The world wide web has rendered Usenet obsolete. Time to move on.
Don H
guidelines:
--
"Posts containing unsolicited advice questioning the right, worthiness,
suitability and/or readiness of any individual (or members of any group)
to be an amateur radio operator are unacceptable in this newsgroup. If
an individual chooses to post asking for advice on when or whether to
obtain an amateur radio license, or to participate in any type of lawful
activity in the Amateur Radio Service, respondents should be careful to
address their comments only to the original poster and not explicitly
generalize to others in similar situations.
"Similarly, posts that arbitrarily declare certain classes of amateur
radio licenses, or certain members of national amateur radio societies
(e.g., American Radio Relay League, Radio Amateurs of Canada, Radio
Society of Great Britain, Wireless Institute of Australia, etc.), to be
more or less worthy than others, are not permitted. Posts that politely
encourage individuals to join their local amateur radio society, or to
upgrade to higher classes of amateur radio license in order to enjoy
greater operating privileges, are permitted, however. Posts that
contain reasoned, civil, and fact-based discussion of the activities and
internal politics of national amateur radio societies are also
permitted."
--
Do portions of the preceding two paragraphs sound like something written
by the Walt Disney corporate thought police? They do to me, and they
are one of several reasons I continue to avoid moderated Usenet
newsgroups. I choose web forums instead, because I find them to be
superior to the current state of Usenet newsgroups in either of their
possible modes (moderated or open). Moderated groups almost always
drift into a state of repression, as exemplified by the two paragraphs
quoted above, while the open groups are full of trolls, kooks and
spammers.
The reason for the disarray is simple: Usenet is now obsolescent, and
most of the serious users of it have already gone elsewhere. Even the
open source movement has eschewed Usenet in favor of mailing lists and
web forums. Linus Torvalds and the kernel developers of Linux are but
one example. They have abandoned the comp.os.linux hierarchy almost
completely.
Then there is the reality that major ISPs have been dropping their
support of Usenet and shutting down their news servers. AT&T shut down
its news servers just a few months ago, and others are following suit
(Comcast, for example), afraid that the morality police will hold them
liable for the contents of their newsgroups.
Usenet is dying. Eventually all that will probably be left will be
Google Groups - a primitive newsgroup interface by almost any standard.
It's time to admit to ourselves that our time is better spent developing
web forums than establishing new newsgroups on Usenet. The
rec.radio.amateur hierarchy has served its purpose and now should simply
be abandoned, along with Usenet itself.
See you around the web.
Bert Hyman
wrote:
> Usenet is dying.
Imminent death of USENET predicted.
Film at 11.
--
Bert Hyman W0RSB St. Paul, MN be...@iphouse.com
kb9...@yahoooo.com
wrote:
>Here's a direct quote from the rec.radio.amateur.moderated posting
>guidelines:
>
then don't let the door hit you in the ass
"one useless man is disgrace 2 become a law firm 3 or more become a congress"
adams
woger you are a Congress all in your own head
"http://www.3ix.org/sys/aff.php?aff=7439" target="_blank"
altopia is never used by KB9RQZ
http://kb9rqz.cc.cc
http://kd8ctl.com
nor is Kons...@hotmail.com ever
btw i can be found at
17366 N River Rd
Chassel Mi
but the cowards asking lack the gut to act
Don H
> "Don H" <pat...@faux.news> wrote in news:not-approved-by--panix2009
> @faux.news:
>
>>
>> Do portions of the preceding two paragraphs sound like something written
>> by the Walt Disney corporate thought police? They do to me, and they
>> are one of several reasons I continue to avoid moderated Usenet
>> newsgroups. I choose web forums instead, because I find them to be
>> superior to the current state of Usenet newsgroups in either of their
>> possible modes (moderated or open).
>
> including banning people for their views, and whoever hosts the site has a
> contract banning political incorrectness, unapproved advertising, and other
> speech necessary for a free society.
By your definition, Usenet newsgroups are never open either. Whoever
provides Usenet access gets to make the rules, including the deletion of
unapproved advertising. To assume that open Usenet newsgroups aren't
subject to regulation is to ignore the real world. There is a small
army of cancel bots attempting to delete thousands of Usenet posts every
day. Just take a look in control.cancel.
> If Usenet "dies" it'll be because of its free nature. There was already
> that successful "child porn" Usenet smear campaign by the government of New
> York. IIRC the RIAA at one point tried to pull a Roe v. Wade by trying to
> get a judge to shut down "Usenet.com". It's only a matter of time...
I maintain that Usenet is dying due to lack of interest and a resulting
lack of servers. There is a feedback loop in action: Former Usenet
readers get their information and software from non-Usenet sources, and
so they quit using their ISP's news server. The ISP notices the
dwindling usage, and starts to think about how much money could be saved
by simply shutting the server down completely. Someone like Mario Cuomo
of New York State comes along and complains about porn, and the ISP uses
that as a convenient excuse for shutting down the news server that it
really wanted to shut down anyway.
Once the major servers go down, the small Mom and Pop servers start to
lose content. That causes their users to leave, etc., etc.
The concensus is that Usenet has been shrinking for the last 10 years
(for example, see PC Magazine or see http://dvorak.org/blog), and that
the trend is not going to reverse -- not when 95% of Internet users
haven't even heard of Usenet.
As much as I would like to see things be otherwise, I can't see a way
around the conclusion that Usenet is fading away. Time to move on.
Leland C. Scott
Most of the shut downs have more to do with legal hassles with child porn
and file sharing of copyrighted material to name a couple. True more people
have moved to blogs, mailing lists and so on so there has been a reduction
in Usenet group usage over the years but the real reasons are the legal
ones. The US is getting so screwed up you almost can't do anything without
having a Lawyer in your pocket at all times to protect you from the sue
happy people out there.
73's
Leland C. Scott
KC8LDO
"Don H" <pat...@faux.news> wrote in message
news:not-approved-...@faux.news...
Robert Smits
> Here's a direct quote from the rec.radio.amateur.moderated posting
> guidelines:
>
>
> Do portions of the preceding two paragraphs sound like something written
> by the Walt Disney corporate thought police? They do to me, and they
> are one of several reasons I continue to avoid moderated Usenet
> newsgroups. I choose web forums instead, because I find them to be
> superior to the current state of Usenet newsgroups in either of their
> possible modes (moderated or open). Moderated groups almost always
> drift into a state of repression, as exemplified by the two paragraphs
> quoted above, while the open groups are full of trolls, kooks and
> spammers.
I wish more Usenet newsgroups WERE moderated. It might even allow us to
reclain our newsgroups without having to put up with ads for Viagra and
kiddie porn, as well as the more egregious abusers who flame and spew their
vitriol everywhere.
>
> The reason for the disarray is simple: Usenet is now obsolescent, and
> most of the serious users of it have already gone elsewhere. Even the
> open source movement has eschewed Usenet in favor of mailing lists and
> web forums. Linus Torvalds and the kernel developers of Linux are but
> one example. They have abandoned the comp.os.linux hierarchy almost
> completely.
Web Forums simply suck. They're much slower (for the reader) and increase
the bandwidth greatly for the same content. And they're full of net nazis,
too.
--
Robert Smits, British Columbia