META+ The Root Cause of Usenet's Decline
KalElFan
and have participated in, in some cases for 10-15 years]
So there I was thinking about what to title this thread and where to
post it, eh? Later in the thread I'll post the draft title I had prior to
the one I've settled on: "META+ The Root Cause of Usenet's Decline".
For now I'll just offer up my #1 answer du jour:
"The vast, vast majority of discussion board participants
will not be interested in a pitch that says "here's a bucket
and a strainer, now filter the cesspool yourself."
It's often called "signal to noise" but that doesn't really properly
convey the "worst of the worst" Usenet content that can scroll
across a user's screen. Well run servers may have automatic
filters for binaries and spam, but some of what gets through
can still be vile stuff that would quite arguably be actionable
or illegal, or violate hate speech laws in Canada and other
jurisdictions for example. The average person just doesn't
want to get near it.
There are other problems too, but those are either moot
points or symptoms, more than they are the root causes.
For example "very few know about Usenet, especially not in
recent years" is a fair statement. But promoting something
with a cesspool barrier and then a big signal to noise problem
is largely a waste of time. Relatively few who tried it would
suffer it.
So why have some of us been here for fifteen or more years?
Basically because we've become immune to the stench. We
ignore it or filter it, or if it annoys us enough we flame it but
mainly it becomes an ugly piece of the furniture.
Because we can get over the cesspool barrier, we get to the
several benefits or selling points that Usenet otherwise would
have for many people out there. The better posters can be
quite knowledgeable. There's a good core base of longtimers
who haven't all died off yet. I think it has the web forums beat
in terms of their clunky interfaces, vs. a good nntp newsreader.
Windows Live Mail, easily accesible and free for download last
I looked, works fine for the average user. There are all kinds of
groups on every topic you can think of that can be searched on
a newsgroup list.
Another big benefit is the existing Usenet infrastructure and
the "passive conduit" that it represents. It allows the main
or underlying foundation to be unmoderated. That's the
traditional version of Usenet that many of its existing users
value, and new users would like the ability to "turn off the
moderator" whenever they'd like too! So that can be a big
selling point as well, because too much moderation on the
web boards and in some groups can be a problem.
That underlying foundation is a great platform to build an
optional filtering system on, one that inherently encourages
self-moderation because the worst of the worst posters or
posts will know they won't get by those optional filters.
Those posters or posts will tend to go to the unmoderated
version directly, saving any moderation work at all. The
moderated process can also provide a hi-mod and lo-mod
version, and other tools so users who choose moderation
can tailor it to their preferences.
So the root cause can be addressed, but it would require a
Plan and lots of volunteers to assist with developing and
implementing it. Group by group, it would require not just
one but a team of moderators. Pick a topic though, any tv
show for example with a reasonable online base, and you
could probably find literally dozens and probably 100+
volunteer moderators of that topic across the web on the
various boards. It's fragmented, but it illustrates the large
potential pool if Usenet can be restored as "The" place for
worldwide discussion of a topic.
Even the Cylons had a Plan, right? And they didn't need
volunteers they just made them. :-) Usenet, it needs a
Plan and it needs lots of different volunteers to carry it
out. It needs a bunch of Ones (admins), Twos (techies)
Threes (programmers), Fours (moderators), Fives (PR folk),
a Six [this space reserved for Tricia Helfer :-)] a really
massive number of Sevens (nameless, faceless cyber-
entities called Users), and an Eight [this space reserved
for Grace Park :-)].
Scott Eiler
> That underlying foundation is a great platform to build an
> optional filtering system on, one that inherently encourages
> self-moderation because the worst of the worst posters or
> posts will know they won't get by those optional filters.
> Those posters or posts will tend to go to the unmoderated
> version directly, saving any moderation work at all. The
> moderated process can also provide a hi-mod and lo-mod
> version, and other tools so users who choose moderation
> can tailor it to their preferences.
>
> So the root cause can be addressed, but it would require a
> Plan and lots of volunteers to assist with developing and
> implementing it.
Actually, that's about what Google Groups is doing with Usenet. So
many ISPs have given up Usenet newsfeeds, Google practically owns
Usenet now.
Bert Hyman
news:0e264f82-26d5-4cba...@j25g2000yqa.googlegroups.com
Scott Eiler <sei...@eilertech.com> wrote:
> Actually, that's about what Google Groups is doing with Usenet. So
> many ISPs have given up Usenet newsfeeds, Google practically owns
> Usenet now.
ISPs have dropped USENET support ostensibly for legal reasons (NY
then-Attorney General Cuomo claiming it was a conduit for child porn),
but it's more likely financial; there's no money in it for most of them.
--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN be...@iphouse.com
Your Name
Also few people even know Usenet exists.
ISPs in general are becoming lazier and lazier, offering fewer services.
They are moving towards simply providing an Internet connnection, with it
being up to the user to supply their own email, newsgroup, etc. services.
Meanwhile, prices continue to rise, but we get less actual service (and in
the case of Vodafone New Zealand, often no service at all!). :-(
Your Name
<0e264f82-26d5-4cba...@j25g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>, Scott
Eiler <sei...@eilertech.com> wrote:
> On Dec 28, 10:28=A0am, "KalElFan" <kalel...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote:
>
> > That underlying foundation is a great platform to build an
> > optional filtering system on, one that inherently encourages
> > self-moderation because the worst of the worst posters or
> > posts will know they won't get by those optional filters.
> > Those posters or posts will tend to go to the unmoderated
> > version directly, saving any moderation work at all. =A0The
> > moderated process can also provide a hi-mod and lo-mod
> > version, and other tools so users who choose moderation
> > can tailor it to their preferences.
> >
> > So the root cause can be addressed, but it would require a
> > Plan and lots of volunteers to assist with developing and
> > implementing it.
>
> Actually, that's about what Google Groups is doing with Usenet. So
> many ISPs have given up Usenet newsfeeds, Google practically owns
> Usenet now.
Nobody owns Usenet. Google has absolutely no control over Usenet
newsgroups and can't and won't. They do have control over the groups
created within Google Groups, but they are different even though accessed
via the same Google website service.
Your Name
Opps! I forgot to say that it's not just ISPs dropping Usenet newsgroup
support. The big companies like Microsoft and Adobe are dropping the
newsgroups and using their own forum-based systems (which used to include
newsgroup feeds).
Your Name
<kale...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> [note crossposts to five unmoderated groups that I'm subscribed to
> and have participated in, in some cases for 10-15 years]
>
> So there I was thinking about what to title this thread and where to
> post it, eh? Later in the thread I'll post the draft title I had prior to
> the one I've settled on: "META+ The Root Cause of Usenet's Decline".
> For now I'll just offer up my #1 answer du jour:
<snip>
The "root cause" is people cross-posting off-topic messages. ;-)
The Doctor
google is a joke when it comes to Usenet!
--
Member - Liberal International This is doc...@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doc...@nl2k.ab.ca
God, Queen and country! Never Satan President Republic! Beware AntiChrist rising!
http://twitter.com/rootnl2k http://www.facebook.com/dyadallee
Merry Christmas 2010 and Happy New Year 2011
Your Name
Doctor) wrote:
Like most of Google's "apps", the interface is horrible.
Ed Stasiak
>
> The Root Cause of Usenet's Decline
Facebook was the last of many daggers in Usenets back, that
started the day people could post pictures on the Internet.
> Usenet, it needs a Plan and it needs lots of different volunteers
> to carry it out.
"From the sacred shore I stand on, I command thee to retreat;
Venture not, thou stormy rebel, to approach thy master's seat:
Ocean, be thou still! I bid thee come not nearer to my feet!"
Ed Stasiak
>
> google is a joke when it comes to Usenet!
Not at all, I've been using Google ever since they acquired
DejaNews and have found it to be very convenient and
unlike annoying web forums, there's a thread tree.
KalElFan
news:6483781f-9ab3-4fc8...@w17g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
Several years back, probably more than 5 years ago, I registered
and found it clunky compared to Outlook Express, the newsreader
I was using. But I may not have been using the best view that
Google had at that time, or maybe they've since improved it.
I spent a bit more time on Google the last few hours researching
some material for other responses to this thread, for example
stats on different groups. Here's what I think is a beautiful
view of a 201-post thread in news.groups.proposals. It's the
discussion that basically preceded this one, and was extremely
helpful in arriving at certain conclusions about how any new
Optional Moderation system would have to work. No need
for anyone to read the whole thread because much of the
earlier stuff was supplanted and I'll be posting a description
in this thread of the "current" version and how it addresses
the key issues.
Note that there's also the far right reference that this is a
Usenet group and a "learn more" button. There's also,
right under that and this is extremely interesting, a "View
this group in the new Google Groups" option. Click that
and you'll get a different view like this:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/news.groups.proposals/is24_fbZsB0
And if you scroll down the first post a bit you'll see the
posts in this "Google Groups" version have a "Report
abuse" link. It leads to a popup page and check buttons
for one of six categories of abuse:
- Spam
- Hateful or violent content
For example, Anti-Semitic content, racist content, or
material that could result in a violent physical act.
- Illegal pornography
- Personal or private information
For example, a credit card number, a personal
identification number, or an unlisted home address.
Note that email addresses and full names are not
considered private information.
- According to the laws of my country, this content is illegal.
- Other
You can only click one, and the first one "Spam" is pre-
clicked. The threshold for them to do anything on a
Usenet post is probably high.
KalElFan
news:your.name-291...@203-109-166-101.dial.dyn.ihug.co.nz...
[Your Name was responding to Scott Eiler]
> Nobody owns Usenet.
True, but the individual servers that make up Usenet are owned.
Here's a "Top 1000" site that's maintained and updated. It's not
perfect in its methodology but it's a pretty good guideline.
http://www.top1000.org/top1000.txt
I just cut and pasted that latter page into Word and then Excel
for purposes of a quick calculation. I took the total of all servers'
(i.e., all 1000) weighted numbers as the base. Then I took the total
of the (five I believe it is) Google servers on the Top 1000 list.
The latter total is just under 2.5% of the total Top 1000 number.
So Google, using these numbers as a rough guide, only represents
about 2.5% of the Usenet "market," among the Top 1000 servers.
Google shows its number of "subscribers" or "members" of each
group. For example for the five groups on my crosspost list it's:
3235 rec.arts.tv
1406 rec.arts.comics.dc.universe
1085 alt.battlestar-galactica
996 news.groups
653 rec.arts.sf.tv
There'd be some overlap there where the same subscribers
are subscribing to more than one group, but let's take the
3235 for rec.arts.tv. If that's 2.5%, we need to multiply that
by 40 to get to the Top 1000 base, so 3235 x 40 = 129,400.
There are many other factors that may swing it one way
or another, but there may be 100,000++ potential readers
at least who are subscribed to rec.arts.tv worldwide. They
may actually read only 1% of the posts though, whenever
they happen to check in.
I suspect most of those 996 "subscribers" to news.groups
probably abandoned Usenet long ago. Maybe there's
a few hundred of them left, and only 77 were up to date
enough to subscribe to the newer moderated group formed
only 4+ years ago.
The BSG group's traffic is way down because the series is
cancelled. The comics group is also way down from its
peak in 1998, when it had over 100,000 posts. This year
it has just over 7200, so down about 93% in 12 years. A
part of that is the decline of comics not Usenet.
The rec.art.movies.current-films group also peaked in
1998 with about 118,500 posts. This year it's at its all-
time low of about 19,000 posts, but that's down "only"
about 84% not 93% like the comics group.
The rec.arts.tv group, for at least a couple of reasons,
is an anomaly and has fared much "better" in terms of
posting activity. In 1998 it had only about 45,400 posts.
In 2006 it peaked at just over 204,000 posts. This year
it's at just over 137,000 posts. So it's tripled its posts
from 1998, but it's down about 33% from 2006.
One reason is that the television dial, i.e. number of
channels and shows and TV to discuss and so on, has
exploded since 1998. But that also increased political
and off-topic postings, so the signal to noise as some
perceive it has become much worse. The increase to
2006 probably marked the point where Noise Finally
Got The Upper Hand Over TV Growth and it's been
downhill since. There's still signal there though, the
most in the rec.arts.* hierarchy, and there are still
good posters and it's a very stable topic. So it'd be a
perfect pilot test for any attempt to turn things around
for Usenet. Almost everyone watches some TV and is
interested in talking about it.
> Google has absolutely no control over Usenet
> newsgroups and can't and won't.
Correct, but they COULD actually "take over Usenet's
successor" to some extent, if they wanted to. Usenet
is not the Internet and certainly not the web. It existed
long before the web, at a time when there was no
"one-click" to a site that could house a massive
electronic bulletin board that allowed worldwide
participation of hundreds of thousands of users on
different topics. Today, Google already is that for its
Google Groups in a sense.
Aatu Koskensilta
> True, but the individual servers that make up Usenet are owned.
> Here's a "Top 1000" site that's maintained and updated. It's not
> perfect in its methodology but it's a pretty good guideline.
Is it? It's not clear from the web page but it seems the statistics
include binaries. If so, your calculations are pretty meaningless.
> There are many other factors that may swing it one way or another, but
> there may be 100,000++ potential readers at least who are subscribed
> to rec.arts.tv worldwide.
This is a totally unrealistic figure.
--
Aatu Koskensilta (aatu.kos...@uta.fi)
"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, dar�ber muss man schweigen"
- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Steve Crook
On Wed, 29 Dec 2010 13:06:42 +1300, Your Name wrote in
Message-Id: <your.name-291...@203-109-166-101.dial.dyn.ihug.co.nz>:
> Also few people even know Usenet exists.
Few people even get beyond their browser. If the functionality isn't
in Facebook, they don't use it.
Probably a bit harsh but it sums up the degree that services have to be
simplified in order for people to adopt them. Even email as we know it
is beginning to lose out to Facebook private messaging. Thankfully it's
so completely useless that most people still require a proper email
address. Let us hope they never improve it to the point that that
ceases to be the case.
> ISPs in general are becoming lazier and lazier, offering fewer services.
> They are moving towards simply providing an Internet connnection, with it
> being up to the user to supply their own email, newsgroup, etc. services.
I'm actually in favour of this. I want my ISP to focus on core
services, like my connection itself and a decent DNS (including a
reverse lookup that I can configure). The other services they offer(ed)
were always second-rate in comparison to providers that specialised in
them.
> Meanwhile, prices continue to rise, but we get less actual service (and in
> the case of Vodafone New Zealand, often no service at all!). :-(
I share your pain. Living in a very rural part of the UK, I'm lucky to
see 1Mb/s, despite paying for a business service. Over the next couple
of years I should see FTTH (Fibre To The Home) and speeds up to 50Mb/s.
As this technology rolls out around the world, we'll see yet another
shift to more glitzy, multimedia-centric services. Quality of content
will subsequently take another dive.
KalElFan
news:87ipycn...@dialatheia.truth.invalid...
> "KalElFan" <kale...@yanospamhoo.com> writes:
>
>> True, but the individual servers that make up Usenet are owned.
>> Here's a "Top 1000" site that's maintained and updated. It's not
>> perfect in its methodology but it's a pretty good guideline.
>
> Is it? It's not clear from the web page but it seems the statistics
> include binaries. If so, your calculations are pretty meaningless.
Actually, no they wouldn't be meaningless at all if the statistics are
based on "articles viewed". Yes, binaries are massive but that's due
to one binaries post being so large. The binaries post is rarely if ever
much of an article per se, it might just have a "1 of 7" or whatever
structure and then all 7 posts could be a gigabyte of information.
The site may not even count it as an article, of if it does may count
all seven parts of it as one article. Even if they count each part as 1,
it's again the bandwidth that can cause us to jump to the conclusion
that binaries would skew the results.
Are there really that many more binaries *articles* than text
articles? My impression is it's the exact opposite. There are far
more text articles, it's just that they're far, far smaller in terms
of bandwidth. The average text article might only be 3K in size,
so getting to 1 gigabyte requires 333,333 articles. This is why text
news servers are so easy to run these days and in some cases get
offered for free. Compared to the old days in the 80s and 90s, text
is nothing in terms of bandwidth.
If the site was indicating its weighted numbers were directly
correlated to bandwidth, I would agree with you. But it says, in
a few places I think, that it's "articles viewed" or some similar
term.
>> There are many other factors that may swing it one way or
>> another, but there may be 100,000++ potential readers at
>> least who are subscribed to rec.arts.tv worldwide.
>
> This is a totally unrealistic figure.
In rec.arts.tv's case, we know Google shows the number of subscribers
and we know rec.arts.tv's pattern is such that unlike other groups it
has not declined in activity long-term. So it's simply a matter of what
the multiple is to get from Google to Usenet as a whole. If Google has
2.5% of the market and 3235 subscribers then what you or I or anyone
thinks is a totally unrealistic figure is irrelevant. There would, factually,
be well over 100,000 "potential readers" who are subscribed to the
rec.arts.tv newsgroup worldwide.
Now, to try to bridge that with the incredulity you or others may be
experiencing with that big number, as I said only 1% of that may read
any given post, so say 1,000 if it's a post that catches people's eye or
whatnot. The other 99% of "subscribers" may not check in to the group
very often, or check only for headers that really interest them and so on
and any particular post doesn't. An interesting-looking one to one
reader isn't to a large number of others.
There are also factors that work the other way though, and may increase
the numbers. Usenet posts will come up on a Google web search for
example. Go here and type in "Optional Moderation" in the "exact
wording or phrase" field right now as I write this:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
And of the 10 hits on the first page that come up, 2 are Usenet posts
from the discussions I've been in. One is a Google Groups URL and the
other another site that archived a post. A third reference is the
optionalmoderation.org site that I registered. So although we think
of Usenet as somehow off to the side someplace and inaccessible to
the masses, they do in fact routinely run across Usenet posts in the
course of their Google and other searches. I've seen it many, many
times. They just don't know it's "Usenet" that was the source of it.
But if you get into the weeds of that Top 1000 site and can figure out
if there is a binaries or other bias let us know.
The Doctor
So have I - WAY too many unreasonable limits!!
The Doctor
If they do anything. I complained about one anti-Semetic bigot
so many time, but google does nothing!
The Doctor
Whiskers
> "Your Name" wrote in message
> news:your.name-291...@203-109-166-101.dial.dyn.ihug.co.nz...
>
> [Your Name was responding to Scott Eiler]
>
>> Nobody owns Usenet.
>
> True, but the individual servers that make up Usenet are owned.
> Here's a "Top 1000" site that's maintained and updated. It's not
> perfect in its methodology but it's a pretty good guideline.
>
> http://www.top1000.org/
>
> http://www.top1000.org/top1000.txt
>
> I just cut and pasted that latter page into Word and then Excel
> for purposes of a quick calculation. I took the total of all servers'
> (i.e., all 1000) weighted numbers as the base. Then I took the total
> of the (five I believe it is) Google servers on the Top 1000 list.
> The latter total is just under 2.5% of the total Top 1000 number.
>
> So Google, using these numbers as a rough guide, only represents
> about 2.5% of the Usenet "market," among the Top 1000 servers.
Google doesn't carry any binary newsgroups, whereas the majority of
news-servers do. Binaries account for the vast majority of newsgroup
posts. I suspect that many news-servers are dominated by users who
contribute little or nothing to the text-only groups.
> Google shows its number of "subscribers" or "members" of each
> group. For example for the five groups on my crosspost list it's:
>
> 3235 rec.arts.tv
> 1406 rec.arts.comics.dc.universe
> 1085 alt.battlestar-galactica
> 996 news.groups
> 653 rec.arts.sf.tv
[...]
I think those numbers are simply a count of how many different email
addresses Google has detected posting in each group; they don't
differentiate between people using Google to post and people using other
methods. Any count of posts actually made using Google, will be inflated
by spam (some usenet groups seem to consist of nothing but spam posted
using Google), but even allowing for that Google posters may be the
most numerous in some groups.
A better indication of Google's share of usenet posters, is by analysing
'user agents'. For example,
<http://www.newsreaders.com/link/clientstats.php?file=all> shows Microsoft
(OE, Entourage, all versions combined) in top spot accounting for almost
30% of all articles posted in the past six years, with Google (G2) in
second place with almost 17% and Forte Agent and free Agent together
coming third with 13.5%. "Serious" user-agents such as Xnews or slrn
account for a few percent, or less than 1%, each. Even these figures take
no account of the fact that Google cannot read or post binary articles,
whereas the other user-agents mostly can (and some are designed to do
nothing else).
Sadly, most of the detailed analyses on that site seem to be broken at
present.
--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~
Mister Whiskers
> A better indication of Google's share of usenet posters, is by analysing
> 'user agents'. For example,
> <http://www.newsreaders.com/link/clientstats.php?file=all> shows Microsoft
> (OE, Entourage, all versions combined) in top spot accounting for almost
> 30% of all articles posted in the past six years, with Google (G2) in
> second place with almost 17% and Forte Agent and free Agent together
> coming third with 13.5%. "Serious" user-agents such as Xnews or slrn
> account for a few percent, or less than 1%, each.
In which category does Thunderbird reside?
Jerry Gerrone
> In article <8nuoquFpb...@mid.individual.net>, "KalElFan"
>
> <kalel...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > [note crossposts to five unmoderated groups that I'm subscribed to
> > and have participated in, in some cases for 10-15 years]
>
> > So there I was thinking about what to title this thread and where to
> > post it, eh? Later in the thread I'll post the draft title I had prior to
> > the one I've settled on: "META+ The Root Cause of Usenet's Decline".
> > For now I'll just offer up my #1 answer du jour:
>
> <snip>
>
> The "root cause" is people cross-posting off-topic messages. ;-)
Yeah. There's been a lot of that going around lately.
Your Name
"Whiskers" <catwh...@operamail.com> wrote in message
news:slrnihml8v.c...@ID-107770.user.individual.net...
>
> Google doesn't carry any binary newsgroups, whereas the majority of
> news-servers do.
I doubt that's true. Many newsservers do not deal with binaries newsgroups
and some ISPs are dropping the binaries newsgroups (rather than dropping
newsgroups completely) to get around the copyright and porn issues.
> Binaries account for the vast majority of newsgroup
> posts. I suspect that many news-servers are dominated by users who
> contribute little or nothing to the text-only groups.
Certainly true, just like it is for all web forums / messageboards.
Ed Stasiak
> > Ed Stasiak
> >
> > Not at all, I've been using Google ever since they acquired
> > DejaNews and have found it to be very convenient and
> > unlike annoying web forums, there's a thread tree.
>
> Several years back, probably more than 5 years ago, I registered
> and found it clunky compared to Outlook Express, the newsreader
> I was using.
Initially when Google acquired DejaNews, it did suck as Google
changed it around and updates were extremely slow (24 hours
for some groups) but this was quickly corrected and IMO it works
very well.
Of course you need to know how to set it up to view the thread tree
and such and that's kinda awkward, as Google has you clicking all
around instead of putting all the settings in one spot.
But once you're set, I've found that it's more convenient than a news
reader, (OE for me also) especially when jumping from group to group
and back and forth to the Internet.
> "View this group in the new Google Groups" option. Click that
> and you'll get a different view like this:
Yuck, that looks like a shitty web forum. No thanks, I'll stick with
the tradition format.
> It's the discussion that basically preceded this one, and was extremely
> helpful in arriving at certain conclusions about how any new Optional
> Moderation system would have to work.
As I suggested in my other post, I think you're pissing in the wind
The beauty of Usenet is the wide-open, free-wheeling kind of
discussion that you're looking to restrict.
If I wanted to deal with a power mad junta of moderators and their
namby-pamby rules, I'd go to a web forum.
Ed Stasiak
> KalElFan
> >
> >The threshold for them to do anything on a
> >Usenet post is probably high.
>
> If they do anything. I complained about one anti-Semetic bigot
> so many time, but google does nothing!
Man up, Doc! Why do you hate the 1st Amendment?
Whiskers
> "Whiskers" <catwh...@operamail.com> wrote in message
> news:slrnihml8v.c...@ID-107770.user.individual.net...
>>
>> Google doesn't carry any binary newsgroups, whereas the majority of
>> news-servers do.
>
> I doubt that's true. Many newsservers do not deal with binaries newsgroups
> and some ISPs are dropping the binaries newsgroups (rather than dropping
> newsgroups completely) to get around the copyright and porn issues.
Some news-servers don't carry binary groups; the best ones for text-only
users certainly don't have any binaries. But why is there a 'top 1000'
news-server list if there aren't at least several hundred news-servers
operating? ISP-operated news-servers have never had a good reputation for
reliability, as a general rule (although there have been exceptions) - and
the latest spate of ISPs cutting back or ceasing their in-house
news-servers is just a local USA thing, not world-wide. Out-sourcing to
one or another of the specialist NSPs is a trend at present.
>> Binaries account for the vast majority of newsgroup
>> posts. I suspect that many news-servers are dominated by users who
>> contribute little or nothing to the text-only groups.
>
> Certainly true, just like it is for all web forums / messageboards.
There are web forums and message-boards overwhelmed by binary posts? At
least HTTP is designed to shift binary files, which NNTP isn't.
Whiskers
Still 'lightweight' in my opinion; it doesn't screw things up the way OE
and Google do, but it lacks the flexible filtering or scoring tools that a
serious newsreader requires.
The Doctor
Ed Stasiak <esta...@att.net> wrote:
>> The Doctor
>> KalElFan
>> >
>> >The threshold for them to do anything on a
>> >Usenet post is probably high.
>>
>> so many time, but google does nothing!
>
>Man up, Doc! Why do you hate the 1st Amendment?
Who said I did? It should not protect criminals.
Your Name
Whiskers <catwh...@gmx.co.uk> wrote:
> On 2010-12-29, Your Name <your...@isp.com> wrote:
> > "Whiskers" <catwh...@operamail.com> wrote in message
> > news:slrnihml8v.c...@ID-107770.user.individual.net...
> >>
> >> Google doesn't carry any binary newsgroups, whereas the majority of
> >> news-servers do.
> >
> > I doubt that's true. Many newsservers do not deal with binaries newsgroups
> > and some ISPs are dropping the binaries newsgroups (rather than dropping
> > newsgroups completely) to get around the copyright and porn issues.
>
> Some news-servers don't carry binary groups; the best ones for text-only
> users certainly don't have any binaries. But why is there a 'top 1000'
> news-server list if there aren't at least several hundred news-servers
> operating? ISP-operated news-servers have never had a good reputation for
> reliability, as a general rule (although there have been exceptions) - and
> the latest spate of ISPs cutting back or ceasing their in-house
> news-servers is just a local USA thing, not world-wide. Out-sourcing to
> one or another of the specialist NSPs is a trend at present.
It's not a "USA thing". Here in New Zealand a couple of ISPs have dropped
their newservers completely and the one I use (now owned by Vodafone New
Zealand) dropped "all" binaries newsgroups a few years ago ... mostly
because they couldn't actually fix their newsserver, so they dropped the
binaries newsgroups under the guise of copyright and porn issues to lower
the data load (of course the newsserver still fell over, it just took
longer, and not all the binaries newsgroups were actually removed,
including still leaving some of the porn ones).
> >> Binaries account for the vast majority of newsgroup
> >> posts. I suspect that many news-servers are dominated by users who
> >> contribute little or nothing to the text-only groups.
> >
> > Certainly true, just like it is for all web forums / messageboards.
>
> There are web forums and message-boards overwhelmed by binary posts? At
> least HTTP is designed to shift binary files, which NNTP isn't.
No. The statement was that "many newsservers are dominated by users who
contribute little or nothing" ... many web forums and messageboards are
also read by people who contribute nothing.
Your Name
Doctor) wrote:
> In article
<f19df89d-0fdd-47df...@l32g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,
> Ed Stasiak <esta...@att.net> wrote:
> >> The Doctor
> >> KalElFan
> >> >
> >> >The threshold for them to do anything on a
> >> >Usenet post is probably high.
> >>
> >> If they do anything. =A0I complained about one anti-Semetic bigot
> >> so many time, but google does nothing!
> >
> >Man up, Doc! Why do you hate the 1st Amendment?
>
> Who said I did? It should not protect criminals.
Criminals already have enough protection ... it's called the "justice" or
"legal" system, full of weak-kneed, politicially correct idiots who at
best usually just slap criminals on the wrist with a wet paper towel. :-(
KalElFan
news:Xns9E5CA15D3D8...@216.250.188.140...
> In
> news:0e264f82-26d5-4cba...@j25g2000yqa.googlegroups.com
> Scott Eiler <sei...@eilertech.com> wrote:
>
>> Actually, that's about what Google Groups is doing with Usenet. So
>> many ISPs have given up Usenet newsfeeds, Google practically owns
>> Usenet now.
>
> ISPs have dropped USENET support ostensibly for legal reasons (NY
> then-Attorney General Cuomo claiming it was a conduit for child porn),
> but it's more likely financial; there's no money in it for most of them.
In AOL's case there was also a lawsuit that Harlan Ellison brought
against them, after an AOL user posted his work on a newsgroup.
AOL won the main part of the case for purposes of our discussion
here, which is that they were a "passive conduit" as defined under
the DMCA. But there was some other part where they lost and
rather than appeal that part of it they settled with Ellison.
Again for purposes of the discussion in the thread title, the child porn
issue and copyright violation and the ISPs dropping Usenet and so on
are all part of Usenet's rep of having a cesspool barrier. That, and
the more sterile "signal to noise" description of the same kind of
problem, is the root cause of Usenet's decline.
Your Name
<kale...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Again for purposes of the discussion in the thread title, the child porn
> issue and copyright violation and the ISPs dropping Usenet and so on
> are all part of Usenet's rep of having a cesspool barrier.
The same can easily be said for the Internet as a whole, in fact there's
probably way more people using normal websites / servers to get copyright
material and porn than there is in Usenet newsgroups simply by the lesser
numbers using Usenet. :-( If ISPs were really serious (rather than just
using it as a lazy excuse as Vodafone New Zealand did and still not
following through properly) they would simply not be in this business at
all.
KalElFan
news:slrnihml8v.c...@ID-107770.user.individual.net...
> Binaries account for the vast majority of newsgroup posts.
Yes, checking the WIki article on Usenet, and a link in one of
their references, it's apparent that's true. It's not just bandwidth,
it's numbers of posts too. And it further fuels the cesspool
rep. The fact that "The Web" generally has porn and the like
is not a relevant comparison.
> A better indication of Google's share of usenet posters, is by
> analysing 'user agents'....
Better information would be if one of the sites posting Usenet
stats could get #s of users subscribed to the group rec.arts.tv,
or any particular group. If, say, the top 10 providers constitute
an estimated 50% of the market, then we could double their
total to get the number of available readers of rec.arts.tv.
Getting back to the thread title, it looks like text posting to
Usenet is probably down by at least 75% or probably more
off the peak in 1998 or so. Factor in signal to noise declining
and it's worse. As Usenet has burned the last 12 years, the
growth in the market for discussion forums and the like on
the web has exploded. Much bigger market, but basically
Usenet hasn't gotten any of it it's just lost.
It's an open and shut case at this point, on both the decline
and root cause. I'd already researched postings on this issue
and participated in discussions about this, and there's very
broad consensus on not just the decline (which is a fact) but
that the cesspool factor or signal to noise or however it's been
characterized in different ways or by other names, is the main
root cause. There's just too much pointing to that and much
of it was raised by others in this thread.
Martin Phipps
> [note crossposts to five unmoderated groups that I'm subscribed to
> and have participated in, in some cases for 10-15 years]
>
> So there I was thinking about what to title this thread and where to
> post it, eh? Later in the thread I'll post the draft title I had prior to
> the one I've settled on: "META+ The Root Cause of Usenet's Decline".
Well, obviously the decline is due to the fact that usenet used to be
for university students and today its for everyone. Or possibly no
one as you can't expect a system that tries to please everyone to
please anyone. Seriously, twenty years ago anyone who wasn't heavily
into either Star Trek or porn wouldn't have been interested in Usenet.
Martin
Captain Infinity
Martin Phipps wrote:
>Seriously, twenty years ago anyone who wasn't heavily
>into either Star Trek or porn wouldn't have been interested in Usenet.
I don't think there's anyone alive who isn't interested in Star Trek and
porn.
**
Captain Infinity
Alexander Bartolich
Captain Infinity schrieb:
Well, not here in Usenet, that's true. But outside--you know, the big
room with blue ceiling and bright yellow light--there are lots of them.
I think they call them women.
--
suzeeq
True, but 'heavily into' them? I had other interests when I first found
Usenet 15 years ago.
Whiskers
> "Bert Hyman" wrote in message
> news:Xns9E5CA15D3D8...@216.250.188.140...
>
>> In
>> news:0e264f82-26d5-4cba...@j25g2000yqa.googlegroups.com
>> Scott Eiler <sei...@eilertech.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Actually, that's about what Google Groups is doing with Usenet. So
>>> many ISPs have given up Usenet newsfeeds, Google practically owns
>>> Usenet now.
>>
>> ISPs have dropped USENET support ostensibly for legal reasons (NY
>> then-Attorney General Cuomo claiming it was a conduit for child porn),
>> but it's more likely financial; there's no money in it for most of them.
>
> In AOL's case there was also a lawsuit that Harlan Ellison brought
> against them, after an AOL user posted his work on a newsgroup.
> AOL won the main part of the case for purposes of our discussion
> here, which is that they were a "passive conduit" as defined under
> the DMCA. But there was some other part where they lost and
> rather than appeal that part of it they settled with Ellison.
AOL are commonly blamed for the beginning of the end of usenet - not by
withdrawing from it, but by making it accessible to their users. That
event marked the start of 'the eternal September'
<http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/S/September-that-never-ended.html>
> Again for purposes of the discussion in the thread title, the child porn
> issue and copyright violation and the ISPs dropping Usenet and so on
> are all part of Usenet's rep of having a cesspool barrier. That, and
> the more sterile "signal to noise" description of the same kind of
> problem, is the root cause of Usenet's decline.
Google Groups has taken over from AOL as the source of most of usenet's
woes, not least because AOL recommended their usenet users go to Google
when AOL shut down their usenet portal - although Google was already
becoming a problem by then.
The late Blinky the Shark was moved to found the Usenet Improvement
Project, which lives on here <http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/>.
This project seeks to offer help for newbies wishing to use their own
news-reader software features to filter out the bulk of the noise (by the
simple expedient of blocking all articles posted from Google).
Ed Stasiak
>
> This project seeks to offer help for newbies wishing to use their own
> news-reader software features to filter out the bulk of the noise (by
> the simple expedient of blocking all articles posted from Google).
It's been mentioned that Google, with 30% of Usenet users, represents
the largest percent of posters. If you're going to killfile all of us
in one
fell swoop, you're going to end up being pretty lonely.
catpandaddy
"Ed Stasiak" <esta...@att.net> wrote in message
news:2edb3cd1-4b00-4807...@s5g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
Better to kf AIOE, most of the deliberate troublemakers are from there.
Bert Hyman
Ed Stasiak <esta...@att.net> wrote:
I filter all posts by googlegroupers which are the head of a thread (no
References: header) but pass followups from them.
Nothing personal.
--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN be...@iphouse.com
A B
news:your.name-291...@203-109-166-101.dial.dyn.ihug.co.nz...
> In article <Xns9E5CA15D3D8...@216.250.188.140>, Bert Hyman
> <be...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>
>> In
>> news:0e264f82-26d5-4cba...@j25g2000yqa.googlegroups.com
>> Scott Eiler <sei...@eilertech.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Actually, that's about what Google Groups is doing with Usenet. So
>> > many ISPs have given up Usenet newsfeeds, Google practically owns
>> > Usenet now.
>>
>> ISPs have dropped USENET support ostensibly for legal reasons (NY
>> then-Attorney General Cuomo claiming it was a conduit for child porn),
>> but it's more likely financial; there's no money in it for most of them.
>
> support. The big companies like Microsoft and Adobe are dropping the
> newsgroups and using their own forum-based systems (which used to include
> newsgroup feeds).
That's on top of the way Outlook Express's bumf gives the impression that
Usenet is just a system for discussing Microsoft's programs with other
users!
Heike Svensson
> "Ed Stasiak" <esta...@att.net> wrote in message
> news:2edb3cd1-4b00-4807...@s5g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
>> the largest percent of posters. If you're going to killfile all of us
>> in one
>> fell swoop, you're going to end up being pretty lonely.
>
> Better to kf AIOE, most of the deliberate troublemakers are from there.
So are plenty of us normal users whose internet providers no longer
provide usenet and who don't want to resort to google groups.
A B
> I spent a bit more time on Google the last few hours researching
> some material for other responses to this thread, for example
> stats on different groups. Here's what I think is a beautiful
> view of a 201-post thread in news.groups.proposals. It's the
> discussion that basically preceded this one, and was extremely
> helpful in arriving at certain conclusions about how any new
> for anyone to read the whole thread because much of the
> earlier stuff was supplanted and I'll be posting a description
> in this thread of the "current" version and how it addresses
> the key issues.
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups.proposals/browse_frm/thread/8acdb8fdf6d9b01d?hl=en&scoring=d
Thanks, I didn't know about that view. Handy. I'm not actually registered
with Google Groups, but often use it to get hold of old postings (my ISP's
news server has a pretty quick turnover).
David V. Loewe, Jr
>Bert Hyman <be...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>> Scott Eiler <sei...@eilertech.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Actually, that's about what Google Groups is doing with Usenet. So
>> > many ISPs have given up Usenet newsfeeds, Google practically owns
>> > Usenet now.
>>
>> ISPs have dropped USENET support ostensibly for legal reasons (NY
>> then-Attorney General Cuomo claiming it was a conduit for child porn),
>> but it's more likely financial; there's no money in it for most of them.
>
>Also few people even know Usenet exists.
BINGO!
>ISPs in general are becoming lazier and lazier, offering fewer services.
>They are moving towards simply providing an Internet connnection, with it
>being up to the user to supply their own email, newsgroup, etc. services.
>Meanwhile, prices continue to rise, but we get less actual service (and in
>the case of Vodafone New Zealand, often no service at all!). :-(
--
"...you know, it seems to me you suffer from the problem of
wanting a tailored fit in an off the rack world."
Dennis Juds
David V. Loewe, Jr
Giganews is fairly cheap if you're just doing text and the text message
group retention time is on the order of seven *years*.
Whiskers
Those of us with sufficiently powerful newsreaders can easily create a
list of Googlers whose thread-starting posts are worth reading. In fact a
killfile is a very crude tool, although some newsreaders can't do any
better.
The program I use, slrn, has the ability to 'score' articles based on
several different factors - so yours for example gets a score of
-99 for being posted using Google, and a score of 5000 for being a direct
reply to one of mine, making a total score of 4901. Even if it only
scored -99 I would still have seen it threaded in with the other replies -
but marked as 'read' so that I have to make a deliberate effort to read it.
A Google post not replying to anything, would be pushed to the bottom of
the list of articles and marked as read so that I'd only see it the first
time I visit that group after the Google article arrives.
Anim8rFSK
"catpandaddy" <c...@cat.pan.net> wrote:
AIOE, gmail, hotmail, pretty much does it.
--
"Please, I can't die, I've never kissed an Asian woman!"
Shego on "Shat My Dad Says"
Heike Svensson
> In article<ifih2t$k2l$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> "catpandaddy"<c...@cat.pan.net> wrote:
>> Better to kf AIOE, most of the deliberate troublemakers are from there.
>
> AIOE, gmail, hotmail, pretty much does it.
I must again protest. Plenty of us normal users whose internet providers
no longer provide usenet and who don't want to resort to google groups
use aioe, and plenty of normal people use gmail and hotmail too --
they're the two biggest webmail providers! Anyone who wants to be able
to access their email even when they're away from home probably uses one
or the other!
Captain Infinity
catpandaddy wrote:
>> It's been mentioned that Google, with 30% of Usenet users, represents
>> the largest percent of posters. If you're going to killfile all of us
>> in one
>> fell swoop, you're going to end up being pretty lonely.
>
>Better to kf AIOE, most of the deliberate troublemakers are from there.
Done a month ago; one of my favorite plonks ever.
**
Captain Infinity
Frank Slootweg
That may be *your* experience, but Usenet was not only and not even
mainly used by university students, but also/mainly by industry. Think
for example of a 150K employee company with Class A Net 15 (and 'now'
also 16).
And sorry to rain on your parade, but I'm using/running Usenet since
nearly three decades and I've never used it for Star Trek or porn.
Captain Infinity
Frank Slootweg wrote:
>And sorry to rain on your parade, but I'm using/running Usenet since
>nearly three decades and I've never used it for Star Trek or porn.
Never? Yeesh, what a loser.
**
Captain Infinity
Your Name
<Infi...@captaininfinity.us> wrote:
Change the "and" to an "or" and you're probably correct. Personally I have
zero interest in porn, but I do like Star Trek (ignoring the abysmal
"Enterprise" and awful "reboot" movie).
Your Name
Anim8rFSK <ANIM...@cox.net> wrote:
> In article <ifih2t$k2l$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> "catpandaddy" <c...@cat.pan.net> wrote:
>
> > "Ed Stasiak" <esta...@att.net> wrote in message
> > news:2edb3cd1-4b00-4807...@s5g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
> > >> Whiskers
> > >>
> > >> This project seeks to offer help for newbies wishing to use their own
> > >> news-reader software features to filter out the bulk of the noise (by
> > >> the simple expedient of blocking all articles posted from Google).
> > >
> > > It's been mentioned that Google, with 30% of Usenet users, represents
> > > the largest percent of posters. If you're going to killfile all of us
> > > in one
> > > fell swoop, you're going to end up being pretty lonely.
> >
> > Better to kf AIOE, most of the deliberate troublemakers are from there.
>
> AIOE, gmail, hotmail, pretty much does it.
Don't forget WebTV. :-)
Jerry Gerrone
> In article <bt6ph6hvaeffm9knfra72i7tho9h0l1...@4ax.com>, Captain Infinity
>
> <Infin...@captaininfinity.us> wrote:
> > Once Upon A Time,
> > Martin Phipps wrote:
>
> > >Seriously, twenty years ago anyone who wasn't heavily
> > >into either Star Trek or porn wouldn't have been interested in Usenet.
>
> > I don't think there's anyone alive who isn't interested in Star Trek and
> > porn.
>
HEY! Watch what you say about the new Trek movie in rec.arts.sf.tv!
Scott Eiler
> I filter all posts by googlegroupers which are the head of a thread (no
> References: header) but pass followups from them.
>
> Nothing personal.
Yeah, well, I'll admit you aren't likely to feel much pain about this,
but you'll still miss the next topic I start. Perhaps there's a
solution where you'll filter out noise and not signal.
KalElFan
news:15beeefc-78cb-4d93...@i17g2000vbq.googlegroups.com...
[re the "New Google Groups View"]
> Yuck... No thanks...
Agreed, I like the first one I linked to a lot better as well. I think
it's the best Usenet layout I've seen on the web, by far. It's not
what you first see though. You have to find the thread and click
a few options to get that view.
> The beauty of Usenet is the wide-open, free-wheeling kind of
> discussion that you're looking to restrict.
I'm not looking to restrict anything and couldn't if I wanted to.
Optional Moderation is -- wait for it -- Optional. The reason
it's designed the way it is, especially its latest version, is because
it's gone out of its way to preserve the unmoderated foundation,
if you will, of Usenet.
> If I wanted to deal with a power mad junta of moderators and
> their namby-pamby rules, I'd go to a web forum.
I sympathize, which is why I've used terms like "turn off the
moderator" in the context of Optional Moderation. Users
will be able to do that, anytime they like.
Optional Moderation wouldn't touch the unmoderated group.
You'd have to post or crosspost to the OM hierarchy, or in some
other way indicate your authorization to "allow" or "request"
(depending how you look at it) that your post be optionally
moderated. There are many variations in how it could be done
but for starters think of it as the following three versions or
views of one group called om.tv.
om.tv.hi-mod
om.tv.lo-mod
om.tv.no-mod
The foundation is the unmoderated version or view at the
bottom, om.tv.no-mod. The lo-mod and even more so the
hi-mod versions or views are the ones that get whittled
down by human moderation, which doesn't take place
until after posting to the no-mod group has occurred. In
fact the lo-mod version would only reject the "worst of
the worst" like the Google abuse pop up refers to, plus
some specific problem posts like clear copyright violation.
Posts in the lo-mod version would be tagged with codes
that (i) assist users in tailoring their filtering and (ii) in
the case of a hi-mod filter tag, identify the reason(s) posts
do not appear in the hi-mod version.
Some knee-jerk naysayers still living in 1992 or earlier may
argue this is a waste of resources. This would be a valid
whine if anyone was forcing them to post or subscribe to
the new hierarchy. They could sue the little despots for
the pennies, if that, that the additional text-only bandwidth
cost them. First they could call the cops though, because
the only way they could be forced to post or subscribe is
almost certainly illegal.
As for moderator resources, well they'd be what's called
"volunteers". Look it up. If any contact you desperately
giving you the address where some OM fiend has locked
them up in a basement forcing them to filter your posts,
ask the kidnapped mod for the address and then call the
cops. Then post about it here and crow you predicted OM
would lead to such horrors! Do NOT do this, however, if
you've already cried wolf in the last paragraph, because
the cops probably only let you off on that first mischief
charge. Your lawyer fees will be way more than the text-
only bandwidth you were worrying about before.
Getting back to OM, as opposed to imaginary problems
and straw man versions of it...
There is a mainly legal issue on the route unmoderated
posts will take, and depending on that legal issue there
are a few technical variations in how it would work. It
actually gets to the only real "infrastructure" difference
between Usenet and an "owned" site. No one owns
Usenet and that allows it to be the "passive conduit"
that I mentioned in other posts. The minute human
moderation is screening out posts, it at that point
ceases to be passive.
So the lo-mod version can't have the outright copyright
violation for example, because the lo-mod version or
view has been "approved" by the moderator. The mod
shouldn't be approving clear copyright violation when
he/she notices it.
This is why I don't think Google or any other big site or
corporation would ever interrupt the passive conduit
by having volunteers, for example, "approving" posts.
They would rather do as Google and other news servers
do, which is let it remain a passive conduit from their
point of view. Respond only to complaints about their
own users having posted something that crosses a line
of some sort. Then they can cancel their account, for
example, because of Terms of Service, or assist if the
authorities get a court order because of some alleged
illegality.
Volunteer moderators, in a grassroots, user-developed
and user-driven effort to provide filtering tools and a
different version or view of an umoderated group to
those users who want it, should for all practical purposes
have no liability issue. If a moderator on his/her shift
purposefully injected illegal postings, then sure. But if
it's just moderators doing their best to basically tag and
be a traffic cop for what gets out of the unmoderated
feed to the lo-mod feed (and perhaps the hi-mod feed)
then no. I'm not a lawyer though! :-)
I'd be interested to hear opposing viewpoints on that
legal issue, especially any case cites supporting such
views. I'm all for being factually proven wrong if I am
wrong. It happened in the thread here with my mistaken
impression binaries were only overwhelmingly greater
in bandwidth and not number of posts. They're also
overwhelmingly greater in numbers of posts.
As for the "Eternal September" concern some existing
users have, even that's overblown in this OM approach.
For those unfamiliar with the term, it goes back to the
mid-1990s when AOL was experiencing initial explosive
growth and popularized Usenet for "ordinary" users.
Disdain among some longtime Usenetters for these
"AOLers" peaked in September when there'd be an
influx as college kids and the like got back to shool.
Their unfamiliarity with Usenet and its "netiquette"
and so on would annoy some. But consider...
The om.tv group above is a division of a new hierarchy.
If you're afraid it might become an Eternal September
hierarchy, then stay away from that hierarchy like you
can if you have any philosophical or other objection to
Optional Moderation. Killfile any crossposts to that
hierarchy, or any posters who make those. Find yourself
a deserted island while you're at it, as a contingency plan
under your philosophy. You can create sock puppets
there and talk to yourself. Name the sock puppets after
Lost characters perhaps.
If anyone attempts to "rescue" you IRL after finding you
talking to yourself, just tell them not to worry. It's just
the only way you can have an intelligent conversation. :-)
Keep a straw man or seven around while you're at it, eh?
Usenet may be facing Eternal Oblivion and Damnation.
So maybe it risks an Eternal September oasis in some
"Usenet Reborn" Optional Moderation hierarchy. I
think there are lots of reasons why it needn't be an
Eternal September, but if it is so what? The once AOL
bigots and now Google or whatever other bigots and
future OM bigots don't have to post or subscribe to OM.
They have no vote let alone veto on any of this. There
were a couple of posters in the prior thread talking like
they had a vote. They're spending too long behind
moderator-protected walls or somethin'. :-) This
could all be set up on one server and site if need be.,
as Whiskers pointed out and that would have been
the way it was done 7-10 years ago. It may yet be
done that way, but the discussion is about how it
can be done in a more traditional Usenet way that
embraces the "passive conduit" in the normal way.
Let the individual servers decide if they want to accept
the control message if and when it comes.
If you favor the traditional unmoderated Usenet, you
ought to be fine with the OM approach because it doesn't
take that away nor force anyone to do anything. You
won't miss anything, not a single post, if you subscribe
to only om.tv.no-mod and never look at the lo-mod or
hi-mod versions or views.
You won't even suffer any significant delays or "latency"
if you only subscribe to the no-mod group, because if
you post to om.tv it'll be released to the unmoderated
groups on your crosspost list before human moderation
takes place.
Anyway thanks for your posts Ed, and same with everyone
else. It's entirely understandable that anyone who hasn't
had the concept explained might make assumptions and
think it's going to impose itself. It COULD. There are ways
it could get right in the face of a rec.arts.tv poster who has
a religious objection to it. But it just makes no sense after
having looked at all of it quite intensively in that earlier
thread. Note the om.tv hierarchy name for example. Its
market is not rec.arts. tv. It's much, much broader than
that, but rec.arts.tv is an interesting pilot project in some
respects.
KalElFan
For those on the other four groups, subthreads have emerged on
news.groups only when posters there have stripped crossposts.
I've been reading all those news.groups-only posts and in most
cases they're so specific or obscure in their focus that I agree it's
better limited to news.groups.
However, there are bigger picture issues sometimes, which have
a legitimate place in the context of this wider META+ topic
that's being discussed. This is one of those and there'll be at
least one or two others I have in draft.
"Doug Freyburger" wrote in message
news:ifks1e$1q3$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> Charles wrote:
>
>> The Google interface has been improved a lot since it first came out.
>> The problem is not with the Google interface per se which causes many
>> not to like Google Groups. It is because Google has not blocked spam
>> from being injected from Google Groups.
>
> Which introduces a cognative fault - Someone else did X poorly therefore
> X is a bad idea anywhere by anyone. And/or any effort to improve X is
> bad because someone else did X poorly.
You may right, but I think it may also lend too much credence to the
implication that the underlying assertion had merit in the first place,
i.e. that Google has done poorly in not blocking spam from being injected.
I strongly suspect Google policy on that is based on responding to what
it feels it *must*, legally or otherwise, respond to. Especially when it
comes to Usenet, I think the bar or threshold for "must respond" is
quite high.
There are countless people on Usenet who use the word "spam" as a
weapon, just like they use "troll" and the like that way. If they were
only using it in such ways because they had no clue that'd be one thing,
and perhaps a few fit that category. But most aren't clueless, they just
want to lash out and "Spammer!" and "Troll!" serves that purpose.
They know they're abusing the definition.
Should Google march to the tune of such two-faced whiners? To the
point where they start precluding posts at the front end? Hell no!
If they ever do I suggest they filter the two-faced whiners first.
The "passive conduit" is I think the Elephant in the Cyberverse here.
When you think about it, anyone touching the conduit with any kind
of moderation or filtering at purely injection points is arguably on the
hook in multiple ways for the judgment they're making. If they just
sit back at a safe distance from the passive conduit, not make any
judgments until a complaint is received, and even then ignore it if
it doesn't meet a high standard of truth in name-calling and/or isn't
supported by any legal action, then they're on more solid ground.
At the receiving end as opposed to the injection point, it's completely
different. The cesspool stuff is out there and everywhere. Purveyors
of it have had their Freedom. But Google and other well-run servers
have no obligation to leave their users to suffer it, in fact arguably
quite the opposite. I don't know any user who subscribes to a text
group and wants to see massive spam or binaries/attachments.
Same on the email side though there I get the impression you can
look at your spam if you want to. The legal distinction may be that
in the email case it was specifically addressed to you whereas in the
newsgroup case it's effectively addressed to the server that an ISP or
NSP owns. As the owner of the server in receipt of the spam, binaries
and/or related attachments, there's presumably nothing in their TOS
with their users, or in law or civil law or any other precedent, that will
dissuade them from applying filters to that junk on arrival, as a matter
of their own policy at that point.
KalElFan
news:ua7qh6d2fbsl0nu0v...@4ax.com...
Now, now, different strokes... and such. :-)
To merge the two sub-thread topics at least tangentially, the 2011
Star Trek TOS Wall Calendar has one of the Best. Centerfolds. Ever.
It's a schematic of the Original Enterprise including a Top, Dorsal
and Front view. :-)
SFTV_troy
two main problems with Usenet today:
- SPAM - which can be filted
- It's boring text. The general population wants pictures. That's
why the Web succeeded while plain-text BBSes and Gopher died out.
Perhaps if Usenet was made to look more like the web-based forums with
their Avatars and other colorful items, people would come b
SFTV_troy
web forum. It's nice to have the simplicity of plain text which loads
very quickly, even on a slow connection.
So to bottom line it:
I don't think there's any reason to change usenet. Maybe we could
advertise it more by advertising "Free Forum to discuss your favorite
TV shows. Go here: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.tv" in our
signatures and facebooks, but otherwise Usenet is what it is - the
last leftover from the 80s computer technology.
A B
is basically to set up a moderated group that runs alongside an unmoderated
group, so that everything that arrives in the unmoderated group is
automatically submitted to the moderated group for approval? And maybe have
two levels of moderated group, so that the "lo-mod" filters out just the
spam, and then the "hi-mod" takes what's left and vets it more thoroughly?
I can't say I understood all the finer points of your posting. But that's
the general idea, is it?
Sounds good to me. And I'm no Usenet expert, but it sounds to me as if it
could work. I don't think it would require news servers to actively take up
some new system, as with some of the "Usenet 2" proposals. Just a simple
forwarding setup on the moderator's computer, to pipe the postings through
to the moderated group.
Since all postings would be available on the moderated group for those who
wanted them, it would keep the "free debate" aspect of Usenet, one of its
few remaining advantages. I think the people who objected to this idea as
censorship must have misread your postings - they were a bit complicated,
true. What this system would really be is a highly efficient third-party
killfile - just as optional as a real killfile, but somebody else would run
it for you. I'd use it.
It occurs to me that some "lo-mod" groups could even be kept by a
robomoderator, such as the STUMP program. That's quite capable of removing
the bulk of the spam, which would be enough to make many groups much more
convenient to use. You'd still need a human moderator to set the
robomoderator's filters, run the "hi-mod" group, if any, and publicise the
group a bit; but their workload would be much less. It might even be that
this would avoid some of the copyright issues, since there would be no
regular human involvement in the "lo-mod" group - it would be almost a
passive conduit in that sense, just a better-arranged one.
By the by, do you have to crosspost quite so wildly? I didn't like to
remove the other groups, in case you don't actually read news.groups. I've
known it to happen.
--
A. B.
My e-mail address is zen177395 at zendotcodotuk.
I don't check that account very often, so tell me on the newsgroup if you've
sent me an e-mail.
A B
Read the OP's suggestion a bit more carefully, before making the reflex
"censorship" objection. They've actually managed to avoid that problem.
The idea is that a moderated and an unmoderated group would run in tandem.
ALL postings would appear in the unmoderated group, and those would then be
filtered for the moderated version. Those bothered about seeing absolutely
everything could still wade through the unmoderated version. Those who
couldn't be bothered, or newbies who wanted to try it out but wouldn't have
their own filters set up yet, could get most of the "signal" without most of
the "noise" from the moderated version. Entirely up to them. Really it's a
sort of third-party killfile service.
I agree with you about pictures, but Usenet is never going to be able to
compete on equal terms with all the web fora. The best chance is to make
the most of our niche market - people who like plain text.
Your Name
<bbd8f106-f2f6-4697...@g25g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
SFTV_troy <SFTV...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Some Usenet newsgroups are alreadu moderated - they usually (but not
always) say so in the newsgroup's title.
Your Name
<689d4b87-c99a-4300...@v17g2000vbo.googlegroups.com>, Jerry
Gerrone <scuz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 30, 7:50=A0pm, your.n...@isp.com (Your Name) wrote:
> >
> > [mumble mumble mumble] awful "reboot" movie
>
> HEY! Watch what you say about the new Trek movie in rec.arts.sf.tv!
It's a movie, not a TV show, so I can say whatever I want "in
rec.arts.sf.tv" (not that I even read that newsgroup anyway). :-)
It may or may not be the best movie ever made in it's own right, but it's
utter crap as a "Star Trek" movie. As with all the idiotic "remakes" /
"reboots" coming out of lazy talentless Hollyweird these days, it plays
fast and loose with already established facts, and is "Star Trek" in
little more than name only. :-(
SFTV_troy
I'm also wondering about this so-called "decline" of Usenet? I first
joined back in 1988 and the Usenet back then, even in busy groups like
rec.arts.startrek, was just a few messages a day.
Now there are hundreds of messages. It's pretty clear Usenet has
grown a LOT since it's early days. Maybe it's lost a few users this
last decade but overall it's still bigger now than what it was circa
1990. (Pre-AOL eternal september.)
aemeijers
to have connections and a few brain cells to participate in those
pre-GUI days. Now days, most of the 'work related' (college or
corporate) usenet groups have fled to private web forums, and aside from
porn and pirate groups, about all that is left is a few hobby groups and
the noise groups. Sure, the index has 10k group titles, but most are
abandoned, other than the occasional spam shotgun post. Not at all like
the old days when newfeeds were a cooperative measure between sysadmins
doing it on the QT and hoping their bean counters didn't notice. Now
that most ISPs have dropped news hosting, the choices are the few free
hosts, a pay host, or Google Groups (which, to most people under 35, is
what they think Usenet IS.)
Nothing lasts forever. Like dialup BBS systems (a few of which are still
out there), Usenet is withering away, replaced by newer and shiner toys.
TV news today said that Facebook is now like 10 percent of internet
volume. Even web pages are getting replaced by that silly private
mini-internet. The wonderful anarchy of the early internet is being
Borg'd. All hail the new corporate overlords.
--
aem sends...
Your Name
"aemeijers" <aeme...@att.net> wrote in message
news:4qSdnd-ETL82NIPQ...@giganews.com...
> On 12/31/2010 6:22 PM, SFTV_troy wrote:
> >
> > I'm also wondering about this so-called "decline" of Usenet? I first
> > joined back in 1988 and the Usenet back then, even in busy groups like
> > rec.arts.startrek, was just a few messages a day.
> >
> > Now there are hundreds of messages. It's pretty clear Usenet has
> > grown a LOT since it's early days. Maybe it's lost a few users this
> > last decade but overall it's still bigger now than what it was circa
> > 1990. (Pre-AOL eternal september.)
>
> Fewer messages back in the 80s, but they were of higher quality. You had
> to have connections and a few brain cells to participate in those
> pre-GUI days. Now days, most of the 'work related' (college or
> corporate) usenet groups have fled to private web forums, and aside from
> porn and pirate groups, about all that is left is a few hobby groups and
> the noise groups. Sure, the index has 10k group titles, but most are
> abandoned, other than the occasional spam shotgun post.
Many were created by the morons. For example (among MANY others),
alt.cows.moo.moo and alt.cows.moo.moo.moo. :-\
> Not at all like the old days when newfeeds were a cooperative measure
> between sysadmins doing it on the QT and hoping their bean counters
> didn't notice. Now that most ISPs have dropped news hosting, the choices
> are the few free hosts, a pay host, or Google Groups (which, to most
> people under 35, is what they think Usenet IS.)
>
> Nothing lasts forever. Like dialup BBS systems (a few of which are still
> out there), Usenet is withering away, replaced by newer and shiner toys.
> TV news today said that Facebook is now like 10 percent of internet
> volume. Even web pages are getting replaced by that silly private
> mini-internet. The wonderful anarchy of the early internet is being
> Borg'd. All hail the new corporate overlords.
If such thinsg actually got rid of the spammers, porn idiots and pirates,
then it might well be worth it to make "the Internet" an actual useful
resource instead of the cess pool it currently is.
Your Name
"Your Name" <your...@isp.com> wrote in message
news:ifmdo2$nqj$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz...
> then it might well be worth it to make "the Internet" an actual useful
> resource instead of the cess pool it currently is.
Opps! I meant to add that the "new Internet" unfortuantely isn't actually
going to achieve those things. :-(
Extravagan
> If such thinsg actually got rid of the spammers, porn idiots and pirates,
> then it might well be worth it to make "the Internet" an actual useful
> resource instead of the cess pool it currently is.
Hey! Your "cess pool" is my beloved anarchy.
--
"I hope there are a lot of hardcore scenes in it. There should be more
of those in film and theatre as well." -- Stephen Newport in
<6880-4C73...@storefull-3173.bay.webtv.net>
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.tv/msg/677328fcf9d66063
KalElFan
"A B" wrote in message news:4d1e4084$0$12173$fa0f...@news.zen.co.uk...
> Sounds good to me. And I'm no Usenet expert, but it sounds to me as if
> it could work...
Though not a requirement, I think it's probably better that you not be a
Usenet expert to appreciate OM. :-). Established Usenet folk, and I've
been on it for 15 years, can embrace the fact that Traditional Usenet is
completely unaffected and the new hierarchy would provide unmoderated
groups as the foundation. Web discussion board users can look at it and
see the potential for worldwide discussion on their topic, with filters and
moderation available but they can turn off the moderator if they want!
It's not fair to call it moderated or unmoderated. It's whatever view of a
group the user wants. It's -- wait for it -- Optional Moderation.
The user focus is the reason for the crossposts. There was the 200+ stint
I did with the Big 8 folk in the moderated news.groups.proposals, and
that helped develop the best approach. Now there's this, to widen it
to a different audience but still have the previous one involved if they
choose to be.
At this point, your "could work" is fair but I'd put it a bit more strongly.
There is nothing that can prevent it from working in the sense of any
approvals or authorities or whatnot being needed, or there being any
technical obstacles or the like. The biggest hurdle is that it requires lots
of volunteer moderators, but again web boards all over the place have
all kinds of those. It's not a one-moderator or couple- or few-moderators
project. For example the 16 posting addresses (i.e., the ones configured
to go to the moderator address for the respective divisions) might be:
om.art
om.business
om.food
om.health
om.history
om.games
om.law
om.movies
om.music
om.politics
om.science
om.sports
om.talk
om.technology
om.travel
om.tv
A fair bit of research and thought has gone into that list and I may
comment on it a bit more in later posts. For now...
Why no geographic or country distinctions? Because the OM
concept is worldwide discussions and the tags can take care of
the rest. The vision here is that someone interested in Politics
is probably not averse to reading and learning from posters in
other countries about their politics too. Sport, Science, Movies,
all the divisions basically the same thing. No reason why the
English Speaking World can't relate to each other on each of
the above topics, and once translation technology gets going
even the English Speaking qualifier may not apply. :-)
Each of those, when they launch for real, would ideally have a team
of at least a dozen volunteer moderators available to take shifts. If
the concept succeeds, leading to thousands or tens of thousands
discussing each topic worldwide, there may be 50-100 volunteer
moderators per division. They'd probably only take 2-4 hour shifts
for a total of perhaps 12 hours a week, and many could come from
the posting population of the divisions as those grow. If there's a
thousand or more posting to a group, getting 5% or 50+ qualified
people to volunteer 12 hours a week may not be a problem, and
there are other recruiting sources as well.
Initially it'd be possible to try out om.tv, for example, with perhaps
only a half dozen moderators. There'd be a lot of prep work first
though, documenting moderation guidelines for example.
> I don't think it would require news servers to actively take up some
> new system, as with some of the "Usenet 2" proposals. Just a simple
> forwarding setup on the moderator's computer, to pipe the postings
> through to the moderated group.
Optional Moderation is the Anti-"Usenet 2". I made a post on that
in the first discussion, citing the fundamental problems with Usenet 2
and how Optional Moderation has a completely different focus. The
same with existing Usenet and the quasi-admin and other types circling
the Big 8. Individually most seem quite reasonable, helpful, intelligent
people. But Good People can get sucked into The Dark Side, eh? And
behind moderated walls even more so.
The "Big 8 Management Board" name is a good example. Big name,
but literally zero real authority or power and so fundamentally just
an annoyingly pretentious name. Here's my proposal for their OM
counterparts.
POMAP - Powerless Optional Moderation Advisory Process
POMAT - Powerless Optional Moderation Advsory Trustees
I don't have any power either. Nobody has any power, because
it's Usenet and none of us own or control it. We can get a server
and web site combo and do it ourselves, or we can make some
suggestions and try to build consensus and work together. But
ultimately authority and power and the like are annoying and
destructive and meaningless concepts on Usenet. They should
be purged from the vocabulary of anyone truly wanting to help.
> I think the people who objected to this idea as censorship must
> have misread your postings...
Which is fine, whether it's that or the typical Usenet naysaying.
The key is the substance of the argument, and good substance
can and did lead to a better version of OM. At this point when
someone has been posting supposed "problems" or issues it's
always been things addressed in the prior thread.
[re robo-filtering for the lo-mod version]
> It might even be that this would avoid some of the copyright
> issues, since there would be no regular human involvement
> in the "lo-mod" group - it would be almost a passive conduit
> in that sense, just a better-arranged one.
While it could be done that way, it's a different version of OM.
The best version is one where the lo-mod is actually where all
the moderation takes place. For each post, the first step for
the human moderator is to decide whether to accept a post
for lo-mod. Remember, the post is already sitting in the no-
mod version at this point. The only question is does it get in
to the lo-mod feed. If yes, then there's really only one more
step in the entire process and that's to tag the post with any
tags that apply.
These may be tags that assist the user in tailoring their filtering,
or they may be hi-mod rejection tags, or both. Examples of both
might include UPA for Usenet Performance Art or Trolling, OT for
off-topic, the META tag for a special kind of off-topic and so on.
What these tags do is make the hi-mod version or view decision
automatic, because the hi-mod rejection tags are what it's based
on. So all the moderation basically takes place at the lo-mod
level in two steps: bag it and tag it. That's it, and as good posters
learn the process and tag the posts themselves it can run even
more smoothly.
There are lots of other bells and whistles that can be added
as well. So for example there could be a Rate Post link and
a poster's rating and history might help moderators decide
which posts need to be looked at more closely. There could
be a Polls link where those in a thread can vote and updated
results could be given as the thread continues. Posters could
have links in their sigs as they do now, and so the potential
to involve the web and interact with other posters is there.
Google and web boards have this now, but it would even be
possible in nntp because the Rate Post and Polls links, for
example. could be added in an OM section of two or three
lines at the start or end of all posts.
An Optional Moderation site could also offer free pages to
post profiles, if the user wants to do that. Remember that
everyone posting to the OM hierarchy will have chosen to
do so. Those not interested will continue to post to the
Big 8 or alt.* or wherever they do now. The Optional
Moderation hierarchy would have the ability to develop its
own "community" in a sense, which might be quite different
than Usenet is now. I doubt om.* ever becomes Facebook or
Twitter in its tone or culture, but within that om.talk division
there could be a label for chat, defined as no more than
whatever number of characters of back-and-forth discussion. :-)
Jerry Gerrone
>
> Gerrone <scuzwa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Dec 30, 7:50=A0pm, your.n...@isp.com (Your Name) wrote:
>
> > > [mumble mumble mumble] awful "reboot" movie
>
> > HEY! Watch what you say about the new Trek movie in rec.arts.sf.tv!
>
> It's a movie, not a TV show, so I can say whatever I want "in
> rec.arts.sf.tv" (not that I even read that newsgroup anyway). :-)
No, you can't. :)
> It may or may not be the best movie ever made in it's own right, but it's
> blither blather mumble mumble blah blah blah blah
What was that? I didn't hear you.
:)
catpandaddy
"KalElFan" <kale...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote in message
news:8o7v1j...@mid.individual.net...
>
> While it could be done that way, it's a different version of OM.
> The best version is one where the lo-mod is actually where all
> the moderation takes place. For each post, the first step for
> the human moderator is to decide whether to accept a post
> for lo-mod. Remember, the post is already sitting in the no-
> mod version at this point. The only question is does it get in
> to the lo-mod feed. If yes, then there's really only one more
> step in the entire process and that's to tag the post with any
> tags that apply.
>
> These may be tags that assist the user in tailoring their filtering,
> or they may be hi-mod rejection tags, or both. Examples of both
> might include UPA for Usenet Performance Art or Trolling, OT for
> off-topic, the META tag for a special kind of off-topic and so on.
> What these tags do is make the hi-mod version or view decision
> automatic, because the hi-mod rejection tags are what it's based
> on. So all the moderation basically takes place at the lo-mod
> level in two steps: bag it and tag it. That's it, and as good posters
> learn the process and tag the posts themselves it can run even
> more smoothly.
Isn't all of this already accomplished with killfile rules on a good
newsreader? People can already choose what to filter out by their own
preferences, so I don't see how adding "tags" does anything except create
more work for the admins.
SFTV_troy
> On 12/31/2010 6:22 PM, SFTV_troy wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > I'm also wondering about this so-called "decline" of Usenet? I first
> > joined back in 1988 and the Usenet back then, even in busy groups like
> > rec.arts.startrek, was just a few messages a day.
>
> > Now there are hundreds of messages. It's pretty clear Usenet has
> > grown a LOT since it's early days. Maybe it's lost a few users this
> > last decade but overall it's still bigger now than what it was circa
> > 1990. (Pre-AOL eternal september.)
>
> Fewer messages back in the 80s, but they were of higher quality.
Disagree. Looking through the old late-80s archives, it seems pretty
much the same as now. "Which captain is better: Picard or Kirk?"
"Counselor Troi should be renamed Counselor cleavage" and so on.
> Sure, the index has 10k group titles, but most are abandoned
> other than the occasional spam shotgun post.
Most of those groups are for defunct shows like alt.tv.sliders or
rec.arts.sf.tv.quantum-leap. They don't get many postings because
there's nothing new to talk about, and even on websites dedicated to
these shows, the forums see little activity.
It would probably be a good idea to remove old groups for defunct TV
shows. Or defunct systems like rec.games.atari2600
> the choices are the few free hosts
There are free hosts? I would love to get off Google Groups and
switch to using a reader like thunderbird or Seamonkey.
Steve Bonine
> There are free hosts? I would love to get off Google Groups and
> switch to using a reader like thunderbird or Seamonkey.
Personally I suggest Eternal September: http://eternal-september.org/
Another excellent choice is individual.net, which will cost you ten
Euros a year: http://www.individual.net/
See also: http://www.big-8.org/wiki/News_Service_Providers
The fact that it comes as a surprise to folks that free providers exist
rather surprises me, but on further reflection I'm not sure why I'm
surprised.
Frank Slootweg
I thought Trekkies could read/comprehend better than that! I said I
have never use *it* (i.e. Usenet) for Star Trek or porn.
Anyway, any more 'insults' from you and I'll have my 6yo grandson
employ his multiple Star Wars armies on you! And as to porn, we never
needed Usenet for that, we just pick it up with the groceries.
John Kirkpatrick XVII
> SFTV_troy wrote:
>
>> There are free hosts? I would love to get off Google Groups and
>> switch to using a reader like thunderbird or Seamonkey.
>
> Personally I suggest Eternal September: http://eternal-september.org/
Also aioe. No registration required there.
> Another excellent choice is individual.net, which will cost you ten
> Euros a year: http://www.individual.net/
He asked about FREE hosts. And he lives in Canada, doesn't he? He
probably doesn't have any easy way to get ahold of ten Euros, or to ship
them overseas.
> See also: http://www.big-8.org/wiki/News_Service_Providers
>
> The fact that it comes as a surprise to folks that free providers exist
> rather surprises me, but on further reflection I'm not sure why I'm
> surprised.
There's also a whole newsgroup nominally dedicated to the discussion of
free news providers: alt.free.newsservers -- naturally, though, it's
actually dominated by off-topic flame threads, seeing as how it's an
unmoderated alt group and all.
--
Curiosity killed the cat.
Satisfaction brought him back.
SFTV_troy
>
>
> The fact that it comes as a surprise to folks that free providers exist
> rather surprises me, but on further reflection I'm not sure why I'm
> surprised.
Every Usenet server I looked at charged money, and Google is free, so
that's why I've continued using it (all the way back to when it was
DejaNews). One advantage of google is that it works anywhere - home -
work - in a hotel during business travel. The disadvantage is the
poor interface (and 30 post limit) which is why I thought I'd try
Seamonkey's News reader for a change.
Extravagan
> And as to porn, we never needed Usenet for that, we just pick it up
> with the groceries.
But then it's not free.
But usenet, schmusenet. Binaries usenet access pretty much can't be had
for free anymore. So one's source for porn nowadays is, naturally,
bittorrent and to a lesser extent the web.
Frank Slootweg
> On 01/01/2011 3:30 PM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
> > And as to porn, we never needed Usenet for that, we just pick it up
> > with the groceries.
>
> But then it's not free.
It is when it's included in the cereal package!
> But usenet, schmusenet. Binaries usenet access pretty much can't be had
> for free anymore. So one's source for porn nowadays is, naturally,
> bittorrent and to a lesser extent the web.
"Free" is such an ugly word. Anyway, with my ISP it's free, so there
you go.
Frank Slootweg
> On 01/01/2011 12:12 PM, Steve Bonine wrote:
> > SFTV_troy wrote:
> >
> >> There are free hosts? I would love to get off Google Groups and
> >> switch to using a reader like thunderbird or Seamonkey.
> >
> > Personally I suggest Eternal September: http://eternal-september.org/
>
> Also aioe. No registration required there.
>
> > Another excellent choice is individual.net, which will cost you ten
> > Euros a year: http://www.individual.net/
>
> He asked about FREE hosts. And he lives in Canada, doesn't he? He
> probably doesn't have any easy way to get ahold of ten Euros, or to ship
> them overseas.
Many people ask for "free" because they think that a payed New service
is expensive. NIN is an exception to that rule. You would have known
that if you had bothered to look at the referenced site, instead of
being a smart alec.
NIN is in Germany, which - FYI - is in Europe, which is lightyears
ahead of the US [1] in electronic banking/payment.
[1] Actually basically *any* country is lightyears ahead of the US in
this respect.
Your Name
<7045c4f8-2ce6-4336...@f30g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>,
SFTV_troy <SFTV...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Most of those groups are for defunct shows like alt.tv.sliders or
> rec.arts.sf.tv.quantum-leap. They don't get many postings because
> there's nothing new to talk about, and even on websites dedicated to
> these shows, the forums see little activity.
>
> It would probably be a good idea to remove old groups for defunct TV
> shows. Or defunct systems like rec.games.atari2600
Empty newsgroups take up negligible space on the server, so removing them
achieves very little except to trim down the list.
If you did remove the unused and plain idiotic newsgroups, then the 30,000
newsgroups (listed on my newsserver) would probably come down to about
5,000.
> > the choices are the few free hosts
>
> There are free hosts? I would love to get off Google Groups and
> switch to using a reader like thunderbird or Seamonkey.
There are quite a few free newsservers and there are websites that keep
lists of them. Many are limited in some way (fewer newsgroups, restricted
/ no posting, etc.) and most are shutdown or locked pretty quickly once
they get known and overused. A google search for "free newsserver" will
turn up many examples (although some of those are "free trial").
I sometimes have to find and use one when my hopeless ISP's newsserver yet
again falls over, often for days at a time.
There are one or two more reliable free newsservers, but at least one asks
for your credit card details despite claiming to be free ... which, if you
have a working brain, makes you wonder and stay away from.
John Kirkpatrick XVII
> Mrs. Danforth <danfo...@hotmail.coo> wrote:
Eh, what? No, I wrote the article you're quoting.
>>> Another excellent choice is individual.net, which will cost you ten
>>> Euros a year: http://www.individual.net/
>>
>> He asked about FREE hosts. And he lives in Canada, doesn't he? He
>> probably doesn't have any easy way to get ahold of ten Euros, or to ship
>> them overseas.
>
> Many people ask for "free" because they think that a payed New service
> is expensive. NIN is an exception to that rule.
How much more expensive is it than free?
What's ten divided by zero?
The OP didn't ask for "cheap", he asked for "free". Who am I to presume
to second guess which he REALLY meant?
> [insult deleted]
What does your classic erroneous presupposition have to do with
television, Slootweg?
> NIN is in Germany, which - FYI - is in Europe, which is lightyears
> ahead of the US [1] in electronic banking/payment.
Irrelevant, since SFTV_troy is *not* in Europe and would therefore have
to contend with a non-European electronic banking/payment system.
> [1] Actually basically *any* country is lightyears ahead of the US in
> this respect.
Not Canada, which appears to be where SFTV_troy is located.
Your Name
<th...@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:
> Extravagan <extra...@frogsoup.xelon.com> wrote:
> >
> > But usenet, schmusenet. Binaries usenet access pretty much can't be had
> > for free anymore. So one's source for porn nowadays is, naturally,
> > bittorrent and to a lesser extent the web.
>
> "Free" is such an ugly word. Anyway, with my ISP it's free, so there
> you go.
The newsserver is "free" with my ISP too ... but I get what I pay for ...
mind you, even the service I do pay for is crap! Vodafone New Zeaalnd
simply have no knowledge or wish to run an ISP, and only really bought the
company from the previous owners to get their sticky mitts into New
Zealand (and probably Australian) landline phones.
Whiskers
> On 01/01/2011 12:12 PM, Steve Bonine wrote:
>> SFTV_troy wrote:
[...]
> He asked about FREE hosts. And he lives in Canada, doesn't he? He
> probably doesn't have any easy way to get ahold of ten Euros, or to ship
> them overseas.
[...]
<http://individual.net/overview.php>
How can I pay?
You can choose from the following payment options: The online payment
service providers ClickandBuy (formerly Firstgate) and PayPal, as well
as payment by bank transfer to a German bank account of Freie
Universität Berlin (for holders of non-German bank accounts, IBAN and
BIC are available).
Another text-only pay NSP worth considering is Datemas
Registration includes posting access and costs 5.00 EUR per year.
Payable through Paypal.com or Moneybookers.com, conversion from common
currencies is possible.
Order your access login at Order news server access
30 days try-out for free is possible
--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~
John Kirkpatrick XVII
> On 2011-01-01, John Kirkpatrick XVII<jkx...@ask.me> wrote:
>> On 01/01/2011 12:12 PM, Steve Bonine wrote:
>>> SFTV_troy wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> He asked about FREE hosts. And he lives in Canada, doesn't he? He
>> probably doesn't have any easy way to get ahold of ten Euros, or to ship
>> them overseas.
>
Bank transfers. Credit cards. You do know that most people don't have
any experience wiring money overseas, and that lots don't have credit
cards (especially in this economy), right?
Frank Slootweg
> On 01/01/2011 4:46 PM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
> > Mrs. Danforth <danfo...@hotmail.coo> wrote:
>
> Eh, what? No, I wrote the article you're quoting.
Yes, that's what I *said*.
> >>> Another excellent choice is individual.net, which will cost you ten
> >>> Euros a year: http://www.individual.net/
> >>
> >> He asked about FREE hosts. And he lives in Canada, doesn't he? He
> >> probably doesn't have any easy way to get ahold of ten Euros, or to ship
> >> them overseas.
> >
> > Many people ask for "free" because they think that a payed New service
> > is expensive. NIN is an exception to that rule.
>
> How much more expensive is it than free?
>
> What's ten divided by zero?
>
> The OP didn't ask for "cheap", he asked for "free". Who am I to presume
> to second guess which he REALLY meant?
Well, you second guessed all kinds of *irrelevant* stuff, so why not
throw some relevant stuff in the mix?
Pathetic post-edit undone:
> > You would have known
> > that if you had bothered to look at the referenced site, instead of
> > being a smart alec.
>
> What does your classic erroneous presupposition have to do with
> television, Slootweg?
Why are you too clueless to spot a crosspost, "Hieronymus S. Freely" /
"Dave Searles"!?
> > NIN is in Germany, which - FYI - is in Europe, which is lightyears
> > ahead of the US [1] in electronic banking/payment.
>
> Irrelevant, since SFTV_troy is *not* in Europe and would therefore have
> to contend with a non-European electronic banking/payment system.
Yes, but he *is* in the civilized world.
> > [1] Actually basically *any* country is lightyears ahead of the US in
> > this respect.
>
> Not Canada, which appears to be where SFTV_troy is located.
You *wish* (that Canada is not lightyears ahead of the US)!
Frank Slootweg
> On 01/01/2011 5:02 PM, Whiskers wrote:
> > On 2011-01-01, John Kirkpatrick XVII<jkx...@ask.me> wrote:
> >> On 01/01/2011 12:12 PM, Steve Bonine wrote:
> >>> SFTV_troy wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> >> He asked about FREE hosts. And he lives in Canada, doesn't he? He
> >> probably doesn't have any easy way to get ahold of ten Euros, or to ship
> >> them overseas.
> >
> > [snip]
Pathetic 'convenient' snip of conflicting evidence duly noted.
> Bank transfers. Credit cards. You do know that most people don't have
> any experience wiring money overseas, and that lots don't have credit
> cards (especially in this economy), right?
Last time I checked, Paypal wasn't exactly "overseas", nor "wiring".
And a credit-card is not required.
Three red-herrings out of a possible three, quite an impressive score!
Meerkats
> On 01/01/2011 6:00 PM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
>> Mrs. Danforth <danfo...@hotmail.coo> wrote:
>
>
>>> On 01/01/2011 4:46 PM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
>>>> Mrs. Danforth <danfo...@hotmail.coo> wrote:
>>>
>>> Eh, what? No, I wrote the article you're quoting.
>>
>> Yes, that's what I *said*.
>
>
>>> The OP didn't ask for "cheap", he asked for "free". Who am I to
>>> presume to second guess which he REALLY meant?
>>
>
> Fuck off.
>
>> [misquotes me]
>
> I didn't write that, yet you quoted me saying it, Slootweg. Classic
> dishonesty on your part, Slootweg.
>
>>> What does your classic erroneous presupposition have to do with
>>> television, Slootweg?
>>
>> "Dave Searles"!?
>
> Who are Hieronymus S. Freely and Dave Searles, Slootweg? There is
> nobody in this newsgroup using either alias.
>
>>> Irrelevant, since SFTV_troy is *not* in Europe and would therefore
>>> have to contend with a non-European electronic banking/payment
>>> system.
>>
>> Yes, but he *is* in the civilized world.
>
> backwards than ours. Their debit cards don't even work with internet
> merchants and Paypal!
>
>>>> [1] Actually basically *any* country is lightyears ahead of the
>>>> US in this respect.
>>>
>>> Not Canada, which appears to be where SFTV_troy is located.
>>
>> You *wish*
>
> that you're wrong.
You go, John!
Give that nasty Slootweg what-for!
Go!
Go John!
Go!
Go John!
Go!
Go John!
Go!
Go John!
Go!
Go John!
Go!
Go John!
Go!
Go John!
Go!
Go John!
Go!
Go John!
Go!
Go John!
Go!
Go John!
Go!
Go John!
Go!
Go John!
Go!
Go John!
Go!
--
MacOS: the Mercedes of operating systems.
Linux: the pickup truck of operating systems.
OS/2: the Edsel of operating systems.
Windows: the Pinto of operating systems.
Meerkats
> On 01/01/2011 6:00 PM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
>> Mrs. Danforth <danfo...@hotmail.coo> wrote:
>
>
>>>>> He asked about FREE hosts. And he lives in Canada, doesn't he?
>>>>> He probably doesn't have any easy way to get ahold of ten Euros,
>>>>> or to ship them overseas.
>>
>
> Fuck you.
>
>>> Bank transfers. Credit cards. You do know that most people don't
>>> have any experience wiring money overseas, and that lots don't
>>> have credit cards (especially in this economy), right?
>>
>> Last time I checked, Paypal wasn't exactly "overseas", nor
>> "wiring".
>
>
>> And a credit-card is not required.
>
> with Paypal or a similar service, or with a credit card. (It's not
> like you can write a check, stick it in your A: drive, and have that
> work!) And you have to get money into Paypal and similar services
> somehow. And those services are on the Internet. So ...
>
>> [WHACK SLOOTWEG INSULTS]
>
> Fuck you.
You go, John!
Teach that nasty Slootweg a lesson in manners he'll NEVER forget!
Jerry Gerrone
It's been raised to 30? I thought it was still 15!
SFTV_troy
>
> It's been raised to 30? I thought it was still 15!
GoogleGroups allows about 15 posts every 6 hours (or so). That means
if you sit and wait long enough, you'll be able to post 30 messages
during a typical workday.
KalElFan
> This is why I don't think Google or any other big site or
> corporation would ever interrupt the passive conduit
> by having volunteers, for example, "approving" posts.
> They would rather... remain a passive conduit from
> their point of view.
Just wanted to post a link to this Google TOS that I was looking at
earlier today, and that pretty much proves what I wrote above:
http://groups.google.com/intl/en/googlegroups/terms_of_service3.html
Some excerpts:
1. Description of Service
The Service contains the entire archive of Usenet discussion groups dating
back to 1981...
4. Content
Your Responsibilities. You understand that all data, text, information, links
and other content (collectively, “Content”), whether posted in public or
restricted groups, is the sole responsibility of the person from which such
Content originated...
Google’s Rights. You acknowledge that Google does not pre-screen, control,
edit or endorse Content made available through the Service and has no
obligation to monitor the Content Posted via the Service... You acknowledge
that certain Groups available through the Service are available only through
the Service and others are available both through the Service and other
sources, such as Usenet, over which Google has absolutely no control.
(end excerpts)
So Google admits it has absolutely no control over Usenet. :-)
KalElFan
news:ifnfgd$s7d$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> Isn't all of this already accomplished with killfile rules on a good
> newsreader? People can already choose what to filter out by their
> own preferences, ...
My guess is maybe 15% of longtimers have that way of looking at
it or that philosophy. I disagree with it and Optional Moderation
inherently takes the user and especially new user perspective. It
provides the optional moderation, rather than effectively telling
them "here's a bucket and a strainer, now filter the cesspool
yourself."
I think 85% of longtime Usenetters will be fine with the idea of OM
and bringing in more newbies. They may be skeptical, to varying
degrees, but they recognize that if any filtering tool is available it's
not their choice, it's a user choice. I think most of the 85% would
like it to be as not disruptive as possible though, to Usenet and
to any existing groups.
That's why OM should be developed off to the side in a brand new,
separate hierarchy. Existing group users can choose to crosspost
to the new hierarchy if they wish, but posts won't be imported or
subjected to OM unless they either post or crosspost to the new
hierarchy, or otherwise allow it. Everything about the OM concept,
in its current form, tries to avoid any disruption or negative effects
on current groups. In the medium- and long-term, if OM works well
it's conceivable that more longtime Usenetters could migrate to the
new hierarchy exclusively, but that'll be their choice and they might
have left in any case.
> ... so I don't see how adding "tags" does anything except create more
> work for the admins...
For starters, that's based on what I'd characterize as the false premise,
the idea that asking the user to take a bucket and strainer, and filter
the cesspool themselves, is relevant here. Optional Moderation, by
definition, is a concept that is optional for the user. Someone else
can always suggest they not use OM, or if a user is eager to filter the
cesspool themselves no one can or will stop them. It's all user choice.
OM would provide the moderated view(s) for the users who want it.
Beyond that, there are various reasons why only two options leads to
problems. Many, many posters like to be able to read off-topic posts
once in a while at least, some engage in it, some are okay with flame
wars and so I think a lo-mod version would be quite popular. User vs.
Moderator issues, discontent with moderators and so on is higher
when it becomes a choice between the Cesspool View and the Uber-
Clean View According to Moderator Whatshisname. It can lead to a
kind of moderation mission creep, and moderator's abusing their
power. Moderators start to view the moderated version as their
Private Place, or theirs and that of posters who share their views or
attitudes.
I've often said that one of the biggest problems with the moderated
forums is that they can too easily shield fallacies and the like. There's
something to be said for allowing Usenet to be a battleground where
the better argument wins, even if it hurts the loser's ego and even if
it gets quite contentious. Of course few will admit they've lost the
argument, but the readers decide not the moderators by cutting off
the discussion or even flame war tone of it. I'll be providing one or
more examples in a later post. There are many things that are in
the tradition of Usenet that shouldn't be limited to some perfectly
sterile hi-mod version, or a cesspool-ridden no-mod version.
With OM and the three-option approach, moderators are as much
a "bag it and tag it" traffic cop, and a User Assistant, as they are a
moderator. There'd be other safeguards too, like more than one
moderator on a group or even shift, and a review/appeal process
or the like. With the ad-hoc moderated groups, disenchantment
with the one moderator can fester and there's no recourse. Here,
a user can turn the moderator off, but I think the lo-mod version
or view will make it far less likely they'll want or feel they need to
do that.
Jerry Gerrone
Eh. It used to be 15 posts every 24 hours.
catpandaddy
> "catpandaddy" wrote in message
> news:ifnfgd$s7d$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>
>> Isn't all of this already accomplished with killfile rules on a good
>> newsreader? People can already choose what to filter out by their
>> own preferences, ...
>
> My guess is maybe 15% of longtimers have that way of looking at
> it or that philosophy. I disagree with it and Optional Moderation
> inherently takes the user and especially new user perspective. It
> provides the optional moderation, rather than effectively telling
> them "here's a bucket and a strainer, now filter the cesspool
> yourself."
>
> I think 85% of longtime Usenetters will be fine with the idea of OM
> and bringing in more newbies.
Newbies ARE the problem. They don't know how to conduct themselves. Usenet
in its very first year was negligible noise and nearly all signal. No
moderation was necessary. Then the unwashed masses found their way in, and
we can all see the results. It is quite clear that bringing more newbies in
directly correlates to the situation Usenet finds itself in today. The
solution is to go back to what worked at Usenet's inception, and this time
stick to it.
A B
> SFTV_troy <SFTV...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> Most of those groups are for defunct shows like alt.tv.sliders or
>> rec.arts.sf.tv.quantum-leap. They don't get many postings because
>> there's nothing new to talk about, and even on websites dedicated to
>> these shows, the forums see little activity.
>>
>> It would probably be a good idea to remove old groups for defunct TV
>> shows. Or defunct systems like rec.games.atari2600
>
> Empty newsgroups take up negligible space on the server, so removing them
> achieves very little except to trim down the list.
>
> If you did remove the unused and plain idiotic newsgroups, then the 30,000
> newsgroups (listed on my newsserver) would probably come down to about
> 5,000.
Which would be no bad thing in one way - it'd make it much easier for new
(and perhaps promising) users to find a decent group.
--
A. B.
My e-mail address is zen177395 at zendotcodotuk.
I don't check that account very often, so tell me on the newsgroup if you've
sent me an e-mail.
Barb May
The solution is to take that giant stick out of your collective asses
and reconcile yourselves to the fact that you can't "fix" usenet by any
means. Everyone has their own filter -- it's the freedom to decide which
messages you want to read. Forget about deciding that for others. It's
not your place.
If you don't want to associate with those who don't accept or don't know
about your "rules" then perhaps you should start your own forum and then
you can exercise the control that you so desperately desire.
--
Barb
catpandaddy
"Barb May" <bar...@nonofyourbusinessx.tv> wrote in message
news:4d20e38c$1...@news.x-privat.org...
That's exactly what I was getting at Barb. My "solution" is to leave it as
is and leave users to do their own filtering, instead of making a big to-do
about how it "must be changed to attract newbies, won't anyone please think
of the newbieeeees!!!" To stop with all the stupid re-coding and moderating
and despairing. Usenet is what it is, and it's just fine as it is.
Your Name
<bar...@nonofyourbusinessx.tv> wrote:
It's not Usenet nor even the Internet that needs "fixing" ... it's the
human race. As a whole human beings need to actually grow up and shed the
selfish, greedy, bigotted idiocy of an animalistic past ... they need to
actually start using their so-called "highly evolved" brains properly.
Unfortunately the fact it that it's not going to happen any time soon.
:-(