Spoiler concerns?

[Kip Ingram]

Good morning folks. So, it's been many years since I've done much
on usenet in general, and r.a.s.t.b5 in particular. I hung out
here (or in the moderated group - can't remember for sure). The
one that jms participated in. Just blew my mind that the key guy
associated with a show took the time to engage with the fans the
way he did. I just decided to wade back in because I've been
re-watching the series, and enjoying it tremendously.

What is our attitude about potential spoilers these days? Do I need
to be as careful as I would have back then, or do we generally
assume that someone wouldn't be here if they hadn't been through
the whole series? There are a number of things I'd enjoy kicking
around, and I don't want to lessen anyone's enjoyment.

Is there perhaps a place I can go read "the rules" for this sort
of thing? I used to know all this stuff, but it's been a LONG
time, so thanks in advance for your patience as I get myself
back up to speed.

Thanks,
Kip

[John W Kennedy]

JMS has expressed a wish for this new generation of fan traffic to meet
on Twitter.


--
John W. Kennedy
"The blind rulers of Logres
Nourished the land on a fallacy of rational virtue."
-- Charles Williams. "Taliessin through Logres: Prelude"

[Kip Ingram]

Ugh. I doubt I'll do that. So I guess you're saying this group is dead.
I'll just watch it for a while and drop it from my subscribe list if
nothing happens.

Twitter is a much lesser platform - does it even thread in any sort
of effective way? If I had a good way to do Twitter via the console
I might consider it, but... YUCK.

[John W Kennedy]

On 5/22/18 4:08 PM, Kip Ingram wrote:
> Ugh. I doubt I'll do that. So I guess you're saying this group is dead.

USENET is dead. And this particular group has been dead since the show
was still in production, replaced by rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated.

> I'll just watch it for a while and drop it from my subscribe list if
> nothing happens.
>
> Twitter is a much lesser platform - does it even thread in any sort
> of effective way?

It recognizes the concept of replies, though not, as far as I know, such
sophistications as forks. But, realistically speaking, for celebrities
to communicate with ordinary people, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
are today’s world, and, of those three, Twitter is, on the whole, the
most satisfactory.

> If I had a good way to do Twitter via the console
> I might consider it, but... YUCK.
>
> John W Kennedy <john.w....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 5/22/18 8:35 AM, Kip Ingram wrote:
>>> Good morning folks. So, it's been many years since I've done much
>>> on usenet in general, and r.a.s.t.b5 in particular. I hung out
>>> here (or in the moderated group - can't remember for sure). The
>>> one that jms participated in. Just blew my mind that the key guy
>>> associated with a show took the time to engage with the fans the
>>> way he did. I just decided to wade back in because I've been
>>> re-watching the series, and enjoying it tremendously.
>>>
>>> What is our attitude about potential spoilers these days? Do I need
>>> to be as careful as I would have back then, or do we generally
>>> assume that someone wouldn't be here if they hadn't been through
>>> the whole series? There are a number of things I'd enjoy kicking
>>> around, and I don't want to lessen anyone's enjoyment.
>>>
>>> Is there perhaps a place I can go read "the rules" for this sort
>>> of thing? I used to know all this stuff, but it's been a LONG
>>> time, so thanks in advance for your patience as I get myself
>>> back up to speed.
>>
>> JMS has expressed a wish for this new generation of fan traffic to meet
>> on Twitter.
>>
>>

[Ivan Shmakov]

>>>>> John W Kennedy <john.w....@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>> On 5/22/18 4:08 PM, Kip Ingram wrote:

>> Ugh. I doubt I'll do that. So I guess you're saying this group is
>> dead.

> USENET is dead.

That doesn't seem entirely true. For example, looking through
Aioe reveals the following groups.

I: alt.arts.poetry.comments: Selected group (40685; 220432 to 261185)
I: alt.russian.z1: Selected group (16297; 467291 to 483589)
I: de.soc.umwelt: Selected group (9371; 122983 to 132359)
I: fr.rec.photo: Selected group (8898; 138657 to 147564)
I: free.uk.astrology: Selected group (12916; 44635 to 57553)
I: it.comp.giochi.action: Selected group (15509; 347128 to 369705)
I: it.cultura.filosofia: Selected group (11292; 114362 to 125783)
I: lada.talk: Selected group (12578; 100657 to 113236)
I: linux.debian.bugs.rc: Selected group (10334; 223529 to 233864)
I: misc.survivalism: Selected group (10947; 517844 to 528792)
I: pl.misc.samochody: Selected group (10801; 492604 to 503408)
I: rec.arts.sf.written: Selected group (7924; 486186 to 494151)
I: sci.electronics.design: Selected group (15959; 493555 to 509533)
I: soc.culture.china: Selected group (13041; 277357 to 290411)
I: uk.legal.moderated: Selected group (8083; 221155 to 229239)
I: uk.railway: Selected group (14445; 471593 to 486037)

Given that retention there is about four months (or so)
for most of the groups, it looks like there're a number of
groups that get around a hundred posts a day.

It does not, of course, guarantee that a specific individual
will find anything of value to him- or herself among these groups.

[...]

> But, realistically speaking, for celebrities to communicate with
> ordinary people, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are today’s world,
> and, of those three, Twitter is, on the whole, the most satisfactory.

Personally, any communication medium that is decentralized and
has an open protocol is fine with me. Bonus points for having a
working Emacs-based user agent (or at least one accessible via tty.)

AFAICT, none of the above fits these criteria.

[...]

--
FSF associate member #7257 http://am-1.org/~ivan/

[John W Kennedy]

Unfortunately, USENET is vulnerable to months-long spam-bomb attacks, to
political shutdowns based on allegations (true or not) of kiddie porn,
and to increased desertion by ISPs. Of the thirty-odd USENET groups I’ve
been following since the early 90s, whether technical, academic, or
pop-culture, most have an average of less than one posting per day, and
almost never rise to as many as ten unless there’s a spam attack. Some
obscure corners may still be alive, but most people who weren’t online
10 years ago don’t even know that USENET exists, or how to use it,
except via Google Groups.

[Ivan Shmakov]

>>>>> John W Kennedy <john.w....@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>> On 6/30/18 12:15 PM, Ivan Shmakov wrote:
>>>>> John W Kennedy <john.w....@gmail.com> writes:

[…]

>>> USENET is dead.

>> That doesn’t seem entirely true. For example, looking through Aioe
>> reveals the following groups.

[…]

>> Given that retention there is about four months (or so) for most of
>> the groups, it looks like there’re a number of groups that get
>> around a hundred posts a day.

>> It does not, of course, guarantee that a specific individual will
>> find anything of value to him- or herself among these groups.

>>> But, realistically speaking, for celebrities to communicate with
>>> ordinary people, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are today’s
>>> world, and, of those three, Twitter is, on the whole, the most
>>> satisfactory.

>> Personally, any communication medium that is decentralized and has
>> an open protocol is fine with me. Bonus points for having a working
>> Emacs-based user agent (or at least one accessible via tty.)

>> AFAICT, none of the above fits these criteria.

> Unfortunately, USENET is vulnerable to months-long spam-bomb attacks,
> to political shutdowns based on allegations (true or not) of kiddie
> porn, and to increased desertion by ISPs.

And how’s that different to any other public service, especially
one operated mainly by volunteers?

For instance, many public wikis, including those run by
Wikimedia Foundation, get a fair share of spam (and other kinds
of abuse), too. It takes considerable manpower of unpaid
volunteers to mitigate that. (I know as I have been part of that.)

That approach could made to work for Usenet, too; the technical
part is already here (cf. news:news.lists.filters, for instance.)

As for the shutdowns, there was recently an attempt to block
Telegram in Russia due to allegations of it being used by
terrorists.

Finally, ISPs are irrelevant. ISPs have increasingly abandoned
email, without much ill effects, and you don’t really expect ISP
to run its own search engine or host a copy of Wikipedia, right?

That is, there’s simply no way an ISP can meaningfully compete
with a free email service, a free search engine, a free
encyclopedia, – or a free Usenet server, like Aioe or E-S.

> Of the thirty-odd USENET groups I’ve been following since the early
> 90s, whether technical, academic, or pop-culture, most have an
> average of less than one posting per day, and almost never rise to as
> many as ten unless there’s a spam attack.

Like I said, there’s no guarantee that there would be an active
group that matches a specific interest of a given individual.

> Some obscure corners may still be alive,

I’m somewhat puzzled as to how you define ‘obscure’?

> but most people who weren’t online 10 years ago don’t even know that
> USENET exists, or how to use it, except via Google Groups.

Well, I was introduced to WWW in 1998 (I think), and to Internet
at large (including Usenet) the next year, so I didn’t witness
that myself, yet I don’t think that apart from a few years
starting with September 1993 and ending with WWW gaining
prominence, Usenet was all that popular among the general public
(IOW, those lacking technical background) to begin with.

--
FSF associate member #7257 np. To Catch a Falling Star — Forest Rain