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Any moderators using Facebook or Twitter to publicize their newsgroups?
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Paul W. Schleck
Sep 21, 2014, 6:13:52 PM9/21/14
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Are there any moderated newsgroups that send updates via Facebook or
Twitter, either manually or automatically, about new article threads?
For example, the rec.radio.info newsgroup automatically updates its
Facebook and Twitter pages when new article threads are posted:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/recradioinfo-Usenet-Newsgroup/179796382068148
Twitter:
https://www.twitter.com/recradioinfo
The rec.radio.info newsgroup contains bulletin and information postings,
no followup discussion (which is redirected to relevant discussion
newsgroups via the Followup-To: header), but the approach could also
work for discussion newsgroups, sending a tweet and status update only
when the first article in a new thread is posted (i.e., no References:
header). The Twitter feed for the moderated discussion newsgroup
rec.radio.amateur.moderated is:
https://twitter.com/recradioamateur
Purists might object to using non-Usenet media to publicize Usenet
newsgroups or to carry their content, but it seems we have already
crossed that bridge with newsgroup web sites and web-based Usenet
article archives like Google Groups. Using something relatively
lightweight, established, and reliable like Twitter would appear to be
ideal to support updates via mobile devices and apps. Mobile app-based
newsreaders like PhoNews are not ideal for this as they seem to be slow,
buggy, and do not provide asynchronous updates and alerting like the
Twitter or Facebook apps do.
It might also be useful to use more popular social media outlets to
support discovery of Usenet content, and recruit new users, particularly
those who might have useful contributions to make.
The URL's in the tweets and status updates are links back to the
specific messages archived at Google Groups, sent through the goo.gl
link shortener. The one weakness to this scheme is that the URL
convention to link to a specific Usenet article with a given Message-ID
in the Google Groups archive is somewhat fragile and unreliable. Either
the index at Google Groups doesn't update very quickly, or there are
bugs in how their index is built and articles are linked. Ideally, it
would be better to use a site-independent URL that starts with "news:",
not relying on Google Groups, which has its own set of problems, and is
rumored to be going away "soon". However, there doesn't seem to be a
reliable and portable way to specify a news: URL that will link to a
news server that is accessible and will return the given article for
every user.
The steps to have a moderated newsgroup send article updates to Facebook
and Twitter feeds automatically, via script integration with most
standard moderation bot software like STUMP, are straightforward. I
would be happy to provide them to any interested moderation team.
Please contact me at my e-mail address below.
- --
Paul W. Schleck
psch...@novia.net
http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/
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Are there any moderated newsgroups that send updates via Facebook or
Twitter, either manually or automatically, about new article threads?
For example, the rec.radio.info newsgroup automatically updates its
Facebook and Twitter pages when new article threads are posted:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/recradioinfo-Usenet-Newsgroup/179796382068148
Twitter:
https://www.twitter.com/recradioinfo
The rec.radio.info newsgroup contains bulletin and information postings,
no followup discussion (which is redirected to relevant discussion
newsgroups via the Followup-To: header), but the approach could also
work for discussion newsgroups, sending a tweet and status update only
when the first article in a new thread is posted (i.e., no References:
header). The Twitter feed for the moderated discussion newsgroup
rec.radio.amateur.moderated is:
https://twitter.com/recradioamateur
Purists might object to using non-Usenet media to publicize Usenet
newsgroups or to carry their content, but it seems we have already
crossed that bridge with newsgroup web sites and web-based Usenet
article archives like Google Groups. Using something relatively
lightweight, established, and reliable like Twitter would appear to be
ideal to support updates via mobile devices and apps. Mobile app-based
newsreaders like PhoNews are not ideal for this as they seem to be slow,
buggy, and do not provide asynchronous updates and alerting like the
Twitter or Facebook apps do.
It might also be useful to use more popular social media outlets to
support discovery of Usenet content, and recruit new users, particularly
those who might have useful contributions to make.
The URL's in the tweets and status updates are links back to the
specific messages archived at Google Groups, sent through the goo.gl
link shortener. The one weakness to this scheme is that the URL
convention to link to a specific Usenet article with a given Message-ID
in the Google Groups archive is somewhat fragile and unreliable. Either
the index at Google Groups doesn't update very quickly, or there are
bugs in how their index is built and articles are linked. Ideally, it
would be better to use a site-independent URL that starts with "news:",
not relying on Google Groups, which has its own set of problems, and is
rumored to be going away "soon". However, there doesn't seem to be a
reliable and portable way to specify a news: URL that will link to a
news server that is accessible and will return the given article for
every user.
The steps to have a moderated newsgroup send article updates to Facebook
and Twitter feeds automatically, via script integration with most
standard moderation bot software like STUMP, are straightforward. I
would be happy to provide them to any interested moderation team.
Please contact me at my e-mail address below.
- --
Paul W. Schleck
psch...@novia.net
http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/
Finger psch...@novia.net for PGP Public Key
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Steve Bonine
Sep 22, 2014, 12:11:24 AM9/22/14
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On 9/21/14, 5:13 PM, Paul W. Schleck " wrote:
> Are there any moderated newsgroups that send updates via Facebook or
> Twitter, either manually or automatically, about new article threads?
I am unclear on your goal.
> Are there any moderated newsgroups that send updates via Facebook or
> Twitter, either manually or automatically, about new article threads?
From the Usenet perspective, it seems unlikely to have any effect on
the newsgroup. Someone who sees the material on Facebook or Twitter is
likely to respond on their platform of choice and since it's a one-way
gateway, the result is two unlinked discussions. Do you have any
evidence of anyone seeing the material on Facebook or Twitter and, as a
result, becoming a participant in the Usenet newsgroup?
John Levine
Sep 22, 2014, 11:20:48 AM9/22/14
to
>Are there any moderated newsgroups that send updates via Facebook or
>Twitter, either manually or automatically, about new article threads?
In comp.compilers, it automatically tweets each new article. I
>Twitter, either manually or automatically, about new article threads?
originally did it as a hack to see if I understood the Twitter API,
but the readers said they like it so now it happens automagically
whenever I post anything.
https://twitter.com/compcompilers
--
Regards,
John Levine, jo...@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly
Steve Bonine
Sep 22, 2014, 12:24:36 PM9/22/14
to
On 9/22/14, 10:20 AM, John Levine wrote:
>> Are there any moderated newsgroups that send updates via Facebook or
>> Twitter, either manually or automatically, about new article threads?
>
> In comp.compilers, it automatically tweets each new article. I
> originally did it as a hack to see if I understood the Twitter API,
> but the readers said they like it so now it happens automagically
> whenever I post anything.
This is the kind of positive feedback I was looking for.
>> Are there any moderated newsgroups that send updates via Facebook or
>> Twitter, either manually or automatically, about new article threads?
>
> In comp.compilers, it automatically tweets each new article. I
> originally did it as a hack to see if I understood the Twitter API,
> but the readers said they like it so now it happens automagically
> whenever I post anything.
Paul W. Schleck
Sep 23, 2014, 10:31:33 PM9/23/14
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In <c897n4...@mid.individual.net> Steve Bonine <s...@pobox.com> writes:
>On 9/21/14, 5:13 PM, Paul W. Schleck " wrote:
>> Are there any moderated newsgroups that send updates via Facebook or
>> Twitter, either manually or automatically, about new article threads?
>I am unclear on your goal.
As alluded to in my original post:
>On 9/21/14, 5:13 PM, Paul W. Schleck " wrote:
>> Are there any moderated newsgroups that send updates via Facebook or
>> Twitter, either manually or automatically, about new article threads?
>I am unclear on your goal.
- Asynchronous notification of updates via a (relatively) lightweight
transport and protocol
- Support for this in the mobile app environment (where app-based news
readers like PhoNews don't seem ready for prime time, if they ever
will be)
- Additional publicity for Usenet content outside of traditional Usenet
(news servers and readers)
Two more feature not mentioned:
- The use of "hashtag" keywords in tweets to aid in searching and
serendipitous discovery of content
- Twitter offers built-in analytics to count eyeballs, click counts,
and forwards ("re-tweets")
For a newsgroup like rec.radio.info, read-only is perfectly serviceable,
as subscribers will generally read and not comment. For discussion
newsgroups like rec.radio.amateur.moderated, there is still the
possibility of replying via Google Groups by following the provided URL,
forwarding to others via Twitter, e-mail, or Facebook, or even just
bringing up a newsreader and manually finding the article to which the
reader was alerted.
In my opinion, relaying to Twitter (and Facebook) is a useful
experiment, not requiring a lot of effort to implement, which takes
advantage of some already-built free infrastructure and audience (sort
of like the original intent of Usenet). I was just curious if other
moderators were doing it, and via what means (looks like at least one
other, comp.compilers). Maybe also I could interest other moderators in
trying it.
- --
Paul W. Schleck
psch...@novia.net
http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/
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Paul W. Schleck
Sep 23, 2014, 10:32:19 PM9/23/14
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I am envious of your 254 Twitter followers. Of course, you have a head
start of about 5 years over rec.radio.info, which currently has less
than 20, but slowly growing. Did you roll your own non-interactive
client using the Twitter API, or are you using something like the
ttytter Perl script?:
http://www.floodgap.com/software/ttytter/
I use the latter. It was pretty easy to set up, but requires curl and a
current set of SSL certs (Twitter went to https-only back in January).
I also see that you avoided the fragile link problem with Google Groups
by setting up your own web archive, apparently based on a web-based
message archive interface ("Searchware").
- --
Paul W. Schleck
psch...@novia.net
http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/
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John Levine
Sep 25, 2014, 9:04:22 AM9/25/14
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>I am envious of your 254 Twitter followers. Of course, you have a head
>start of about 5 years over rec.radio.info, which currently has less
>than 20, but slowly growing. Did you roll your own non-interactive
>client using the Twitter API, or are you using something like the
>ttytter Perl script?:
I wrote my own little perl script. You can have it if you want, but it's still
>start of about 5 years over rec.radio.info, which currently has less
>than 20, but slowly growing. Did you roll your own non-interactive
>client using the Twitter API, or are you using something like the
>ttytter Perl script?:
up to you to extract the stuff to be tweeted.
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