Gateway for VC Forum posts to csa2

D Finnigan

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Nov 13, 2012, 3:21:32 PM11/13/12

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I am considering writing a gateway to copy vintage-computer.com/vcforum
posts to csa2 based on the RSS feed that is provided for the Apple II forum
on the site. Any remarks on this idea?

David Schmidt

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Nov 13, 2012, 3:31:34 PM11/13/12

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I'm not a fan. I participate in lots of fora, VC being only one. I'd
hate for csa2 to become the sewer into which any and all splinter groups
drain. Besides which, the audience for local drivel gets a whole lot
wider without the author really knowing it, being used to it, or maybe
even consenting to it (depending on implementation details). Website
fora tend to grow their own ecosystems, and merging them is probably not
the way to go.

The capability to participate in usenet _from_ someplace else is useful
- like the way macgui does now, and the way a2central used to.

Hot Rod

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Nov 13, 2012, 3:33:06 PM11/13/12

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How about something that goes the other way? Put csa2 posts into a modern forum/gateway, so that pictures and things can be added. Screenshots would be a marvelous addition to stories to share. Then the posts made via that forum could be reflected back to csa2, sans the attachments (although links back to them could persist).

Or maybe there's already a modern alternative to csa2 somewhere?

D Finnigan

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Nov 13, 2012, 3:46:08 PM11/13/12

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David Schmidt wrote:
> On 11/13/2012 3:21 PM, D Finnigan wrote:
>> I am considering writing a gateway to copy vintage-computer.com/vcforum
>> posts to csa2 based on the RSS feed that is provided for the Apple II
>> forum
>> on the site. Any remarks on this idea?
>
> I'm not a fan. I participate in lots of fora, VC being only one. I'd
> hate for csa2 to become the sewer into which any and all splinter groups
> drain.

The quality of discussions on the VC Apple II forum struck me as being
valuable (do you agree?), which is why I had the idea of gatewaying them
into csa2.

--
]DF$
Apple II Book: http://macgui.com/newa2guide/ Vault: http://macgui.com/vault/
Receive comp.sys.apple2 posts by email digest:
http://macgui.com/usenet/subs.php?group=1

D Finnigan

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Nov 13, 2012, 3:47:28 PM11/13/12

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Hot Rod wrote:
> On Tuesday, November 13, 2012 2:21:32 PM UTC-6, D Finnigan wrote:
>> I am considering writing a gateway to copy vintage-computer.com/vcforum
>>
>> posts to csa2 based on the RSS feed that is provided for the Apple II
>> forum
>>
>> on the site. Any remarks on this idea?
>
> How about something that goes the other way? Put csa2 posts into a modern
> forum/gateway, so that pictures and things can be added. Screenshots
> would
> be a marvelous addition to stories to share. Then the posts made via that
> forum could be reflected back to csa2, sans the attachments (although
> links
> back to them could persist).

There is always the option for HTML posts with embedded MIME attachments.
However, a lot of the text-only Usenet servers won't retain such articles
that pass through them.

David Schmidt

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Nov 13, 2012, 3:58:06 PM11/13/12

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On 11/13/2012 3:46 PM, D Finnigan wrote:
> David Schmidt wrote:
>> On 11/13/2012 3:21 PM, D Finnigan wrote:
>>> I am considering writing a gateway to copy vintage-computer.com/vcforum
>>> posts to csa2 based on the RSS feed that is provided for the Apple II
>>> forum
>>> on the site. Any remarks on this idea?
>>
>> I'm not a fan. I participate in lots of fora, VC being only one. I'd
>> hate for csa2 to become the sewer into which any and all splinter groups
>> drain.
>
> The quality of discussions on the VC Apple II forum struck me as being
> valuable (do you agree?), which is why I had the idea of gatewaying them
> into csa2.

Quality of discussion is one aspect to consider. I agree, it is good on
VC - there are others with good signal-to-noise ratios too, like
AppleFritter and 68kmla - and I suspect there is a lot of overlap of
participants, too.

I remain unswayed, though. I assume the traffic would be 2-way,
otherwise it would be highly unuseful. I have no idea if Erik would
want the extra incoming traffic, what that traffic would look like ("who
is this 'usenet' fellow?") and so on.

D Finnigan

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Nov 13, 2012, 4:09:36 PM11/13/12

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I sent him a query email the other day and I'm waiting for a response. There
is an NNTP interface for vBulletin, which I have seen in action. I know that
it pulls posts from Usenet to the vBulletin forum; I don't know if it sends
posts from the forum to Usenet.

You are right, though, without his support it would almost certainly be
one-way. The only method I can think of to make it two-way on my own would
be truly dastardly: I'd have to write a program to intercept the Usenet
followups to VC forum posts, log in to the VC Forums with a special account
and make the post to the correct topic. Doable, but probably not worth the
effort. :-)

D Finnigan

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Dec 6, 2012, 1:53:30 PM12/6/12

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Response is: Mr. Klein is afraid of the loss of control over posts coming
into his forum.

"It's a really good suggestion, but it's not something I can do right now."

--
]DF$
Apple II Book: http://macgui.com/newa2guide/

Apple II Archive: http://macgui.com/vault/
Apple II Web & Blog hosting: http://a2hq.com/