].
In reference to [a] there are several very good Python texts available
and the online documentation is fair to decent.
> So the OP's initiative should be an incentive to think on the format
> of the interaction between all the range of Python users, from newbees
> to gurus. We are in the 2.0 era, with social networks all over the
> place using a pleasant interface,
I suppose that is a matter of taste; I hear no shortage of complaints
that Facebook et al are complicated and hard to use.
Ben Finney
> So? NNTP is the living dead. Time to let it go.
The capabilities of NNTP clients are much better than email for tracking
threaded discussions in multiple forums. I'll let it go when something
better comes along, and not before.
> Most people use this list via e-mail, which everyone has access to and
> knows how to use.
This is different from NNTP how? If you're referring to knowing how to
use the tools, there are many tools that present both email *and* NNTP
with the same user interface.
If you're referring to organisational network policies that block NNTP,
that's also true for email.
--
\ “I believe in making the world safe for our children, but not |
`\ our children's children, because I don't think children should |
_o__) be having sex.” —Jack Handey |
Ben Finney
Paul Rudin
> Most people use this list via e-mail...
Do you know this to be the case, or is that a guess?
Michele Simionato
wrote:
> On the other hand it might not be so bad that you don't get questions
> from users here who are unable to use a nntp reader or news to mail service.
I am unable to use a nntp reader or news to mail service. I use the
Google Groups interface and I am happy with it.
Paul Rudin
Arguably google groups *is* an nntp reader, although you don't get a
choice about which news server it talks to.
Martin P. Hellwig
Good for you, just a shame that quite a bit of the regulars here ignore
anything that comes from google groups, not me though, I just mentally
ignore posts.
--
mph
Adam Tauno Williams
Scan through a bunch of threads with show-headers. Watch the User-Agent
value (set by the senders client). The results become obvious pretty
quickly.
And it is generally interesting to see the User-Agent mix of a given
group of users.
Tim Chase
>>> Most people use this list via e-mail...
>> Do you know this to be the case, or is that a guess?
>
> value (set by the senders client). The results become obvious pretty
> quickly.
It can be a bit misleading though -- some UAs allow you to read
both mail & nntp with the same interface (e.g., my Thunderbird
UA). I read via gmane's nntp, but it's a "mail" program. I'd
likely return to reading via email if TB allowed me to kill
threads & sub-threads in email like it does in newsgroups.
-tkc
Paul Rudin
> On Thu, 2010-06-03 at 12:35 +0100, Paul Rudin wrote:
>> Adam Tauno Williams <awil...@whitemice.org> writes:
>> > Most people use this list via e-mail...
>> Do you know this to be the case, or is that a guess?
>
> Scan through a bunch of threads with show-headers. Watch the User-Agent
> value (set by the senders client). The results become obvious pretty
> quickly.
>
> And it is generally interesting to see the User-Agent mix of a given
> group of users.
So... by that criteria do you count me as email reader or nntp reader?
Gnus fills in the user-agent field just the same in either case.
Adam Tauno Williams
> Adam Tauno Williams <awil...@whitemice.org> writes:
> > On Thu, 2010-06-03 at 12:35 +0100, Paul Rudin wrote:
> >> Adam Tauno Williams <awil...@whitemice.org> writes:
> >> > Most people use this list via e-mail...
> >> Do you know this to be the case, or is that a guess
> > value (set by the senders client). The results become obvious pretty
> > quickly.
> > And it is generally interesting to see the User-Agent mix of a given
> > group of users.
> So... by that criteria do you count me as email reader or nntp reader?
NNTP
> Gnus fills in the user-agent field just the same in either case.
Sure. But Thunderbird, Horde, Squirrel, Google/GMail, Evolution, and
Outlook/OWA are *not* NNTP agents.
Grant Edwards
> pyDev wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I would like to let the community know that there is a new web-based
>> forum for Python enthusiasts over at PythonForum.org (http://
>> pythonforum.org). Web-based forums is a preferred method by Python
>> newcomers to get help in exploring the world of Python and programming
>> overall. The main goal of PythonForum.org is to popularize Python by
>> welcoming all newcomers. Recently the forum got "attacked" with
>> questions by users just starting out with Python. I hope here will be
>> someone ready to welcome and help newcomers to enter the beautiful
>> world of Python.
>>
>
> I fully agree with the feedback, that creating a new forum is not such
> an excellent idea. currently the critical mass seems to be here and I
> appreciate this a lot.
>
> However, whether we like it or not:
> Fewer and fewer newcomers are willing, knowledgable, aware of nntp
>
> If you think, that newbies are unlikely to use nntp, then create a
> forum, web front end or whatever, which looks very nice and cool, which
> will automatically relay messages (forward and backward) to this group.
You mean like this?
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.general
> In my opinion new forums should integrate nntp and not try to replace
> it.
>
> An nntp gateway on just another server is also not as nice as just
> communicating with the existing feeds.
I'm don't know what "communicating with the existing feeds" means.
--
Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! Oh my GOD -- the
at SUN just fell into YANKEE
gmail.com STADIUM!!
Grant Edwards
It's sad that Google won't clean up its act with respect to
facilitating spamming, but ignore posts from Google Groups has cut the
spam down to almost 0.
> not me though, I just mentally ignore posts.
--
Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! All this time I've
at been VIEWING a RUSSIAN
gmail.com MIDGET SODOMIZE a HOUSECAT!
Grant Edwards
> On Thu, 2010-06-03 at 13:42 +0100, Paul Rudin wrote:
>> Adam Tauno Williams <awil...@whitemice.org> writes:
>> > On Thu, 2010-06-03 at 12:35 +0100, Paul Rudin wrote:
>> >> Adam Tauno Williams <awil...@whitemice.org> writes:
>> >> > Most people use this list via e-mail...
>> >> Do you know this to be the case, or is that a guess
>> > Scan through a bunch of threads with show-headers. Watch the User-Agent
>> > value (set by the senders client). The results become obvious pretty
>> > quickly.
>> > And it is generally interesting to see the User-Agent mix of a given
>> > group of users.
>> So... by that criteria do you count me as email reader or nntp reader?
>
> NNTP
>
>> Gnus fills in the user-agent field just the same in either case.
>
> Sure. But Thunderbird, Horde, Squirrel, Google/GMail, Evolution, and
> Outlook/OWA are *not* NNTP agents.
Thunderbird, Evolution and Outlook are all NNTP clients. Not sure if
that's different than being an "agent".
--
Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! BARRY ... That was
at the most HEART-WARMING
gmail.com rendition of "I DID IT MY
WAY" I've ever heard!!
Andreas Waldenburger
<quentel...@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> So the OP's initiative should be an incentive to think on the format
> of the interaction between all the range of Python users, from newbees
> to gurus. We are in the 2.0 era, with social networks all over the
> place using a pleasant interface, while c.l.p has a rather austere
> look and feel, with text only, no way to present code snippets in a
> different font / background than discussions, and even an unintuitive
> way of entering links...
I don't really have a well founded opinion on this yet, so I'm just
throwing it out there: From the moment I first heard about it, I've
always felt that Wave (that Google thing nobody cares about anymore)
was a perfect "replacement" for the lot of newsgroups, forums and
mailing lists.
But consolidation is the *only* way to go, really. The parallelism
between c.l.p. and python-list is great already. Now throw some sort of
Forum in the mix, and a Wave server, and you're set. Should be easy
enough with Python. "import pycommunity" anyone?
/W
--
INVALID? DE!
Lie Ryan
> On Thu, 2010-06-03 at 13:42 +0100, Paul Rudin wrote:
>> Adam Tauno Williams <awil...@whitemice.org> writes:
>>> On Thu, 2010-06-03 at 12:35 +0100, Paul Rudin wrote:
>>>> Adam Tauno Williams <awil...@whitemice.org> writes:
>>>>> Most people use this list via e-mail...
>>>> Do you know this to be the case, or is that a guess
>>> Scan through a bunch of threads with show-headers. Watch the User-Agent
>>> value (set by the senders client). The results become obvious pretty
>>> quickly.
>>> And it is generally interesting to see the User-Agent mix of a given
>>> group of users.
>> So... by that criteria do you count me as email reader or nntp reader?
>
> NNTP
>
>> Gnus fills in the user-agent field just the same in either case.
>
> Sure. But Thunderbird, Horde, Squirrel, Google/GMail, Evolution, and
> Outlook/OWA are *not* NNTP agents.
>
Then how come my Thunderbird could talk with an NNTP server? Directly
without going through the bowels of a newsgroup-to-mailing list server.
Colin J. Williams
> On 2010-06-03, News123<news...@free.fr> wrote:
>> pyDev wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I would like to let the community know that there is a new web-based
>>> forum for Python enthusiasts over at PythonForum.org (http://
>>> pythonforum.org). Web-based forums is a preferred method by Python
>>> newcomers to get help in exploring the world of Python and programming
>>> overall. The main goal of PythonForum.org is to popularize Python by
>>> welcoming all newcomers. Recently the forum got "attacked" with
>>> questions by users just starting out with Python. I hope here will be
>>> someone ready to welcome and help newcomers to enter the beautiful
>>> world of Python.
>>>
>>
>> I fully agree with the feedback, that creating a new forum is not such
>> an excellent idea. currently the critical mass seems to be here and I
>> appreciate this a lot.
>>
>> However, whether we like it or not:
>> Fewer and fewer newcomers are willing, knowledgable, aware of nntp
>>
>> If you think, that newbies are unlikely to use nntp, then create a
>> forum, web front end or whatever, which looks very nice and cool, which
>> will automatically relay messages (forward and backward) to this group.
>
> You mean like this?
>
> http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.general
>
>
I use gmane via nntp (news.gmane.org port 119) but, as the link above
shows, there are threading problems.
Colin W.
Colin J. Williams
>> pyDev wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I would like to let the community know that there is a new web-based
>>> forum for Python enthusiasts over at PythonForum.org (http://
>>> pythonforum.org). Web-based forums is a preferred method by Python
>>> newcomers to get help in exploring the world of Python and programming
>>> overall. The main goal of PythonForum.org is to popularize Python by
>>> welcoming all newcomers. Recently the forum got "attacked" with
>>> questions by users just starting out with Python. I hope here will be
>>> someone ready to welcome and help newcomers to enter the beautiful
>>> world of Python.
>>>
>>
>> I fully agree with the feedback, that creating a new forum is not such
>> an excellent idea. currently the critical mass seems to be here and I
>> appreciate this a lot.
>>
>> However, whether we like it or not:
>> Fewer and fewer newcomers are willing, knowledgable, aware of nntp
>>
>> If you think, that newbies are unlikely to use nntp, then create a
>> forum, web front end or whatever, which looks very nice and cool, which
>> will automatically relay messages (forward and backward) to this group.
>
> You mean like this?
>
> http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.general
>
>
I use gmane via nntp (news.gmane.org port 119) but, as the link above
shows, there are threading problems.
Colin W.
>> In my opinion new forums should integrate nntp and not try to replace
Colin J. Williams
>> pyDev wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I would like to let the community know that there is a new web-based
>>> forum for Python enthusiasts over at PythonForum.org (http://
>>> pythonforum.org). Web-based forums is a preferred method by Python
>>> newcomers to get help in exploring the world of Python and programming
>>> overall. The main goal of PythonForum.org is to popularize Python by
>>> welcoming all newcomers. Recently the forum got "attacked" with
>>> questions by users just starting out with Python. I hope here will be
>>> someone ready to welcome and help newcomers to enter the beautiful
>>> world of Python.
>>>
>>
>> I fully agree with the feedback, that creating a new forum is not such
>> an excellent idea. currently the critical mass seems to be here and I
>> appreciate this a lot.
>>
>> However, whether we like it or not:
>> Fewer and fewer newcomers are willing, knowledgable, aware of nntp
>>
>> If you think, that newbies are unlikely to use nntp, then create a
>> forum, web front end or whatever, which looks very nice and cool, which
>> will automatically relay messages (forward and backward) to this group.
>
> You mean like this?
>
> http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.general
>
>
I use gmane via nntp (news.gmane.org port 119) but, as the link above
shows, there are threading problems.
Colin W.
>> In my opinion new forums should integrate nntp and not try to replace
Ben Finney
> But consolidation is the *only* way to go, really. The parallelism
> between c.l.p. and python-list is great already. Now throw some sort
> of Forum in the mix
This already *is* a forum. Whatever it is you think is needed, it's
already a forum. Can you be more specific about what you would add?
--
\ “Are you pondering what I'm pondering?” “I think so, Brain, but |
`\ I don't think Kay Ballard's in the union.” —_Pinky and The |
_o__) Brain_ |
Ben Finney
Monte Milanuk
> > However, whether we like it or not:
> > Fewer and fewer newcomers are willing, knowledgable, aware of nntp
>
> So? NNTP is the living dead. Time to let it go.
>
True. Decent NNTP access is harder to find. Not impossible, but no longer
a 'free' part of most standard ISP access any more. Gmane provides a mail-to-
nntp gateway which is great for those who like to read it via nntp.
> Most people use this list via e-mail, which everyone has access to and
> knows how to use.
>
> The best solution I've seen is what is used by the Mono project; which
> provides both a "web forum" and a mail list interface.
>
> <http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list>
> <http://go-mono.com/forums/>
>
> It works very well; and everyone [except the 3 or 4 NNTP hold outs] are
> happy.
>
Now that looks pretty slick - both sides get to have what they want, and
the 'pool' of knowledgeable persons stays condensed rather than dispersed.
Very cool.
Monte
Phlip
> +1
>
> Yuck; no better way to make new users hate your product than have a web
> forum - where they post questions....
Free of all the spam that leaks into here from the remnants of
USENET!!
> and never get answers...
You mean like how I never get answers, to my super-easy GED-level
questions, here??!
geremy condra
I agree. This proves conclusively that a web forum is the right
place for you.
Geremy Condra
Phlip
> > You mean like how I never get answers, to my super-easy GED-level
> > questions, here??!
>
> I agree. This proves conclusively that a web forum is the right
> place for you.
Ah, so you feel up to my "xsl for xmlrunner.py" question?
geremy condra
Sure, it's super-easy and GED-level. We can talk about the
cost privately if you're interested.
Geremy Condra
Phlip
That reminds me - pyDev, your forum has a "killfile" or "block"
feature, right?
geremy condra
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>
If you want to block me (hypothetically, of course), just add me
to your spam filter's rules.
Geremy Condra
Ben Finney
> I'm tempted to offer up that a lot of things that may once have been
> covered in this general group have been migrated to specific mailing
> lists (which are too many for me to consider subscribing just to do
> one or two posts)...
Which is also where NNTP shines: it's easy to participate using a
standard interface, without committing to having loads of messages
arrive in your email.
--
\ “A free press is one where it's okay to state the conclusion |
`\ you're led to by the evidence.” —Bill Moyers |
_o__) |
Ben Finney
John Bokma
Just jumping in the middle, but if you're looking for a web based forum
where you can ask questions, check out Stack Overflow (and sister sites,
depending on your question). I've noticed over the last couple of months
that often things I google for, are answered on Stack Overflow. One
thing that would've been nice to have on Usenet that I like is the
ability to vote answers up or down. I think Usenet would've been a bit
better with that option.
--
John Bokma j3b
Hacking & Hiking in Mexico - http://johnbokma.com/
http://castleamber.com/ - Perl & Python Development
Steven D'Aprano
> Decent NNTP access is harder to find. Not impossible, but no longer a
> 'free' part of most standard ISP access any more.
I disagree. Since I've been on the Internet, over a decade now (what can
I say? I was a slow starter), I've had three ISPs, and all three of them
have provided NNTP access as a standard. One of them tried to cancel
access to *binary* newsgroups, but they reversed that after customer
complaints.
I don't know what rubbish ISPs you're dealing with, or what country
you're in, but not all ISPs in all countries are rubbish.
--
Steven
Phlip
cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> I don't know what rubbish ISPs you're dealing with
You've heard of a little fly-by-night outfit called AT&T?
Chris Rebert
The US high-speed consumer ISP market isn't very competitive and some
players in the oligopoly are indeed rubbish WRT newsgroups. Case in
point: http://www.comcast.net/newsgroups/
</americentrism>
Cheers,
Chris
--
Not that I care. Mailinglists seem about as good anyway.
http://blog.rebertia.com
Steven D'Aprano
> So the OP's initiative should be an incentive to think on the format of
> the interaction between all the range of Python users, from newbees to
> gurus. We are in the 2.0 era, with social networks all over the place
> using a pleasant interface,
Really? I can't think of any 2.0 era social networks using pleasant
interfaces. All the ones I've seen or used start with mediocre interfaces
and get worse from there.
> while c.l.p has a rather austere look and feel, with text only,
Thank goodness for that!
> no way to present code snippets in a different
> font / background than discussions,
If somebody can't distinguish code from comments in a post by the
context, they aren't cut out to be a programmer and should probably stick
to posting "OMG LOL" on a social networking site.
> and even an unintuitive way of entering links...
Pasting or typing a URL is unintuitive?
If somebody can't take the time and effort to post a URL in a form that
is not broken, well, that doesn't say much for their skills as a coder
does it? If you can't handle the fact that URLs can't be broken over
multiple lines in email and news posts, how do you expect to handle even
more vigorous requirements while programming?
> I'm not saying that pythonforum.org is the best solution but it
> certainly looks more attractive than c.l.p. to the new generation of
> Python users
I get:
While trying to retrieve the URL: http://pythonforum.org/
The following error was encountered:
Connection to 173.83.46.254 Failed
The system returned:
(111) Connection refused
Oops. Looks like they can't handle the millions of new users joining up.
Despite my sarcasm, I actually do wish them the best. I'm not too worried
about fragmenting the community -- the community is already fragmented,
and that's a *good thing*. There are forums for newbies, for development
*of* Python (rather than development *in* Python), for numeric work in
Python, for Italian-speakers, for game development, etc. This is the way
it should be, and I don't fear a competing general Python forum or
forums. If they're better than comp.lang.python, they will attract more
users and become the place to be, and if they're not, they won't.
--
Steven
geremy condra
They were my ISP as of three weeks ago. Has something changed
since then?
Geremy Condra
Steven D'Aprano
> So? NNTP is the living dead. Time to let it go.
So you say. I think the millions of posts on Usenet say different.
According to Wikipedia, the average number of all text posts in the Big-8
newsgroups is 1,800 new messages every hour. That excludes binary groups,
where the amount of traffic is much, much bigger.
Sure, a lot of those 1,800 posts are spam, but the spammers wouldn't
waste their time if they didn't think there were people still on Usenet.
> Most people use this list via e-mail,
How do you know? Do you have evidence for this, or are you just making it
up?
In a later post, you claimed the evidence is:
"Scan through a bunch of threads with show-headers. Watch the User-Agent
value (set by the senders client). The results become obvious pretty
quickly."
Or in other words, a non-random selection of posts followed by an error-
prone and subjective test.
I've picked seven posts from this thread, from seven different users, and
I get these User Agents:
User-Agent Count Mail or News?
none 1 unknown
Mozilla/5.0 1 Both
Gnus/5.13 2 Both
G2/1.0 2 Web (interface to News)
Thunderbird 1 Both
I happen to know at least one of the Gnus users is using News, so that's
1 definite News, 2 Web, 4 either News or email, and no definite email.
--
Steven
Steven D'Aprano
Yes I have. Aren't they the people who were engaged in a long-running
criminal conspiracy to break the law and commit illegal warrantless
surveillance of American citizens?
If you look at the reviews here:
http://www.dslreports.com/gbu/
they are a distinct second-class ISP, with average B scores. Perhaps
that's better than "rubbish", but it's nothing to be proud about when you
are a company the size of AT&T. When you have that many resources,
anything less than straight A+ is a failure.
And that's not even mentioning their lack of News access, their ham-
fisted and clueless blocking of 4chan (whether in legitimate self-defence
or not), or their stance on net neutrality.
But the really sad thing is that you think that "bigger" automatically
equals "better".
--
Steven
John Nagle
I'm not thrilled about having to deal with yet another forum system
This one is at best mediocre. It took 14 seconds to deliver its
home page. It wants me to "register". Which probably means I'll be
spammed. Forum Software Review gives "Informer Technologies" a 2
out of 5 on their system.
I know USENET is obsolete, but the alternatives are worse.
If we're going to have a forum system, it probably should be
on "Python.org", which already has mailing lists, a wiki, an IRC server,
and a way to order T-shirts.
John Nagle
D'Arcy J.M. Cain
Steven D'Aprano <st...@REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> Sure, a lot of those 1,800 posts are spam, but the spammers wouldn't
> waste their time if they didn't think there were people still on Usenet.
Kidding, right? Cost to spam is virtually zero so the ROI is pretty
close to infinite no matter how many people they reach.
--
D'Arcy J.M. Cain <da...@druid.net> | Democracy is three wolves
http://www.druid.net/darcy/ | and a sheep voting on
+1 416 425 1212 (DoD#0082) (eNTP) | what's for dinner.
Adam Tauno Williams
I do a fair amount of xslt, but I don't have any idea what xmlrunner.py
is. It isn't a GED-level question if it involves specific knowledge
about a tertiary product/project.
--
Adam Tauno Williams <awil...@whitemice.org> LPIC-1, Novell CLA
<http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com>
OpenGroupware, Cyrus IMAPd, Postfix, OpenLDAP, Samba
Pierre Quentel
cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> On Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:16:03 -0700, Pierre Quentel wrote:
> > So the OP's initiative should be an incentive to think on the format of
> > the interaction between all the range of Python users, from newbees to
> > gurus. We are in the 2.0 era, with social networks all over the place
> > using a pleasant interface,
>
> Really? I can't think of any 2.0 era social networks using pleasant
> interfaces. All the ones I've seen or used start with mediocre interfaces
> and get worse from there.
>
> > while c.l.p has a rather austere look and feel, with text only,
>
> Thank goodness for that!
>
> > no way to present code snippets in a different
> > font / background than discussions,
>
> If somebody can't distinguish code from comments in a post by the
> context, they aren't cut out to be a programmer and should probably stick
> to posting "OMG LOL" on a social networking site.
They certainly *can* distinguish. But it's so easy to make it more
explicit with syntax highlighting, background color, border etc. that
most sites about programing languages use it, including the Python
home site itself, or the Python cookbook on Active State
>
> > and even an unintuitive way of entering links...
>
> Pasting or typing a URL is unintuitive?
>
> If somebody can't take the time and effort to post a URL in a form that
> is not broken, well, that doesn't say much for their skills as a coder
> does it? If you can't handle the fact that URLs can't be broken over
> multiple lines in email and news posts, how do you expect to handle even
> more vigorous requirements while programming?
That's 2 different things. When you use a programming language you
know you have to adopt the syntax defined by the program. When you
write something in a forum, you expect that the editor will be smart
enough to know that http://pythonforum.org is a URL
Jim Byrnes
I thought his point was they are big enough to have the resources to
offer newsgroups but don't. If I want fast internet I must use Comcast
and Comcast doesn't offer newsgroups either. Sadly is seems getting
access to newsgroups is getting harder and harder. I much prefer
newsgroups or email lists to web forums.
Regards, Jim
Michael Torrie
> The best solution I've seen is what is used by the Mono project;
> which provides both a "web forum" and a mail list interface.
>
> <http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list>
> <http://go-mono.com/forums/>
I just checked the archives of mono-list vs the forum and it's apparent
that this scheme suffers from the same problem as every other forum
solution.
The threaded flow of discussion is lost, replaced by a flat,
chronological "conversation." Even though the list archive suggests
there is still a tree structure to posts, when you check into it you
find that it is not a tree at all. Every message to the forum is taken
to be a reply to the one before, even though it might not be. The
archive web interface simply abandons nesting at 4 levels or so.
Emile van Sebille
> On Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:15:20 -0400, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
>> Most people use this list via e-mail,
>
> How do you know? Do you have evidence for this, or are you just making it
> up?
>
Is there now a non-email method of posting to this list?
Emile
John Bokma
> But the really sad thing is that you think that "bigger" automatically
> equals "better".
I don't think that was the point.
Anyway, not everbody can pick a provider, there are plenty of places
that have only one or maybe two. And if that's the choice and neither
carries Usenet you have to pay for Usenet like I do. Note that I
consider it well worth the 10 euros I pay for it.
To me, it looks like the use of Usenet for text is on the
decline. I've been away from Usenet for like a year or so and could see
quite a difference. More and more ISPs in my experience are dropping
Usenet from their services. Mind, I think that the number of users on
Usenet (text only) still exceeds the number when I first used Usenet
(back in the early 90's). But usage is on the decline as far as I can
tell. On top of that I see people I know from Usenet now quite active on
Stack Overflow and sister sites.
Finally, I have to disagree with your disagreement (which is just a
personal experience) based on my personal experience: it's harder to
find an ISP that carries Usenet. And I have experience with, oh, just 3
countries where I have been living in for the past 10 years.
Andreas Waldenburger
<ben+p...@benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> Andreas Waldenburger <use...@geekmail.INVALID> writes:
>
> > But consolidation is the *only* way to go, really. The parallelism
> > between c.l.p. and python-list is great already. Now throw some sort
> > of Forum in the mix
>
> This already *is* a forum. Whatever it is you think is needed, it's
> already a forum. Can you be more specific about what you would add?
>
I meant a web forum.
/W
--
INVALID? DE!
Terry Reedy
> Is there now a non-email method of posting to this list?
Google <==> comp.lang.python <==> python-list <==> gmane.comp.python.general
where <==> is a bi-directional gateway.
Gmane mirrors about 250 other Python mailing lists under
gman.comp.python.xxx. I currently subscibe to 3 others.
gmane does this because many people like to
1) look at a group first without subscribing (in the mail list sense, as
opposed to the newgroup sense of click a box)
2) keep messages for each group separated (without having to add folders
and filters to their email reader)
3) only download messages they want to read
Terry Jan Reedy
Alf P. Steinbach
You can access [comp.lang.python] via Google Groups and other web based interfaces.
So it already is a web forum.
Cheers & hth.,
- Alf
--
blog at <url: http://alfps.wordpress.com>
Andreas Waldenburger
wrote:
Te-he. Yes.
In case you're not being ironic:
<http://www.python.org/community/lists/>
/W
--
INVALID? DE!
John Bokma
> They certainly *can* distinguish. But it's so easy to make it more
> explicit with syntax highlighting, background color, border etc. that
> most sites about programing languages use it, including the Python
> home site itself, or the Python cookbook on Active State
[..]
> That's 2 different things. When you use a programming language you
> know you have to adopt the syntax defined by the program. When you
> write something in a forum, you expect that the editor will be smart
> enough to know that http://pythonforum.org is a URL
You're using a bad Usenet client. Switch to Gnus, part of Emacs, for
example and you can have both.
John Bokma
> Sure, a lot of those 1,800 posts are spam, but the spammers wouldn't
> waste their time if they didn't think there were people still on
> Usenet.
Heh, since spamming goes automatically who cares how many people it
reaches. I also see spam in which people forget to include a URL,
etc. My site is daily hit by badly written spam software.
So, no: spam is not by far any way to measure the number of readers. On
top of that, there is /no way/ to even determine how many people read a
given Usenet group.
> How do you know? Do you have evidence for this, or are you just making it
> up?
I guess the same way as your remark regarding spam: guessing (I guess) ;-)
> I happen to know at least one of the Gnus users is using News, so that's
> 1 definite News, 2 Web, 4 either News or email, and no definite email.
Fwiw: I use Usenet :-).
John Bokma
No idea what "this list" is, but I am reading your message in Gnus via Usenet.
Andreas Waldenburger
wrote:
Huh. I've never looked at it that way.
OK, then. Forget what I said about Wave. Oh, you have? Good.
;)
/W
--
INVALID? DE!
Emile van Sebille
> On 6/4/2010 12:28 PM, Emile van Sebille wrote:
>
>
> gmane.comp.python.general
>
> where <==> is a bi-directional gateway.
Yes -- I use gmane as well. But, IIRC, I needed to be on the mail list
in order for my responses to show up because MailMan is the primary back
end and I thought it's set to only accept posts from members.
Hence, my question. Aren't we all members posting (ultimately)
exclusively through email regardless of preferred reading interfaces?
Emile
Alf P. Steinbach
True.
While Usenet traffic is still exponentially increasing, most of that's in binary
groups, and it's spam.
I think much of the decline of Usenet is correlated with an increase of laws
designed to limit free speech and support all kinds surveillance. It started, as
I see it, back in the early 90's with Playboy attempting to sue anyone who used
the Lena picture in photo processing tests etc. (it's the standard image for
that). They failed in that particular endeavour, but did succeed in shutting
down thousands of sites worldwide displaying Playboy pictures. The Church of
Scientology picked up on the idea that a private company can /control/ net
content worldwide by way of laws designed for other things. The record and movie
industry caught on to this. Governments of some special countries such China,
Saudi-Arabia and Iran, plus, very suprising to me, Australia, caught on to it,
that is, the idea of controlling net content, or at least access to that
content. Then finally George W. Bush caught on to it, and with American ISPs
legally responsible for the content of the traffic, well, the following from
Wikipedia isn't quite chronological but is quite clear:
<quote src="The Wikipedia article about Usenet">
In 2008, Verizon Communications, Time Warner Cable and Sprint Nextel signed an
agreement with Attorney General of New York Andrew Cuomo to shut down access to
sources of child pornography.[31] Time Warner Cable stopped offering access to
Usenet. Verizon reduced its access to the "Big 8" hierarchies. Sprint stopped
access to the alt.* hierarchies. AT&T stopped access to the alt.binaries.*
hierarchies. Cuomo never specifically named Usenet in his anti-child pornography
campaign. David DeJean of PC World said that some worry that the ISPs used
Cuomo's campaign as an excuse to end portions of Usenet access, as it is costly
for the internet service providers. In 2008 AOL, which no longer offered Usenet
access, and the four providers that responded to the Cuomo campaign were the
five largest internet service providers in the United States; they had more than
50% of the U.S. ISP marketshare.[32] On June 8, 2009, AT&T announced that it
would no longer provide access to the Usenet service as of July 15, 2009.[33]
AOL announced that it would discontinue its integrated Usenet service in early
2005, citing the growing popularity of weblogs, chat forums and on-line
conferencing.[34] The AOL community had a tremendous role in popularizing Usenet
some 11 years earlier,[citation needed] with all of its positive and negative
aspects. This change marked the end of the legendary Eternal September. Others,
however, feel that Google Groups, especially with its new user interface, has
picked up the torch that AOL has dropped—and that the so-called Eternal
September has yet to end.[citation needed]
In August, 2009, Verizon announced that it would discontinue access to Usenet on
September 30, 2009.[35][36]
In April 2010, Cox Communications announced (via email) that it would
discontinue Usenet service, effective June 30, 2010. JANET(UK) announced it will
discontinue Usenet service, effective July 31, 2010, citing Google Groups as an
alternative.[37] Microsoft announced that it would discontinue support for it's
public newsgroups (msnews.microsoft.com) from June 1, 2010, offering web forums
as an alternative.
</quote>
In short, in the future you will no longer be able to access old articles via
archives such as Google Groups (Google picked up that archive from Deja News).
Until some replacement for Usenet appears, online discussion will in general be
effectively /local/, unknown to all but the parties currently using a given web
forum, and it will in general not be archived.
As I see it, those who have made and continue to make the decisions to make it
that way, want it that way.
Cheers,
Lie Ryan
> Phlip <phli...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Jun 3, 3:20 pm, geremy condra <debat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> You mean like how I never get answers, to my super-easy GED-level
>>>> questions, here??!
>>>
>>> I agree. This proves conclusively that a web forum is the right
>>> place for you.
>>
>> Ah, so you feel up to my "xsl for xmlrunner.py" question?
>
> where you can ask questions, check out Stack Overflow (and sister sites,
> depending on your question). I've noticed over the last couple of months
> that often things I google for, are answered on Stack Overflow. One
> thing that would've been nice to have on Usenet that I like is the
> ability to vote answers up or down. I think Usenet would've been a bit
> better with that option.
Probably. A vote up/down feature tend to highlight popular problems, but
it also buries less popular problems that might have perfectly good
answers. I think Google Groups have 5-star-rating system? You might want
to check on that.
Lie Ryan
> Steven D'Aprano <st...@REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> writes:
>
>> But the really sad thing is that you think that "bigger" automatically
>> equals "better".
>
> I don't think that was the point.
>
> Anyway, not everbody can pick a provider, there are plenty of places
> that have only one or maybe two. And if that's the choice and neither
> carries Usenet you have to pay for Usenet like I do. Note that I
> consider it well worth the 10 euros I pay for it.
Isn't gmane available where you live? I've used gmane for newsgroups
that my local server doesn't carry. The only problem is that there's a
slight delay in opening new posts (0.5 seconds or so).
Lie Ryan
No, I don't.
John Bokma
In my experience, as in people I know who've left Usenet, reasons for
leaving Usenet are:
1) spam, number 1 culprit being Google.
2) newbies who don't care about posting guidelines
3) regulars in their ivory towers
Other reasons:
4) MFA (Made for AdSense) sites that pretend to be a forum but just
harvest all data from Usnet
5) trolls and kooks.
> It started, as I see it, back in the early 90's with
> Playboy attempting to sue anyone who used the Lena picture in photo
> processing tests etc. (it's the standard image for that). They failed
> in that particular endeavour, but did succeed in shutting down
> thousands of sites worldwide displaying Playboy pictures.
I know of the use of Lena. And to be honest, I agree with Playboy that
they have the copyright. Some of the articles published on image
processing end up behind a paywall or in a book. And I don't think the
authors will be very happy if I convert their work in PDFs and offer it
as free download on my site. Everybody wants a free ride until they have
to create and maintain the rides in their own precious time with their
own money.
[...]
> Until some replacement for Usenet appears, online discussion will in
> general be effectively /local/, unknown to all but the parties
> currently using a given web forum, and it will in general not be
> archived.
I like Stackoverflow and its sister sites a lot.
John Bokma
Unless I misunderstand, the voting is for the replies, not for the
questions. Or maybe the questions can be promoted to a queue, no
idea. But that's not that different from questions posted to Usenet. The
popular ones are asked often, the less popular ones once in a while, and
might also not result in solutions.
> I think Google Groups have 5-star-rating system? You might want
> to check on that.
Brrrr... no, I really prefer my Usenet via Gnus ;-).
John Bokma
I am aware of Gmane [1] but in their own words: "Gmane is a mailing list
archive.", so it's not Usenet. It's a Usenet server which provides
access to mailing lists. (A very cool idea).
But I am with Individual.net and IMO very great service for just 10
euro.
[1] http://johnbokma.com/mexit/2005/01/14/gmane-mail-to-news.html
geremy condra
> I know of the use of Lena. And to be honest, I agree with Playboy that
> they have the copyright. Some of the articles published on image
> processing end up behind a paywall or in a book. And I don't think the
> authors will be very happy if I convert their work in PDFs and offer it
> as free download on my site. Everybody wants a free ride until they have
> to create and maintain the rides in their own precious time with their
> own money.
Playboy permits use of the image for research, so unless you planned
on getting permission from the authors first this is a totally invalid
comparison.
Geremy Condra
John Bokma
> On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:55 PM, John Bokma <jo...@castleamber.com> wrote:
>> I know of the use of Lena. And to be honest, I agree with Playboy that
>> they have the copyright. Some of the articles published on image
>> processing end up behind a paywall or in a book. And I don't think the
>> authors will be very happy if I convert their work in PDFs and offer it
>> as free download on my site. Everybody wants a free ride until they have
>> to create and maintain the rides in their own precious time with their
>> own money.
>
> Playboy permits use of the image for research,
OK, then I don't get the issue, and if you can enlighten me on it I will
be thankful.
> so unless you planned
> on getting permission from the authors first this is a totally invalid
> comparison.
Clear. But my free ride remark stands IMO
Grant Edwards
> Lie Ryan <lie....@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On 06/05/10 04:19, John Bokma wrote:
>>> Steven D'Aprano <st...@REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> writes:
>>>
>>>> But the really sad thing is that you think that "bigger" automatically
>>>> equals "better".
>>>
>>> I don't think that was the point.
>>>
>>> Anyway, not everbody can pick a provider, there are plenty of places
>>> that have only one or maybe two. And if that's the choice and neither
>>> carries Usenet you have to pay for Usenet like I do. Note that I
>>> consider it well worth the 10 euros I pay for it.
>>
>> Isn't gmane available where you live? I've used gmane for newsgroups
>> that my local server doesn't carry. The only problem is that there's a
>> slight delay in opening new posts (0.5 seconds or so).
>
> I am aware of Gmane [1] but in their own words: "Gmane is a mailing list
> archive.", so it's not Usenet. It's a Usenet server which provides
> access to mailing lists. (A very cool idea).
No, it's not a Usenet server.
It's a mailing-list gateway that provides access via NNTP. Usenet is
a peer-to-peer system that trasfers articles around between servers.
NNTP is a protocol often used to provide access to Usenet servers
(Usenet was around long before NNTP). NNTP can be used to provide
access to other things (as Gmane does).
--
Grant
Terry Reedy
> On 6/4/2010 11:27 AM Terry Reedy said...
>> On 6/4/2010 12:28 PM, Emile van Sebille wrote:
>>
>>> Is there now a non-email method of posting to this list?
>>
>> Google <==> comp.lang.python <==> python-list <==>
>> gmane.comp.python.general
>>
>> where <==> is a bi-directional gateway.
>
> Yes -- I use gmane as well. But, IIRC, I needed to be on the mail list
> in order for my responses to show up because MailMan is the primary back
> end and I thought it's set to only accept posts from members.
I think this somewhat depends on the list (admin settings)
Lie Ryan
If you look at Stack Overflow, the highest voted questions are:
- Hidden Features of C#?
- What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?
- What's your favorite "programmer" cartoon?
- What is your best programmer joke?
... and so on
many of them are nearly out-of-topic.
Steven D'Aprano
> I thought his point was they are big enough to have the resources to
> offer newsgroups but don't. If I want fast internet I must use Comcast
> and Comcast doesn't offer newsgroups either. Sadly is seems getting
> access to newsgroups is getting harder and harder.
I'm sorry for all you people who don't live in a place with a genuinely
free market, and instead have to suffer with the lack of competition and
poor service of a monopoly or duopoly masquerading as a free market. But
*my* point was that your woes are not universal, and Usenet is alive and
well. It might be declining, but it's a long, slow decline and, like
Cobol, it will probably still be around a decade after the cool kids
declared it dead.
--
Steven
Steven D'Aprano
> Probably. A vote up/down feature tend to highlight popular problems, but
> it also buries less popular problems that might have perfectly good
> answers. I think Google Groups have 5-star-rating system? You might want
> to check on that.
I don't remember the URL, but I read an article about Yahoo Answers which
explained that the Yahoo team started off with 5-star ratings for
answers, but quickly discovered that most ratings were either 0 or 5, and
so changed to a Vote Up/Down system. According to Yahoo's experience, the
extra complexity just adds an illusionary sense of precision with no
additional benefit.
--
Steven
Steven D'Aprano
> On 04 Jun 2010 05:41:17 GMT
> Steven D'Aprano <st...@REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> wrote:
>> Sure, a lot of those 1,800 posts are spam, but the spammers wouldn't
>> waste their time if they didn't think there were people still on
>> Usenet.
>
> Kidding, right? Cost to spam is virtually zero so the ROI is pretty
> close to infinite no matter how many people they reach.
What, you think the Russian mob hands out their botnets for free?
Spam is a business. An evil, unethical, immoral, scum-sucking business,
but still a business, and like all businesses, spammers care about cost
and profit. The marginal cost of sending spam might be approaching zero,
but the total cost isn't, and spammers try to maximise the number of
eyeballs they reach while minimising the cost. If they weren't, they
would still be using the same spam techniques from the 90s, instead of
engaged in an arms race with anti-spam apps.
This is why things like picture spam comes in waves. Every few months,
some newbie spammer hits on the brilliant idea of putting his spam in a
jpg image, carefully obfuscating it so that OCR software can't recognise
the URL but humans can, pays his $200 (or whatever it is) to rent a
botnet, and for two weeks everybody gets an uptick in spam because the
anti-spam apps can't filter picture spam very well.
And then they discover that the morons who buy from spammers aren't just
stupid, they're lazy too. Nobody is going to type the URL into their
browser, that's too much like actual work. So the spammer learns that his
investment didn't make him any profit, and he tries something else, or
gives up, and the picture spam disappears for a few more months until
some other newbie fails to think things through.
If there weren't people reading the spam on Usenet and buying whatever
junk is being sold, the spammers would move on.
--
Steven
John Bokma
> On 2010-06-04, John Bokma <jo...@castleamber.com> wrote:
>> Lie Ryan <lie....@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> On 06/05/10 04:19, John Bokma wrote:
>>>> Steven D'Aprano <st...@REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> But the really sad thing is that you think that "bigger" automatically
>>>>> equals "better".
>>>>
>>>> I don't think that was the point.
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, not everbody can pick a provider, there are plenty of places
>>>> that have only one or maybe two. And if that's the choice and neither
>>>> carries Usenet you have to pay for Usenet like I do. Note that I
>>>> consider it well worth the 10 euros I pay for it.
>>>
>>> Isn't gmane available where you live? I've used gmane for newsgroups
>>> that my local server doesn't carry. The only problem is that there's a
>>> slight delay in opening new posts (0.5 seconds or so).
>>
>> I am aware of Gmane [1] but in their own words: "Gmane is a mailing list
>> archive.", so it's not Usenet. It's a Usenet server which provides
>> access to mailing lists. (A very cool idea).
>
> No, it's not a Usenet server.
OK, it's an NNTP server, but on the other hand I think one can argue
that an NNTP server also implies Usenet since Usenet doesn't imply that
all groups available on Usenet should be available, nor does it imply
-- like you already mentioned below (snipped) -- how exactly that data
arrives or that is has to be complete. Since this posting ends up on
Gmane, I think it's correct to call Gmane part of Usenet, and hence,
they're running a Usenet server.
Steven D'Aprano
> "Alf P. Steinbach" <al...@start.no> writes:
[...]
>> It started, as I see it, back in the early 90's with Playboy attempting
>> to sue anyone who used the Lena picture in photo processing tests etc.
>> (it's the standard image for that). They failed in that particular
>> endeavour, but did succeed in shutting down thousands of sites
>> worldwide displaying Playboy pictures.
>
> I know of the use of Lena. And to be honest, I agree with Playboy that
> they have the copyright.
I don't think that anyone argues that Playboy don't own the copyright.
What they don't own is the principle of fair use.
> Some of the articles published on image
> processing end up behind a paywall or in a book.
Perhaps. So what? Publishing dozens of photos from Playboy isn't fair
use. Publishing a single copy of Lena is. Fair use doesn't cease to be
fair use if you put it in a book.
> And I don't think the
> authors will be very happy if I convert their work in PDFs and offer it
> as free download on my site. Everybody wants a free ride until they have
> to create and maintain the rides in their own precious time with their
> own money.
I'm sorry, Playboy took that photo of Lena, what, thirty years ago? In
what possible sense do they have to maintain it? Do they have to
photoshop out the wrinkles each year to maintain the photo's youthful
appearance?
--
Steven
John Bokma
> If you look at Stack Overflow, the highest voted questions are:
>
> - Hidden Features of C#?
> - What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?
> - What's your favorite "programmer" cartoon?
> - What is your best programmer joke?
> ... and so on
>
> many of them are nearly out-of-topic.
What do you mean with out-of-topic? (off topic?)
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/python
But to be honest I mostly end up on Stack Overflow when I google for a
specific problem, and most of the time I find a nice concise answer
without much noise.
John Bokma
> On Fri, 04 Jun 2010 08:56:34 -0500, Jim Byrnes wrote:
>
>> I thought his point was they are big enough to have the resources to
>> offer newsgroups but don't. If I want fast internet I must use Comcast
>> and Comcast doesn't offer newsgroups either. Sadly is seems getting
>> access to newsgroups is getting harder and harder.
>
> I'm sorry for all you people who don't live in a place with a genuinely
> free market,
If such a thing exists it still doesn't mean that each and every place
where one can live has plenty of choice. Even in the Netherlands, where
I am originally from, which is quite crowded there are plenty of places
where the number of provider options are limited. But I don't think you
should feel sorry for those people, because the majority is not
interested in Usenet (well, the "text" part) and the few who do will
find a way. On top of that, not every provider has the expertise to
handle Usenet resulting in a very crappy service nobody cares about.
> and instead have to suffer with the lack of competition and
> poor service of a monopoly or duopoly masquerading as a free market. But
> *my* point was that your woes are not universal, and Usenet is alive and
> well. It might be declining, but it's a long, slow decline and, like
> Cobol, it will probably still be around a decade after the cool kids
> declared it dead.
Well, I've noticed quite some groups I used to follow have become "dead"
in less than a year, so while I have no doubt you're correct with the
decade, I don't think there is much fun in being subscribed to 20 groups
only to find one message a month :-D. I use email to stay in contact
with some regulars of groups that indeed do have just one message /
month. I doubt it has anything to do with being a cool kid or not. Some
groups also dry up because the topic has been discussed to dead and/or
it's easier to nowadays find the information on line somewhere else. And
yet others, in my opinion, dry up because the people who are holding the
fort are IMO sitting in ivory towers and have extremely little patience
with newbies but are also somewhat tired with each other because they
don't want to end up in the same discussion again.
So, yeah, Usenet will be around for decades, I don't doubt it. I am
convinced that in a decade from now the total number of users will still
be higher than 20 years ago so it's far from dead then. But I guess that
will make it only more so that one has to pay for access.
Lie Ryan
> Lie Ryan <lie....@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> If you look at Stack Overflow, the highest voted questions are:
>>
>> - Hidden Features of C#?
>> - What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?
>> - What's your favorite "programmer" cartoon?
>> - What is your best programmer joke?
>> ... and so on
>>
>> many of them are nearly out-of-topic.
>
> What do you mean with out-of-topic? (off topic?)
yeah, "off-topic", that's the word.
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/python
>
> But to be honest I mostly end up on Stack Overflow when I google for a
> specific problem, and most of the time I find a nice concise answer
> without much noise.
Same here. But the point is, since Google bypasses the voting system,
that's why I don't see much added value in having a voting system.
John Bokma
> On 06/05/10 12:34, John Bokma wrote:
[..]
>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/python
>>
>> But to be honest I mostly end up on Stack Overflow when I google for a
>> specific problem, and most of the time I find a nice concise answer
>> without much noise.
>
> Same here. But the point is, since Google bypasses the voting system,
> that's why I don't see much added value in having a voting system.
There is also voting on the answers ;-).
Aahz
Monte Milanuk <memi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Decent NNTP access is harder to find. Not impossible, but no longer
>a 'free' part of most standard ISP access any more.
This seems like a good time to promote my ISP: panix.com
--
Aahz (aa...@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/
"If you don't know what your program is supposed to do, you'd better not
start writing it." --Dijkstra
Aahz
>free market, and instead have to suffer with the lack of competition and
>poor service of a monopoly or duopoly masquerading as a free market. But
>*my* point was that your woes are not universal, and Usenet is alive and
>well. It might be declining, but it's a long, slow decline and, like
>Cobol, it will probably still be around a decade after the cool kids
>declared it dead.
Your position is the same as mine as of about two weeks ago, before
someone sent this to me:
http://news.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html
Now I think that if even a top-tier educational institution isn't
willing to serve as a living museum for a technology it created, maybe
the death of Usenet is closer than I'd like to think. :-(
Sucks because nothing replaces a good netnews client.
Monte Milanuk
> In article<mailman.872.12755802...@python.org>,
> Monte Milanuk<memi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Decent NNTP access is harder to find. Not impossible, but no longer
>> a 'free' part of most standard ISP access any more.
>
> This seems like a good time to promote my ISP: panix.com
Used to have an account with them... but of less value to someone on
local fiber with an essentially static IP and their own Linux server.
Aahz
Monte Milanuk <memi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 6/5/10 10:11 PM, Aahz wrote:
>> In article<mailman.872.12755802...@python.org>,
>> Monte Milanuk<memi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Decent NNTP access is harder to find. Not impossible, but no longer
>>> a 'free' part of most standard ISP access any more.
>>
>> This seems like a good time to promote my ISP: panix.com
>
>Used to have an account with them... but of less value to someone on
>local fiber with an essentially static IP and their own Linux server.
Less perhaps, but I prefer to rely on someone else's sysadmin and I
really don't want to allow remote connections into my home network.
Monte Milanuk
> but I prefer to rely on someone else's sysadmin and I
> really don't want to allow remote connections into my home network.
To each their own... while Panix is fairly relaxed as a shell host, I
prefer to not have someone else telling me what I can and can't install
or use, especially when I'm paying. To be honest I can't SSH out from
work anymore, so the remote connections / static IP is somewhat of a
moot point. What I was trying to say was I don't get the point of
paying for an account on a provider clear across the country simply for
the sake of getting Usenet access... especially when more and more large
institutions are shutting theirs down (i.e. the death knoll for usenet
as others have pointed out). Perhaps it would count for 'geek' points,
but I'm not too worried about that ;)
YMMV,
Monte
Monte Milanuk
> really don't want to allow remote connections into my home network.
To each their own... while Panix is fairly relaxed as a shell host, I
Aahz
Monte Milanuk <memi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 6/6/10 9:46 AM, Aahz wrote:
>>
>> but I prefer to rely on someone else's sysadmin and I
>> really don't want to allow remote connections into my home network.
>
>To each their own... while Panix is fairly relaxed as a shell host, I
>prefer to not have someone else telling me what I can and can't install
>or use, especially when I'm paying. To be honest I can't SSH out from
>work anymore, so the remote connections / static IP is somewhat of a
>moot point.
And that is one reason why Panix is helpful (assuming your work does
simple port blocking and they don't have a formal policy banning SSH):
starfury:~> ssh -p 80 panix1.panix.com
aa...@PANIX.COM's Password:
>What I was trying to say was I don't get the point of paying for
>an account on a provider clear across the country simply for the
>sake of getting Usenet access... especially when more and more large
>institutions are shutting theirs down (i.e. the death knoll for usenet
>as others have pointed out). Perhaps it would count for 'geek' points,
>but I'm not too worried about that ;)
Obviously, I don't use Panix only for Usenet, but Usenet is still a large
part of my social life. I have no idea what I'll do when Usenet really
starts dying.
Ben Finney
> There has been many arguments here for and against Usenet. Personally
> I say the rein of Usenet is coming to its logical conclusion. Dead as
> a clavo! Much better interfaces abound.
So you say. For the interface to be “better” it needs to keep the good
features of the existing interface. I include among the good features of
Usenet:
* No need for creating a new identity; my email address is enough.
* No need for balkanising my identity; messages cross to all
participating Usenet servers.
* Forums are kept distinct, but the easy option to cross-post is there
when appropriate.
* The forums don't live in any single server or organisation, and new
servers in different organisations can be added to carry the load of
distributed messaging, so there is no machine nor organisation acting
as single point of failure.
* A single program allows me to subscribe to one, dozens, hundreds, or
thousands of forums, and use exactly the same interface to participate
two-way in all of them.
* I can replace that single program with any other program that follows
the open standards, and the same messaging interface applies exactly.
Where is the “much better interface” that improves on all of that?
--
\ “If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all |
`\ others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking |
_o__) power called an idea” —Thomas Jefferson |
Ben Finney
D'Arcy J.M. Cain
Ben Finney <ben+p...@benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> So you say. For the interface to be “better” it needs to keep the good
> features of the existing interface. I include among the good features of
> Usenet:
That's a great list of features. But they all apply to mailing lists as
well.
> * No need for creating a new identity; my email address is enough.
Obviously true for mailing lists.
> * No need for balkanising my identity; messages cross to all
> participating Usenet servers.
Ditto. Also, good word. I usually use "ghetto" when talking about FB,
MS, etc. Same idea.
> * Forums are kept distinct, but the easy option to cross-post is there
> when appropriate.
Ditto although I'm not sure that this is a feature. Mailing lists
sometimes have options to prevent this which might be a good thing. In
any case, it's nice to be able to choose on a list by list basis.
> * The forums don't live in any single server or organisation, and new
> servers in different organisations can be added to carry the load of
> distributed messaging, so there is no machine nor organisation acting
> as single point of failure.
As with mailing lists but MLs allow even better distribution. With
Usenet the hubs still have to carry every group. With mailing lists
only the servers involved need to carry it. I guess the trade-off with
mailling lists is that you get one point of failure for a particular ML
but distribute the load much better.
> * A single program allows me to subscribe to one, dozens, hundreds, or
> thousands of forums, and use exactly the same interface to participate
> two-way in all of them.
Yes. This is probably my second biggest issue with forums.
Ghettoization (balkanization) is number one.
> * I can replace that single program with any other program that follows
> the open standards, and the same messaging interface applies exactly.
With mail that is also true. In addition, its a program that you
already have if you have email.
> Where is the “much better interface” that improves on all of that?
I have always been a big fan of Usenet. I was using it back when you
could subscribe and almost read every group. For a while I was
a hub and downloaded the entire distribution to my little home
computer. Binaries, what the heck is that? But I just gave it up a long
time ago. Mailing lists just made so much more sense to me. I now run
a number of mailing lists. I can't even run a news server on my own
little ISP any more and have to contract out.
In fact, my biggest complaint with this mailing list is that it
gateways to Usenet. That's where most of the spam on this list comes
from albeit the bulk of that is Google groups which I can easily filter
out.
By the way, what is the generic term for Usenet groups, mailing lists
and forums? They all have a common overall purpose and it seems as if
there should be a word.
Hey, we could all go back to FIDO-Net. :-)
--
D'Arcy J.M. Cain <da...@druid.net> | Democracy is three wolves
http://www.druid.net/darcy/ | and a sheep voting on
+1 416 425 1212 (DoD#0082) (eNTP) | what's for dinner.
Lie Ryan
> On Mon, 07 Jun 2010 10:17:39 +1000
> Ben Finney <ben+p...@benfinney.id.au> wrote:
>> So you say. For the interface to be “better” it needs to keep the good
>> features of the existing interface. I include among the good features of
>> Usenet:
>
> That's a great list of features. But they all apply to mailing lists as
> well.
I think Ben Finney was making comparison between Usenet/Mailing-List vs
Forum. The argument basically sums up to Distributed vs. Centralized.
>> Where is the “much better interface” that improves on all of that?
>
> I have always been a big fan of Usenet. I was using it back when you
> could subscribe and almost read every group. For a while I was
> a hub and downloaded the entire distribution to my little home
> computer. Binaries, what the heck is that? But I just gave it up a long
> time ago. Mailing lists just made so much more sense to me. I now run
> a number of mailing lists. I can't even run a news server on my own
> little ISP any more and have to contract out.
My only problem with mailing list is that for large lists, it can easily
overflows my inbox. Having a separate interface (e.g. NNTP) is quite
useful. For large list, I wouldn't be able to read all the posts anyway,
so from time-to-time I'd "Mark Everything as Read", you cannot reliably
do that in your Inbox even with filtering and all that stuffs.
Ben Finney
> On Mon, 07 Jun 2010 10:17:39 +1000
> Ben Finney <ben+p...@benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> > So you say. For the interface to be “better” it needs to keep the good
> > features of the existing interface. I include among the good features of
> > Usenet:
>
> That's a great list of features. But they all apply to mailing lists
> as well.
Not quite, though mailing lists certainly have good uses. I agree that
mailing lists share some of the features I listed, but not all. The
points where I disagree are:
> > * No need for creating a new identity; my email address is enough.
>
> Obviously true for mailing lists.
No, since with many mailing lists I must maintain an identity separately
for the specific mailing list: a username + password pair. Sometimes
the username is the email address, which helps; but having to maintain
the identity (or opt out and stupidly use the same password at multiple
sites) is a worse option than Usenet.
So some mailing lists pass, but most fail on this feature.
> > * Forums are kept distinct, but the easy option to cross-post is there
> > when appropriate.
>
> Ditto although I'm not sure that this is a feature.
Having the option is the feature; it's certainly true that the option
should be exercised only sparingly. But it's not something that should
be prevented by default.
> > * The forums don't live in any single server or organisation, and new
> > servers in different organisations can be added to carry the load of
> > distributed messaging, so there is no machine nor organisation acting
> > as single point of failure.
>
> As with mailing lists but MLs allow even better distribution.
Not even remotely true. Mailing list transport and archiving is
generally maintained at a single site. With Usenet forums, these tasks
are distributed between all participating machines, in different nations
and organisations. Archives are not kept indefinitely in all cases, but
in many cases.
So mailing lists fail this feature.
> I guess the trade-off with mailling lists is that you get one point of
> failure for a particular ML but distribute the load much better.
Right. I'm not saying that there aren't trade-offs; I'm addressing only
the claim that “much better interfaces” exist.
> By the way, what is the generic term for Usenet groups, mailing lists
> and forums? They all have a common overall purpose and it seems as if
> there should be a word.
There is a good word: “forum”. That covers any place (even virtual
places) where people congregate to discuss on an agreed topic. Just
because a new kind of forum has appeared, it doesn't have any special
claim to the word. The existing forums are still forums.
--
\ “The fact of your own existence is the most astonishing fact |
`\ you'll ever have to confront. Don't dare ever see your life as |
_o__) boring, monotonous or joyless.” —Richard Dawkins, 2010-03-10 |
Ben Finney
D'Arcy J.M. Cain
Lie Ryan <lie....@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 06/07/10 10:45, D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote:
> > That's a great list of features. But they all apply to mailing lists as
> > well.
>
> I think Ben Finney was making comparison between Usenet/Mailing-List vs
> Forum. The argument basically sums up to Distributed vs. Centralized.
I don't know what Ben was thinking so I was just making it explicit.
> My only problem with mailing list is that for large lists, it can easily
> overflows my inbox. Having a separate interface (e.g. NNTP) is quite
> useful. For large list, I wouldn't be able to read all the posts anyway,
> so from time-to-time I'd "Mark Everything as Read", you cannot reliably
> do that in your Inbox even with filtering and all that stuffs.
It's trivial to filter into separate folders and trivial to empty a
folder. For me it's simply "^A" and "Del".
However, it would be nice to have an expire function so that messages
that I don't read for a specified time simply disappear. Do any email
clients do that?