Other Usenet group available
Mike Smith
Personally I avoid the 'Yahoo' and Google groups as I value my privacy.
Regards
Mike
John Carter
news:hlmv0a$odk$1...@news.albasani.net:
Can you expand on the privacy issue you have with Yahoo groups ?
I am a member of a couple model RR groups and have been for quite some
time now, and I don't feel any part of my privacy has been invaded or
compromised. I have derived much more information from those two
groups than any other USENET group, and one does not have to put up
with spam and wise ass posters. Any who violate the rules of the group
are watned and any further violations result in them being ejected from
the group. Except for a few moderated USENET groups, you will not find
that on USENET.
Am I missing something here?
Just curious as to your experiences.
Thanks,
John Carter
Mike Smith
"John Carter" <m...@mymailsvr.org> wrote in message
news:Xns9D24BAFF3D7...@74.209.136.91...
Firstly I must confess to having a soft spot for Usenet, kept me sane when I
was a carer for a time. The big problem seems to be that no one can see any
way of making money from Usenet, it is definitely in decline, groups that
used to see hundreds of posts a day are now down to just a few, but I shall
be sorry if they kill it off (it may cease being public access, reverting
to its original role, which would not be so bad). There have been several
attempts at reinventing Usenet, non of which have actually worked out that
well but on the plus side the social networking sites have mopped up a lot
of the casual users who were just lonely.
As to the privacy issues, there was a spate of problems a few years back
with personal details being lifted from various organisations. I
(personally) feel that the advantages gained by giving my personal details
to organisations is generally outweighed by the potential consequences of
them not keeping them secure.
As I understand it (and please correct me if I am wrong) the majority of
forums are funded by advertising revenue, which I have no issues with,
although when the advertising swamps or disrupts the content it gets
annoying. What I do not feel comfortable with is the collection of
subscriber information in order to sell it to advertisers, that (for me)
crosses a line.
Once the crooks start targeting the service to gain access to that
information things can get serious, I am more cynical than paranoid so I
don't mind the government listening in (as has recently been demonstrated
there are ways around that if it bothers you).
Non moderated groups will always get idiots posting to them, but that is
what the killfile is for, flame wars can get tedious (the freeware groups
suffered badly from that). Moderated groups also have their problems, a lot
depends on how the moderator is elected. On Usenet moderated groups always
got a lot fewer posts than the unmoderated groups, even if you filter out
the dross, but if a moderator got a reputation as being awkward it was easy
enough to start a new group.
I have had a lot of help from Usenet over the years, not only with modelling
but also with a lot of more technical stuff relating to my work. Usenet has
definitely been more useful regarding work related material than any of the
forums. The modelling forums do a better job than most other web based
resources but to date I find the forums more difficult to navigate than
simple Usenet posts and in practice most of the information I have found
useful (both professional and hobby related) has come from Usenet.
To browse the Usenet groups is easy, trying to find forums is less easy, and
then you have to navigate through them.
The model railway forums are not bad, and the simple web access means they
will be favoured by non technical users, but the range of groups on Usenet
is much wider than the (current) crop of forums, odd little groups like
alt.binaries,images.vintage-engineering have been a valuable source of
inspiration for my modelling activities and the computer related groups are
distinctly better than the off-Usenet alternatives.
So, I shall continue to point out that Usenet exists, and provides a useful,
free, non commercial, anonymous service, allowing the free and unrestricted
exchange of views and information, but it is all down to personal preference
as to which services anyone chooses to make use of.
Regards
Mike