Looking for a better recommendation for people who want to make use of comp.lang.tcl

Larry W. Virden

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Mar 9, 2011, 2:54:41 PM3/9/11

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In the past, recommending people use Dejanews and then Google news
provided an ability to read the group to the individual developer or
user who did not have the financial resources to pay for access to a
usenet site, nor enough computing resources to host a usenet feed of
their own.

However, in the past few weeks, Google has begun a fundamental change
in the way the group reading software works. In the old interface,
they have removed the ability to display specific "favorite threads"
and to determine when they were updated. They also removed the
advanced searching functionality, making finding information more
difficult.

If you have not yet seen the intended new version of interface to the
groups, it becomes worse. The software indicates that the only way to
"track" changes to a discussion is to have emails sent to you when a
new posting occurs in a thread. This would really flood one's email
box with a lot of discussions - if the feature actually worked. As it
turns out, it doesn't work as advertised right now, so there really is
no way to determine updates to threads of interest.

I've submitted feedback to google concerning a variety of their
changes. I don't expect, however, that they are going to be dissuaded
from proceeding just because the interface is nearly unusable now.

So the alternatives is to continue to use whatever interface they
provide and suffer with it, or find a new way to read the groups.

I know that I do not have a strong desire to build and maintain a
client specificallly designed to interact with an nntp server, even if
I knew where one was.

However, I hate to lose access to the most enjoyable community with
which I have worked. I have not found a mailing list or web forum that
is even 1/10th as busy,helpful, and knowledgable as comp.lang.tcl .

So, what are some options that we might begin advocating over on
http://wiki.tcl.tk/ ?

Donald Arseneau

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Mar 9, 2011, 3:05:07 PM3/9/11

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"Larry W. Virden" <lvi...@gmail.com> writes:

> I know that I do not have a strong desire to build and maintain a
> client specificallly designed to interact with an nntp server, even if
> I knew where one was.

Like many others, I used googlegroups for a while after losing
the university usenet feed, but then went back to real usenet
via eternal-september.org, which has worked very well.

--
Donald Arseneau as...@triumf.ca

jemptymethod

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Mar 9, 2011, 4:49:25 PM3/9/11

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On Mar 9, 2:54 pm, "Larry W. Virden" <lvir...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In the past, recommending people use Dejanews and then Google news
> provided an ability to read the group to the individual developer or
> user who did not have the financial resources to pay for access to a
> usenet site, nor enough computing resources to host a usenet feed of
> their own.
>
> However, in the past few weeks, Google has begun a fundamental change
> in the way the group reading software works. In the old interface,
> they have removed the ability to display specific "favorite threads"
> and to determine when they were updated. They also removed the
> advanced searching functionality, making finding information more
> difficult.

Good to know it's not just me -- searching via googlegroups has been
hit and miss for me the past month or so, i.e. threads I know exist
are not returned.

Les Cargill

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Mar 9, 2011, 7:19:12 PM3/9/11

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eternal-September.org offers port 80 service, which gets around most
port-based filters. There are a plethora of COTS nntp readers which
are absolutely free.

--
Les Cargill

davygrvy

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Mar 9, 2011, 8:31:34 PM3/9/11

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Google's permalink for this thread appears to be <https://groups.google.com/d/topic/comp.lang.tcl/PpYOVKh_U3g/discussion>

Oh, I think I see what you mean, Larry. It doesn't maintain across sessions what topics you have previously viewed.

I use Google for a backup and access from work, so I've never used it all that much. When Comcast dropped their UNSENET service, I jumped to a GigaNews personal account.

tomas

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Mar 10, 2011, 3:05:07 AM3/10/11

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I'd like to second (third?) the recommendation of
eternal-sseptember.org. Fine NNTP service. This, and a decent nntp
reader, and you are set.

I'm still resisting the overall tendency of multiplexing the whole of
the Internet through port 80 (figuratively speaking).

Regards
-- tomás

Uwe Klein

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Mar 10, 2011, 3:27:58 AM3/10/11

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The problem imho is not access into current postings.
net news access is a comodity still.

Alta Vista and now Google News is a look into historic postings.
Everybody and his grandma has deep links into that archive for
various purposes. Just browse the wiki.

Qestion is: will google break this too ?

uwe

tomas

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Mar 10, 2011, 6:54:20 AM3/10/11

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Uwe Klein <uwe_klein_...@t-online.de> writes:

> tomas wrote:
>> I'd like to second (third?) the recommendation of

[...]

> The problem imho is not access into current postings.

[...]

> Everybody and his grandma has deep links into that archive

[...]

Thanks for the clarification. Very true indeed.

> Qestion is: will google break this too ?

Good question!

Regards
-- tomás

Larry W. Virden

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Mar 10, 2011, 7:35:28 AM3/10/11

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I appreciate the recommendation of eternal-september.org . I will have
to see if I can find a usable client, preferably available as a web
application. I really would prefer not to have to carry a variety of
clients around for the various OSes that I use during a week.

I surely wish that something as powerful as the old threaded rn
program were available. It is really hard to keep losing functionality
that just worked in trn - filtering to select or cancel specific
topics or threads, organization of discussion topics presented as
chronological or as threaded conversations, etc.

Joe English

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Mar 12, 2011, 2:04:19 PM3/12/11

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Larry W. Virden wrote:

> I surely wish that something as powerful as the old threaded rn
> program were available. It is really hard to keep losing functionality
> that just worked in trn - filtering to select or cancel specific
> topics or threads, organization of discussion topics presented as
> chronological or as threaded conversations, etc.

I use slrn. It works about as well as trn did, far less buggy,
and appears to not be dead yet -- latest release was in 2008
according to http://www.slrn.org/.

--Joe English

<div>**Sen&#39t from my ancient=
text%2Dmode newsreader!!1**

Alexandre Ferrieux

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Mar 14, 2011, 2:46:40 PM3/14/11

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On Mar 10, 9:27 am, Uwe Klein <uwe_klein_habertw...@t-online.de>
wrote:
>
> Question is: will google break this too ?

Well, they threaten to with this link at the top of the front GG page:

Preview the new Google Groups experience
https://groups.google.com/d/?fromgroups

if this sh*t becomes the single face of the so valuable DejaNews/GG
archive, then effectively they'll have broken something. Not by
destroying data of course (they can always switch back to a saner UI),
but by discouraging the use of the last corner of the Internet with a
decent SNR.

If you feel sore about this, tell Google. One way is to go to the
"Product Ideas for Google Groups" page at

https://www.google.com/moderator/?icon&expr#16/e=3b11d

-Alex