Changes coming to Google groups

[Mr. Mike]

Apologies if this has already been dealt with here...

=====
Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new
content from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of
historical data will still be supported as it is done today.
=====

What do they mean by "historical data"? Between what dates and up to
what date is something considered "historical"?

[Dan Koren]

On Thursday, December 14, 2023 at 4:32:48 PM UTC-8, Mr. Mike wrote:
> Apologies if this has already been dealt with here...
>
> =====
> Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
> Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new
> content from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of
> historical data will still be supported as it is done today.
> =====

You are only 2 hours and 25 minutes late! ;-)

Cheers

[Todd M. McComb]

In article <mh7nnih5gjvot17oo...@4ax.com>,

Mr. Mike <m...@mjq.net> wrote:
>What do they mean by "historical data"?

Articles they already have. Versus new articles after their February
cutoff that they won't have.

[Paul Goodman]

On Dec 14, 2023, Todd M. McComb wrote
(in article <ulga8p$df2$1...@hope.eyrie.org>):

For me, this is a good thing. I finally ended up filtering out all content
from google because of the spam originating from there. Sadly, that did cause
me not to see some legitimate posts, but that was the price that had to be
paid to be spared all of the junk coming from there.

--
Paul Goodman

[Todd M. McComb]

In article <0001HW.2B2C006E0...@news-central.giganews.com>,

Paul Goodman <good...@comcast.net> wrote:
>For me, this is a good thing.

Many people (elsewhere) are celebrating.

But for those legitimate users here who use Google to post, they'll
need to look at alternatives....

[Chris J.]

On 14 Dec 2023 Mr. Mike wrote:

> Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
> Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new
> content from Usenet peers will not appear.

That is good news, but why not stop today? Google Groups is the main
source of spam and other annoyances. Besides,
'rec.music.classical.recordings' is a Usenet group!
Google Groups users can take out a subscription with a Usenet provider and
use a proper Usenet client (software) or eff off to the cesspools of
Facebook, X/Twitter, etc.

https://www.techradar.com/best/best-usenet-providers

https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/the-best-usenet-providers

https://techjury.net/best/usenet-providers/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Usenet_newsreaders


Chris

[Herman]

On Friday, December 15, 2023 at 11:43:24 AM UTC+1, Chris J. wrote:


> Google Groups users can take out a subscription with a Usenet provider and
> use a proper Usenet client (software) or eff off to the cesspools of
> Facebook, X/Twitter, etc.
>

That's the holiday spirit!
Plenty of music-only posters came here via Google Groups, and I'm sure as hell not going to take out a subscription to face endless topics about antisemitism and of complaints about minuscule glitches in cd 82 of mega cd boxes.

[Chris J.]

On 15 Dec 2023 Herman wrote:

> Plenty of music-only posters came here via Google Groups,

They can use alternatives. There are even free ones.

"Google ending support for Usenet in Google Groups [...] resolves a long-
standing spam problem that Google did nothing about."

Hear, hear!

https://www.ghacks.net/2023/12/15/google-groups-is-dropping-usenet-
support-and-that-is-a-good-thing/


Chris

[Owen Hartnett]

On Dec 15, 2023 at 8:42:07 AM EST, ""Chris J.""

I don't know that it's a good thing. Usenet has always been plagued with spam.


If there are any Google Groups users out there who will be left out and they
use a Mac, I recommend Usenapp. It's the best reader (comprehensive, good and
easy creation of filter rules, easy to understand and use.) I gave up on
Thunderbird and Unison due to bugs and things that I couldn't easily figure
out how to use.

https://www.usenapp.com

You can buy it currently discounted for €26.98 through Visa, Mastercard and
PayPal. Best Mac newsreader since Thoth!

-Owen

[Todd M. McComb]

In article <96b49b12-a94c-414d...@googlegroups.com>,

Herman <her...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I'm sure as hell not going to take out a subscription to face
>endless topics about antisemitism and of complaints about minuscule
>glitches in cd 82 of mega cd boxes.

Your decisions are your own, of course, but do note that it's
specifically Google where the OT & troll posters here are able to
operate....

(As far as the mega box posts, while I'm not personally interested,
I have no issues with this on-topic activity here....)

[Frank Berger]

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

[Al Eisner]

Some posts originating from google posts are onjectionable, and I
personally would never post by that route. But taking the longer view,
Google groups still serves as a historical archive of Usenet posts,
going all the way back (at least for rmcr). It is imperfect as such
(it allows deletions, and can be hard to use), but is there any other
such archive? Other sources typically keeo messages onky going back
a limited time; after that time expires Google groups can fill the gap.
Of course ibe can argue that little worth archiving is being posted on
rmcr these days....
--
Al Eisner

[Todd M. McComb]

In article <7f252cb3-4eee-c72b...@slac.stanford.edu>,
Al Eisner <eis...@slac.stanford.edu> wrote:
>... is there any other such archive?

There is, but not with the same degree of material & cachet. I do
add the latter because various people have been improving their
archives, if not their interaces, and there is potential out there,
at least for accessing the last 20 years. No promises about what
will happen, but various news administrators have been doing more
than you might realize.

I hesitate to name anything at the moment, because it's moving
rapidly. But readers here can check e.g. alt.free.newsservers or
discussions in places such as news.admin.peering. I expect to have
more concrete recommendations for people who want to access Usenet
differently, but I'm waiting for things to shake out. That probably
won't mean old material of the 80s or 90s, but as far as reading &
posting today, there are & will be options.

[Dan Koren]

On Thursday, December 14, 2023 at 4:32:48 PM UTC-8, Mr. Mike wrote:

The doomsday date has been moved to February 22nd.

I am willing to wager one penny this will be extended
again.

Cheers

[Frank Berger]

On 12/21/2023 1:31 AM, Al Eisner wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Dec 2023, Todd M. McComb wrote:
>
>> In article <96b49b12-a94c-414d...@googlegroups.com>,
>> Herman  <her...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> I'm sure as hell not going to take out a subscription to face
>>> endless topics about antisemitism and of complaints about minuscule
>>> glitches in cd 82 of mega cd boxes.
>>
>> Your decisions are your own, of course, but do note that it's
>> specifically Google where the OT & troll posters here are able to
>> operate....
>>
>> (As far as the mega box posts, while I'm not personally interested,
>> I have no issues with this on-topic activity here....)
>>
>
> Some posts originating from google posts are onjectionable, and I
> personally would never post by that route.

If you CAN post to RMCR via Google Groups (I can't - I see no option for that) it is perfectly safe to do so. Your post will go to RMCR just the same as if you used Thunderbird or some other front end to USENET. The crap that fills Google Groups is be because they apparently do no filtering. There are many junk posts that appear on Google Groups that I never see. My news server must filter them out. I don't know how they do that or how many resources they use to do it. Remember these are posts that are in RMCR. Whether you see them depends on your news server and what you filter out yourself (which you can't do using Google Groups as the front end to RMCR.

But taking the longer view,
> Google groups still serves as a historical archive of Usenet posts,
> going all the way back (at least for rmcr).  It is imperfect as such
> (it allows deletions, and can be hard to use), but is there any other
> such archive?  Other sources typically keeo messages onky going back
> a limited time; after that time expires Google groups can fill the gap.
> Of course ibe can argue that little worth archiving is being posted on
> rmcr these days....

I think one of the purposes of archiving everything is so that you don't have to decide in advance what is worth saving. You never know what you will want to look back on.

[Al Eisner]

Thanks, very interesting. I would be happy if an archive went back to
the start of rmcr, Jan. 11, 1995. Of course there are relevant rmc
posts before that. Google does have an archive going back that far.
The annoying thing about using the google archive is that the search
works by threads, not by posts, and much of the interesting
infornmation is in long threads (often multi-topic threads like
WAYLTL). Thus it can be difficult to find what one is looking for.
I hope any new archivers can be encouraged to do better.
--
Al Eisner

[Dan Koren]

On Tuesday, December 26, 2023 at 1:41:32 PM UTC-8, Al Eisner wrote:
>
> Thanks, very interesting. I would be happy if an archive
> went back to the start of rmcr, Jan. 11, 1995.

The key issue is not whether archves go back to 01/11/95.
The key issue is that no archive is, or could possibly be
complete. Messages can expire, be deleted by posters
or by service providers, and so on.

> Of course there are relevant rmc posts before that.
> Google does have an archive going back that far.

No usenet archive is or can be "complete", and this is
also tru of Google's archive, which was seeded by the
archive Google purchased by acquiring DejaNews.
Note that Google did not even exist as a company
in 1995! It was founded/incorporated in 1998. The
first version of the search engine was built by Larry
Page and Sergey Brin as a Stanford research project
starting in 1996.

> The annoying thing about using the google archive is
> that the search works by threads, not by posts, and
> much of the interesting infornmation is in long threads
> (often multi-topic threads like WAYLTL). Thus it can be
> difficult to find what one is looking for.

Sorry, but this is non-sense. Google's usent archive can
be searched using the same query language used by
Google's query engine:

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433

> I hope any new archivers can be encouraged to do better.

No new archive can provide access to data that no longer
exixts. Sorry.

Happy New Year!

dk

[Dan Koren]

On Thursday, December 21, 2023 at 11:29:58 AM UTC-8, Frank Berger wrote:
>
> I think one of the purposes of archiving everything is
> so that you don't have to decide in advance what is
> worth saving. You never know what you will want
> to look back on.

Nope.

The purpose of archiving everything is to make
the disk drive vendors and power utilities happier.

Happy New Year!

[Dan Koren]

Also:

https://www.google.com/advanced_search

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/35890?hl=en

[Dan Koren]

On Thursday, December 21, 2023 at 11:29:58 AM UTC-8, Frank Berger wrote:
>

> If you CAN post to RMCR via Google Groups (I can't - I see no
> option for that) it is perfectly safe to do so. Your post will go
> to RMCR just the same as if you used Thunderbird or some
> other front end to USENET.

https://support.google.com/groups/answer/1067205?hl=en

Cheers!

Happy New Year!

[Todd M. McComb]

In article <dca73cb8-0b50-7bf8...@slac.stanford.edu>,

Al Eisner <eis...@slac.stanford.edu> wrote:
>I hope any new archivers can be encouraged to do better.

Many long-time Usenet administrators have been very frustrated with
Google Groups for a long time.... The search itself, which doesn't
work even as well as it once did, is one reason. I expect someone
will do better, but probably not with (much) material dating back
into the 20th century.... (I know some people have archives of ~20
years though.)

[Dan Koren]

Unfortunately there does not seem to be a viable business model
that would allow operators to cover substantial and ever increasing
compute, network and storage costs, and make enough of a profit
to pay for the work involved.

Happy New Year!

Cheers!

[Todd M. McComb]

In article <umg15c$6c1$1...@hope.eyrie.org>,
Todd M. McComb <mcc...@medieval.org> wrote:
>I expect someone will do better, ....

Perhaps I should add that I'm talking about text-only Usenet.
Binaries are another beast entirely.

Ordinary users keep text only servers going these days, whether on
equipment elsewhere or at home, and with no expiration. The resource
requirements are not very high. I mean, like a $20/mo investment
-- for someone who doesn't already have the capacity anyway. The
little Catch-22 is then that if you get so much traffic from people
using your service that you need more capacity, you have enough
traffic to monetize -- but maybe another headache. Anyway, I
digress....

[Al Eisner]

For rmcr (and the few other forums of interest to me), text is pretty
much all that matters. So, speaking selfishly, text-only arhives are fine.
--
Al Eisner

[Al Eisner]

I am qyute familiar with advanced search. I do not believe it helps
with the issue I raised. If you know otherwise, post something specific
rather than just a list of (redundant) links.

Of course if a message is deleted from Usenet it is gone. A long time ago
there was a way to request that Usenet servers delete a message, but it was
never clear how widely such requests were implemented. And that facility
has not existed for a very long time. It remained possible to locally
delete a message from the Google archives, which is another one of its flaws,
and not in conformity with Usenet in general.

You write "The key issue is that no archive is, or could possibly be
>> complete." Well, duh. That's a given. The goal of a good archive
is to be as complete as possible, and to go back as far as possible, not
to resurrect the dead, which is not a reasonable request. If there is
nonsense here it is not in my post; look elsewhere.
--
Al Eisner

[Todd M. McComb]

In article <80e7bb50-f4fe-33ab...@slac.stanford.edu>,

Al Eisner <eis...@slac.stanford.edu> wrote:
>So, speaking selfishly, text-only arhives are fine.

Yes. Text & binary are often considered separately, and I don't
see a value to archiving binary, but maybe that's a blind spot for
me too..