Paging anyone

[David Griffith]

What happened to this newsgroup? What's everyone up to? It has been
several days with no posts but mine.

--
David Griffith
davidmy...@acm.org <--- Put my last name where it belongs

[Andrew Plotkin]

Here, David Griffith <davidmy...@acm.org> wrote:
> What happened to this newsgroup?

Most of the activity has jumped to http://intfiction.org/forum .

--Z

--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*

[I.B.]

On 15 Δεκ, 08:32, Andrew Plotkin <erkyr...@eblong.com> wrote:

> Here, David Griffith <davidmylastn...@acm.org> wrote:
>
> > What happened to this newsgroup?
>
> Most of the activity has jumped tohttp://intfiction.org/forum.
>
> --Z
>
> --
> "And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
> *

Oooh!!

I.B.

[David Griffith]

Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
> Here, David Griffith <davidmy...@acm.org> wrote:
>> What happened to this newsgroup?

> Most of the activity has jumped to http://intfiction.org/forum .

That seemed to happen rather abruptly. Sad.

[Peter Pears]

On Dec 15, 9:24 pm, davidmylastn...@acm.org (David Griffith) wrote:
> Andrew Plotkin <erkyr...@eblong.com> wrote:

> > Here, David Griffith <davidmylastn...@acm.org> wrote:
> >> What happened to this newsgroup?
> > Most of the activity has jumped tohttp://intfiction.org/forum.
>
> That seemed to happen rather abruptly.  Sad.
>
> --
> David Griffith

> davidmylastn...@acm.org   <--- Put my last name where it belongs

It was neither abrupt nor sad... When the forum appeared, as I recall,
there were only a couple of people tentatively posting there - most
people were still here on this group, so it was hard to imagine the
migration. But it happened - not abruptly, but naturally, as the forum
was clean, spam-free (at the time - and it's still heaps better than
the newsgroup), troll-free.

And don't be sad. The community isn't dead, it's just gone to a better
place. ;)

[rpresser]

On Friday, December 16, 2011 4:00:10 AM UTC-5, Peter Pears wrote:
> And don't be sad. The community isn't dead, it's just gone to a better
> place. ;)

This sentiment is very similar to the attempt to reshape Medicare as
a private enterprise. "No, we're not killing Medicare; we're just
changing every single thing about it that made it Medicare. But
it's still called Medicare and it's still about payment for healthcare
services. So we're not killing it." Yeah, right.

A forum about interactive fiction is NOT a newsgroup about interactive
fiction. You may call it better, but I never shall. You killed the
group, and on Judgement Day, you will answer to your Maker for your sins.

[Andrew Plotkin]

Here, rpresser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Friday, December 16, 2011 4:00:10 AM UTC-5, Peter Pears wrote:
> > And don't be sad. The community isn't dead, it's just gone to a better
> > place. ;)
>
> This sentiment is very similar to the attempt to reshape Medicare as
> a private enterprise.

By an interesting coincidence, my *other* long-term newsgroup
habitation was destroyed by endless rounds of political argument.

[Jim Aikin]

On 12/20/2011 3:16 PM, rpresser wrote:
>
>
> A forum about interactive fiction is NOT a newsgroup about interactive
> fiction.

It's all just dots on a computer screen, assembled into ASCII characters
in some font or other. I'm unable to discover a meaningful difference
betwixt the two.

--JA

[Gregory Ewing]

Jim Aikin wrote:

> It's all just dots on a computer screen, assembled into ASCII characters
> in some font or other. I'm unable to discover a meaningful difference
> betwixt the two.

The difference is that with a newsgroup I get all the posts
I haven't read yet lined up and presented to me in a convenient
way, and once I read them they disappear unless I ask to see
them again.

With a web forum, on the other hand, they're all scattered about
in little pigeonholes that I have to go hunting through in order
to find them. And when I've read them, they're still there
cluttering things up.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but so far I haven't figured
out how to use one of these web forum things as a practical tool
for keeping abreast of developments in a particular area.

--
Greg

[Victor Gijsbers]

On 12/21/2011 07:17 AM, Gregory Ewing wrote:


> Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but so far I haven't figured
> out how to use one of these web forum things as a practical tool
> for keeping abreast of developments in a particular area.

The IF Forum has a "View new posts" link displayed on every page that
gives you a list of all topics (on the entire forum) in which new posts
have been made since your last visit.

Kind regards,
Victor

[Peter Pears]

On Dec 21, 8:49 am, Victor Gijsbers <vic...@lilith.gotdns.org> wrote:
> On 12/21/2011 07:17 AM, Gregory Ewing wrote:
>
> > Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but so far I haven't figured
> > out how to use one of these web forum things as a practical tool
> > for keeping abreast of developments in a particular area.

Well, since it's all "pigeonholed", a.k.a. cathegorised, it's actually
easier to keep in contact with any particular issue.

Rpresser: I'm not surprised that you took my obvious little joke about
my death euphorism. But the rest of your post, where I would be
relieved to find hints of irony and sarcarsm and humour and find none,
leave me with no other words but: WTF?!

[Jerome West]

On 20/12/2011 23:54, Andrew Plotkin wrote:

> By an interesting coincidence, my *other* long-term newsgroup
> habitation was destroyed by endless rounds of political argument.

alt.startrek.fan-fiction.parodies.time-travel.twentieth-century.newt-gingrich.changelings.infiltration?

[rpresser]

On Wednesday, December 21, 2011 5:19:24 AM UTC-5, Peter Pears wrote:

> Rpresser: I'm not surprised that you took my obvious little joke about
> my death euphorism. But the rest of your post, where I would be
> relieved to find hints of irony and sarcarsm and humour and find none,
> leave me with no other words but: WTF?!

My post contained no irony, sarcasm or humor -- although I suppose it did contain hyperbole -- because it expressed, and continues to express, my feelings about web forums. They are sometimes a necessary evil, but a newsgroup is always superior; replacing a newsgroup with a web forum is not an acceptable move to me.

I won't belabor the point further. I've said all I have to say. And I'm aware that having said what I said, nobody gives a shit.

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 12/22/2011 07:47 AM, rpresser wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 21, 2011 5:19:24 AM UTC-5, Peter Pears wrote:
>
>> Rpresser: I'm not surprised that you took my obvious little joke
>> about my death euphorism. But the rest of your post, where I would
>> be relieved to find hints of irony and sarcarsm and humour and find
>> none, leave me with no other words but: WTF?!
>
> My post contained no irony, sarcasm or humor -- although I suppose it
> did contain hyperbole -- because it expressed, and continues to
> express, my feelings about web forums. They are sometimes a
> necessary evil, but a newsgroup is always superior; replacing a
> newsgroup with a web forum is not an acceptable move to me.

Neither to me, but what can you do? People nowadays don't want to
bother with anything that doesn't run in a browser or doesn't offer more
than text. Usenet didn't evolve at all. It remained a text-only medium
with little to no support for anything else. And now it pays the price
for that. Being decentralized doesn't seem to count much for most people.

[Peter Pears]

> You killed the group, and on Judgement Day, you will answer to your Maker for your sins.

> My post contained no irony, sarcasm or humor

O-kaaaaaaaay...

[Goldkin Drake]

It's worth pointing out that for the antisocial content aggregators in the
audience, some form of serialized, externally-available feed is still
greatly appreciated as a supported feature.

To that end, full-text RSS appears to be accessible, via
http://www.intfiction.org/forum/feed.php, with a few other URLs available
for various oddments from the site. I'd originally started this follow-up
querying for its support, but then I found it.

I presume I won't be breaking anything by using it?


Otherwise, don't mind me. Just passing through.

- GK

[Hannes Schüller]

Well, to name just a couple:

- Inconvenient account management (Why would I want to sign up for
every single 'community' I want to take part in individually
instead of simply using the same account in every group?)

- Excessive use of non-accessible technology (read: Javascript)

- Slow as a molasse due to 'avatars' and other stupidity

- Push vs. pull (yes, technically, NNTP is a pull protocol, but clients
handle that automatically using periodic pulls)

- Constant discussions of including spyware to 'improve' the forum

Hannes

[Andy Kosela]

I second that. Web forum is an entirely different kind of animal from
the good ol' USENET. Unfortunately in the last 10 years or so there has
been a general decline of USENET activity and rise of the web forums.

What I especially dislike about web forums is the amount of bloat
(flashy avatars, signatures full of images etc.) you have to deal with
and also a general acceptance for using handles instead of real names.
For me this is immature and resembles more of the IRC crowd than serious
people wanting to exchange their thoughts.

I just hope that rec.arts.int-fiction and rec.games.int-fiction won't
die and there will be still some people who appreciate plain text in its
purity and beauty. After all IF was always about text, and not flashy
graphical interfaces...

--Andy

[Daryl McCullough]

Rec.arts.int-fiction

The first thing you notice when you walk into the
newsgroup is how deserted it looks.

>L

You see an old discussion about Anchorhead hints,
a thread about blackmail, and an article asking
where all the interactive fiction discussions
have disappeared to.

>read article
Which do you mean? The discussion about Anchorhead, the thread about blackmail, or the article about interactive
fiction discussions?

>interactive
You open the thread and read the most recent posting.

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:17:57 +0000 (UTC), Andy Kosela
<ako...@andykosela.com> wrote:

[snip]

>What I especially dislike about web forums is the amount of bloat
>(flashy avatars, signatures full of images etc.) you have to deal with
>and also a general acceptance for using handles instead of real names.
>For me this is immature and resembles more of the IRC crowd than serious
>people wanting to exchange their thoughts.

I could list about ten ways that USENET is better than Web
forums. Thelatter have few advantages over USENET.

>I just hope that rec.arts.int-fiction and rec.games.int-fiction won't
>die and there will be still some people who appreciate plain text in its
>purity and beauty. After all IF was always about text, and not flashy
>graphical interfaces...

Nice shot.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[namekuseijin]

Let's face it: in newsgroups these days you're likely to be eaten by
a grue rather than a troll...

I suspect when the last Usenet folks die out that will be the day when
IF dies too...

BTW, I use google groups for convenience so I don't have to install
newsgroups clients all over...

[Jim Aikin]

On 2/12/2012 9:17 AM, Andy Kosela wrote:
>
> What I especially dislike about web forums is the amount of bloat
> (flashy avatars, signatures full of images etc.) you have to deal with
> and also a general acceptance for using handles instead of real names.
> For me this is immature and resembles more of the IRC crowd than serious
> people wanting to exchange their thoughts.

I sometimes feel very out of step because I use my real name on the
intfiction forum instead of a mysterious handle.

But with respect to the basic topic of discussion, I have no problem
with forums. To me, bemoaning the migration away from newsgroups is like
bemoaning the migration away from dial telephones. I mean, what's this
thing? Don't tell me it's a telephone! With a color screen, no dial, and
no handset? And you can play _games_ on it? That's not a real phone!

--JA

[Carson Chittom]

Jim Aikin <midig...@gmail.com> writes:

> On 2/12/2012 9:17 AM, Andy Kosela wrote:
>>
>> What I especially dislike about web forums is the amount of bloat
>> (flashy avatars, signatures full of images etc.) you have to deal with
>> and also a general acceptance for using handles instead of real names.
>> For me this is immature and resembles more of the IRC crowd than serious
>> people wanting to exchange their thoughts.
>
> I sometimes feel very out of step because I use my real name on the
> intfiction forum instead of a mysterious handle.

I've felt for a while now that what the Internet needs (in part anyway)
is more use of real names generally. (There are exceptions, of course.)

[Adam Thornton]

In article <ji7aoj$p09$1...@speranza.aioe.org>,

Jim Aikin <midig...@gmail.com> wrote:
>But with respect to the basic topic of discussion, I have no problem
>with forums. To me, bemoaning the migration away from newsgroups is like
>bemoaning the migration away from dial telephones. I mean, what's this
>thing? Don't tell me it's a telephone! With a color screen, no dial, and
>no handset? And you can play _games_ on it? That's not a real phone!

My problem with forums is that, fundamentally, the owner can at any
point simply take his marbles and go home, and anything you had on that
forum is de facto *his*--unless you were paranoid enough to keep a
fairly current copy of any content on it, assuming there was even some
interface to do that--rather than *yours*. And I've seen enough people
stomp off with Internet Butthurt to not feel comfortable that any
particular individual isn't going to suddenly contract a big case of
it.

Usenet, being a flood-fill store-and-forward communications network,
does not suffer from that particular problem. A lot of people may not
see the problem as a big deal. I happen to.

Adam

[Daryl McCullough]

On Thursday, February 23, 2012 9:57:40 PM UTC-5, namekuseijin wrote:

> BTW, I use google groups for convenience so I don't have to install
> newsgroups clients all over...

Yeah, that's why I use Google groups. I can read and respond to
Usenet wherever there's a browser, so I can use the computer in
the airport, or the hotel, or at my friend's house...

I used to use Newsguy.com, which I actually liked better, but
I had a falling out with the company over political differences.

[Jerome West]

On 24/02/2012 14:32, Adam Thornton wrote:
> My problem with forums is that, fundamentally, the owner can at any
> point simply take his marbles and go home, and anything you had on that
> forum is de facto *his*--unless you were paranoid enough to keep a
> fairly current copy of any content on it, assuming there was even some
> interface to do that--rather than *yours*. And I've seen enough people
> stomp off with Internet Butthurt to not feel comfortable that any
> particular individual isn't going to suddenly contract a big case of
> it.
>
> Usenet, being a flood-fill store-and-forward communications network,
> does not suffer from that particular problem. A lot of people may not
> see the problem as a big deal. I happen to.

I went to click the *Like* button on this, and then I realised I was on
Usenet. :(

[Eli the Bearded]

In rec.arts.int-fiction, Adam Thornton <ad...@fsf.net> wrote:
> My problem with forums is that, fundamentally, the owner can at any
> point simply take his marbles and go home, and anything you had on that
> forum is de facto *his*--unless you were paranoid enough to keep a
> fairly current copy of any content on it, assuming there was even some
> interface to do that--rather than *yours*. And I've seen enough people
> stomp off with Internet Butthurt to not feel comfortable that any
> particular individual isn't going to suddenly contract a big case of
> it.
>
> Usenet, being a flood-fill store-and-forward communications network,
> does not suffer from that particular problem. A lot of people may not
> see the problem as a big deal. I happen to.

I think that fundamentally forums suffer from being under the control
of a central authority. That authority can lock everyone out, put up a
paywall, fill the place with skeazy ads, delete everything, or any
number of other negative things. The central authority can also do
many beneficial things. Very powerful moderation to stop particular
posters, IP addresses, topics, threads, links, etc.

Usenet suffers from having no real central authority. Trolls can't be
stopped, crossposts can dilute a group's content, spam hasn't been
completely stomped out (or stomped out at all depending on how your
provider works), flood-fill store-and-forward can create isolated
communities when forwarding breaks (mostly google groups posts not
getting out these days), no central authority means no one pushing
for improvments in technology, and other ills. The medium however
is old, with some well developed tools. I can't stand the web
interface forums force upon me. I am well versed in trn, with it's
killfiles (also useful for post selection), the simple keystroke
interface that allows selecting a list of articles to read, then
reading them, then going back for more, the familiarity of editing
posts in my favorite editor instead of a <TEXTAREA> with almost
no features.

Elijah
------
off-and-on active in Usenet for over twenty years

[Adam Thornton]

In article <eli$12022...@qz.little-neck.ny.us>,

Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:
>the familiarity of editing
>posts in my favorite editor instead of a <TEXTAREA> with almost
>no features.

FWIW, there's an awesome Chrome plugin called "Edit with Emacs." It
turns your <TEXTAREA> into a
textarea-with-a-button-that-pops-open-an-actual-editor-for-you.

Assuming that's your poison of choice. I imagine that heretics have
their own analogous plugin.

Not that, of course, I don't agree with your overall assessment. But
the fact is, you can have a decent editor hooked into your browser these
days.

Adam

[Eli the Bearded]

In rec.arts.int-fiction, Adam Thornton <ad...@fsf.net> wrote:

> FWIW, there's an awesome Chrome plugin called "Edit with Emacs." It
> turns your <TEXTAREA> into a
> textarea-with-a-button-that-pops-open-an-actual-editor-for-you.
>
> Assuming that's your poison of choice. I imagine that heretics have
> their own analogous plugin.

I, in fact, use a Firefox plugin called "It's All Text" that will
add a button to the text area that calls a user-supplied editor,
nicely sidestepping all editor religion wars. It can break when the
textarea has a javascript wysiwyg (eg, in the admin interface to
Movable Type).

It is not perfect, but it is a whole lot better than <TEXTAREA>.

Elijah
------
who wonders which "emacs" that is (gnu, XEmacs, teco with macros, ...)

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 24/02/12 08:29, Jim Aikin wrote:
> On 2/12/2012 9:17 AM, Andy Kosela wrote:
>>
>> What I especially dislike about web forums is the amount of bloat
>> (flashy avatars, signatures full of images etc.) you have to deal with
>> and also a general acceptance for using handles instead of real names.
>> For me this is immature and resembles more of the IRC crowd than serious
>> people wanting to exchange their thoughts.
>
> I sometimes feel very out of step because I use my real name on the
> intfiction forum instead of a mysterious handle.

The problem is that the forum does not distinguish between your name and
your login ID. For the life of me, I can't figure out why that is. It
doesn't make sense. Login IDs need to be short so you won't have to
type 20 characters just to log in.

I use the same login ID on Usenet and on the forum. On Usenet however,
my real name is displayed. On the forum, my login ID is displayed.
Again, I think that's just wrong.

[Peter Pears]

> > My problem with forums is that, fundamentally, the owner can at any
> > point simply take his marbles and go home, and anything you had on that
> > forum is de facto *his*

> I think that fundamentally forums suffer from being under the control
> of a central authority.

For what it's worth, the "central authority" can be distributed by a
handful of admins and moderators, and if we're living under a tyrant,
it's a very quiet, very low-profile tyrant. No Louis XIV- or Ludwig II-
style excentricities here, we're all pretty much free to do as we
please as long as we don't start blackmailing other people.

I don't see Merk stomping off with internet Butthurt and taking
everything down. Thankfully, I don't see anyone in the community doing
it - well, not anyone that would be trusted enough to have that sort
of power in the first place.

Truth is, I occasionally take a look at other forums, and feel so very
happy to be mainly on IntFiction. Intelligent people. Funny,
interesting, whacky, serious discussions. And most of all, man, posts
you can actually read without going cross-eyed.

[Daryl McCullough]

On Saturday, February 25, 2012 5:54:09 AM UTC-5, Peter Pears wrote:

> For what it's worth, the "central authority" can be distributed by a
> handful of admins and moderators, and if we're living under a tyrant,
> it's a very quiet, very low-profile tyrant. No Louis XIV- or Ludwig II-
> style excentricities here, we're all pretty much free to do as we
> please as long as we don't start blackmailing other people.

I actually participate in a few moderated Usenet forums, and even
for the best of them, the moderation is chafing at times. The point
of moderation in a group such as sci.physics.research or
sci.physics.foundations is that they want to keep out the crackpots
and the personal attacks. But the moderators also reject posts that
they consider repetitive or not contributing much of substance, which
is often VERY subjective.

Maybe there is no way to eliminate spam and flamers without also
putting a chill on some legitimate posts.

[Peter Pears]

> But the moderators also reject posts that
> they consider repetitive or not contributing much of substance, which
> is often VERY subjective.

Again, this hasn't happened yet and seems very unlikely to happen.
This sort of criticism I can understand regarding forums in general.
It is, however, a far cry - a far, far cry - from the reality at
IntFiction, and to those people who are afraid only of this, and have
no other objection to a forum, I say - come in for a day or two, read
up, lurk, post, give it a try.

I feel no chill. Nill chill.

[Jacek Pudlo]

Adam Thornton

> My problem with forums is that, fundamentally, the owner can at any
> point simply take his marbles and go home

My problem with life is that at any point my body can simply take its
marbles and go home to the compost heap it came from. Do I whine about it on
public forums? I'm an adult, so I don't. I also don't allow weirdos to
blackmail me. What was it that Shakespare said about cowards? Something
about dying a thousand times?

[Hannes Schüller]

Jim Aikin <midig...@gmail.com> wrote:
> But with respect to the basic topic of discussion, I have no problem
> with forums. To me, bemoaning the migration away from newsgroups is
> like bemoaning the migration away from dial telephones. I mean,
> what's this thing? Don't tell me it's a telephone! With a color
> screen, no dial, and no handset? And you can play _games_ on it?
> That's not a real phone!

That's as flawed as an analogy can get. If anything, WWW forums
have /fewer/ features than newsgroups.

Hannes

[Adam Thornton]

In article <jib9lm$73j$1...@speranza.aioe.org>,

Jacek Pudlo <ja...@jacek.jacek> wrote:
>I also don't allow weirdos to
>blackmail me. What was it that Shakespare said

"A hit, a very palpable hit," I think.

Adam

[Jim Aikin]

Hmm. Then I wonder why I have never encountered ANY of these supposed
features. Would you care to list a few of them?

[R. Alan Monroe]

Andy Kosela <ako...@andykosela.com> wrote in news:jh8s85$p44$1
@speranza.aioe.org:

> I second that. Web forum is an entirely different kind of animal from
> the good ol' USENET. Unfortunately in the last 10 years or so there has
> been a general decline of USENET activity and rise of the web forums.
>
> What I especially dislike about web forums is the amount of bloat
> (flashy avatars, signatures full of images etc.) you have to deal with

I'm with you. I find the traditional web forums less usable because they're
so eye-bleeding. The solution seems simple, and I'm not sure why no one has
done this yet: Write forum software that looks exactly like an nntp reader.
A pane for an indented outline of article subject lines, and a pane that
shows one article at a time in plain text. Maybe I'm underestimating the
difficulty of doing this.

Alan

[Adam Thornton]

In article <jidpha$eg4$1...@speranza.aioe.org>,

Jim Aikin <midig...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Hmm. Then I wonder why I have never encountered ANY of these supposed

>features [that are NNTP advantages over web forums]. Would you care to

>list a few of them?

We already have, but, all right: decentralization. Cross-posting.
Sophisticated kill/score file filters (something that certainly COULD be
done in a web forum, but which I've never seen). Text-only-interface
friendly.

Adam

[namekuseijin]

On 24 fev, 21:01, a...@fsf.net (Adam Thornton) wrote:
> In article <eli$1202241...@qz.little-neck.ny.us>,

> Eli the Bearded  <*...@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:
>
> >the familiarity of editing
> >posts in my favorite editor instead of a <TEXTAREA> with almost
> >no features.
>
> FWIW, there's an awesome Chrome plugin called "Edit with Emacs."  It
> turns your <TEXTAREA> into a
> textarea-with-a-button-that-pops-open-an-actual-editor-for-you.
>
> Assuming that's your poison of choice.  I imagine that heretics have
> their own analogous plugin.
>
> Not that, of course, I don't agree with your overall assessment.  But
> the fact is, you can have a decent editor hooked into your browser these
> days.
>
> Adam

what is wrong with copying-and-pasting from/to your fav editor?

[namekuseijin]

On 25 fev, 11:38, Daryl McCullough <stevendaryl3...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, February 25, 2012 5:54:09 AM UTC-5, Peter Pears wrote:
> > For what it's worth, the "central authority" can be distributed by a
> > handful of admins and moderators, and if we're living under a tyrant,
> > it's a very quiet, very low-profile tyrant. No Louis XIV- or Ludwig II-
> > style excentricities here, we're all pretty much free to do as we
> > please as long as we don't start blackmailing other people.
>
> I actually participate in a few moderated Usenet forums, and even
> for the best of them, the moderation is chafing at times. The point
> of moderation in a group such as sci.physics.research or
> sci.physics.foundations is that they want to keep out the crackpots
> and the personal attacks. But the moderators also reject posts that
> they consider repetitive or not contributing much of substance, which
> is often VERY subjective.

ah, yes. alt.astronomy is living proof of the evils of complete
unmoderated usenet...

[namekuseijin]

On 24 fev, 09:11, Carson Chittom <car...@wistly.net> wrote:

what is in a name? On the internet, there's no means of truly
verifying authenticity. The name may look real, but may be just as
made up as the personality behind it. so, why bother? I feel the
ideas behind these handles in the discussions are far more worthy than
any names...

[Eli the Bearded]

In rec.arts.int-fiction, namekuseijin <nameku...@gmail.com> wrote:
[on browser plugins to invoke an external editor]

> what is wrong with copying-and-pasting from/to your fav editor?

Less chance of error? Three common cut-n-paste errors: not completely
selecting the text and leaving part off the beginning or end, not
completely overwriting the text you are replacing and leaving something
doubled, and a process "fixing" content as it gets pasted (ascii
quotes to smart quotes, tabs to spaces, spaces to tabs, line ending
changes, outright conversion of plain text to html, etc).

Copy and paste of large amounts of stuff is also very cumbersome in
xterms, but that's my cross to bear, not yours.

Elijah
------
religious adherent of "select to copy, middle button to paste"

[Carson Chittom]

The same argument works in reverse: if only the ideas matter, why *not*
use your real name? Why bother with an alias? (Barring those who
espouse opinions contrary to their oppressive governments; such people
clearly do need an alias in some situations.) Real names do on the
other hand, in general, encourage civility by helping interlocutors to
think of one another as individuals (not just "chevyowner632," barely
differentiated from "chevyowner631"), and therefore have the potential
to breed community---that's my opinion anyway, though I'm not aware of
any absolute proof I can point to. That's why I said "I've felt" in the
article you replied to, rather than "I can prove."

[namekuseijin]

On Feb 27, 3:25 am, Eli the Bearded <*...@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:
> Copy and paste of large amounts of stuff is also very cumbersome in
> xterms, but that's my cross to bear, not yours.

Now we reached your core issue: that you want at all costs to remain
in the pure text interface of 30+ years ago rather than embrace the
GUI world with quick drag'n'drop (ctrl+A to select all). Which BTW,
is also partly the same issue others here have against web forums:
they want pure text, just like their games.

[namekuseijin]

On Feb 27, 12:47 pm, Carson Chittom <car...@wistly.net> wrote:

> namekuseijin <namekusei...@gmail.com> writes:
> > On 24 fev, 09:11, Carson Chittom <car...@wistly.net> wrote:
> >> Jim Aikin <midigur...@gmail.com> writes:
> >> > On 2/12/2012 9:17 AM, Andy Kosela wrote:
>
> >> >> What I especially dislike about web forums is the amount of bloat
> >> >> (flashy avatars, signatures full of images etc.) you have to deal with
> >> >> and also a general acceptance for using handles instead of real names.
> >> >> For me this is immature and resembles more of the IRC crowd than serious
> >> >> people wanting to exchange their thoughts.
>
> >> > I sometimes feel very out of step because I use my real name on the
> >> > intfiction forum instead of a mysterious handle.
>
> >> I've felt for a while now that what the Internet needs (in part anyway)
> >> is more use of real names generally.  (There are exceptions, of course.)
>
> > what is in a name?  On the internet, there's no means of truly
> > verifying authenticity.  The name may look real, but may be just as
> > made up as the personality behind it.  so, why bother?  I feel the
> > ideas behind these handles in the discussions are far more worthy than
> > any names...
>
> The same argument works in reverse:  if only the ideas matter, why *not*
> use your real name?  Why bother with an alias?

It's more sexy than Ricardo Malafaia.

[John G. Wood]

To which I'll add the ability to download lots of messages in seconds at
the same time as my email, then read them offline and reply at leisure
(e.g., on the train).

Also, better threading.

[Hannes Schüller]

So you dislike choice? In one scenario (Usenet), everybody can tweak
his own set of tools exactly as he wants it, use his prefered tools
etc. In the other (WWW forum), everybody gets the same (very primitive
and limited) HMI shoved down their throats (eat or die). Regardless of
my personal choices of applications, I'll always prefer to choose
myself.

Hannes

[Andrew Plotkin]

Here, Hannes Schüller <han...@yllr.net> wrote:
>
> So you dislike choice?

Godwin's Law has a corrolary about this, I think.

--Z

--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*

[namekuseijin]

I like choice (esp. parser-based). You have as much choice to parse NNTP messages through your text tools of choice as parsing generated html pages with your tools of choice, thus extracting what you want to use with ed. Yes, quite some work adapting to a new XML world rather than plain text processing with some regex, huh? Better just ditch xterm and fire up graphical emacs and copy-paste to some graphical web browser.

BTW, I'm now just testing the new user-interface of Google Groups. It now implements threading (though not insanely deep threading).

[Eli the Bearded]

In rec.arts.int-fiction, namekuseijin <nameku...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Feb 27, 3:25 am, Eli the Bearded <*...@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:
> > Copy and paste of large amounts of stuff is also very cumbersome in
> > xterms, but that's my cross to bear, not yours.
> Now we reached your core issue: that you want at all costs to remain
> in the pure text interface of 30+ years ago rather than embrace the
> GUI world with quick drag'n'drop (ctrl+A to select all).

BZZZT. That doesn't work so well. For one thing, <ctrl-A> to select
all selects everything OUTSIDE the <TEXTAREA> unless I've already
clicked on it (or hit <tab> enough). And then after I've selected all
I've got to have a window ready if I want to to a drag'n'drop.

No, I think I'll stick to a button that launches the editor of my
choice with the contents and then updates the <TEXTAREA> automatically
after I save. It's really (1) more convient and (2) less error prone.

> Which BTW,
> is also partly the same issue others here have against web forums:
> they want pure text, just like their games.

I can display images in my xterms. w3m-img allows me to browse the
web from an xterm with inline image loading. (The UI is awkward, because
it doesn't rescale images to fit very well, but that's a much smaller
issue than actually displaying an image in an xterm.)

Elijah
------
hasn't found any webforum that threads as nicely as trn

[Hannes Schüller]

namekuseijin <nameku...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 29, 2012 10:10:49 AM UTC-3, Hannes Schüller
> wrote:
> > namekuseijin <nameku...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Feb 27, 3:25 am, Eli the Bearded <*...@eli.users.panix.com>
> > > wrote:
> > > > Copy and paste of large amounts of stuff is also very
> > > > cumbersome in xterms, but that's my cross to bear, not yours.
> > >
> > > Now we reached your core issue: that you want at all costs to
> > > remain in the pure text interface of 30+ years ago rather than
> > > embrace the GUI world with quick drag'n'drop (ctrl+A to select
> > > all). Which BTW, is also partly the same issue others here have
> > > against web forums: they want pure text, just like their games.
> >
> > So you dislike choice? In one scenario (Usenet), everybody can tweak
> > his own set of tools exactly as he wants it, use his prefered tools
> > etc. In the other (WWW forum), everybody gets the same (very
> > primitive and limited) HMI shoved down their throats (eat or die).
> > Regardless of my personal choices of applications, I'll always
> > prefer to choose myself.
>

> I like choice (esp. parser-based). You have as much choice to parse
> NNTP messages through your text tools of choice as parsing generated
> html pages with your tools of choice, thus extracting what you want
> to use with ed. Yes, quite some work adapting to a new XML world
> rather than plain text processing with some regex, huh?

Which, due to the lack of a defined and widely accepted and stable 'web
forum API', I would need to do for each site individually. Instead of
using readily available tools for interaction through a well-defined
protocol. Great idea!

By the way, I'm not just talking about 'text tools vs. GUI'. I find the
whole interface of the typical web forums clunky, regardless of the way
they are interpreted by different types of browsers.

Hannes

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 20:42:06 +0000, Jerome West
<jerom...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 24/02/2012 14:32, Adam Thornton wrote:
>> My problem with forums is that, fundamentally, the owner can at any

>> point simply take his marbles and go home, and anything you had on that

>> forum is de facto *his*--unless you were paranoid enough to keep a
>> fairly current copy of any content on it, assuming there was even some
>> interface to do that--rather than *yours*. And I've seen enough people
>> stomp off with Internet Butthurt to not feel comfortable that any
>> particular individual isn't going to suddenly contract a big case of
>> it.
>>
>> Usenet, being a flood-fill store-and-forward communications network,
>> does not suffer from that particular problem. A lot of people may not
>> see the problem as a big deal. I happen to.
>
>I went to click the *Like* button on this, and then I realised I was on
>Usenet. :(

Too bad. You have to be just a bit more articulate.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:10:49 +0100, Hannes Schüller <han...@yllr.net>
wrote:

Actually, part of the problem is getting so many tools. One
forum does it this way, another that, and on and on.

>my personal choices of applications, I'll always prefer to choose
>myself.

Yes. You might not agree with my choice, but it is right for me.
Your choice might be very bad for me. Vice versa, of course.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Gene Wirchenko]

You may have misspelled "sci.math" which has some great posts,
but it also has so much trash that it is not worth it.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko