by carlesfe on 7/25/23, 8:26 AM with 212 comments
by jwr on 7/25/23, 10:55 AM
The alt.* groups were always mostly a cesspool, there were very few usable ones past roughly 1995. The comp.* hierarchy was rather good and that's where the action was.
I feel sorry that USENET is gone. The experience of using a good NNTP newsreader was way way better than the terrible phpBB forums that supplanted it. And the next generation of programmers simply copied the phpBB ideas because they've never seen anything better. So now we have to live with those "forums" where you can't find anything, and you have to wade through screenfuls of decoration just to see any content at all.
What was also really good was that you had a single interface for accessing multiple groups. That's something we lost: if I have multiple interests today, I have to register for multiple "boards/forums", each one with different software, and I have to go around and check them all for new posts. That quickly gets problematic and tedious if you are interested in more than two things.
I have a nagging feeling that we've dumbed things down terribly.
by glimshe on 7/25/23, 10:23 AM
I think that one good thing from these services was the relatively high barrier of entry. Today, online services are all about low friction signup, which makes a lot of sense in the highly competitive Internet of 2023. But when computers were somewhat niche and you really had to figure out how to get things working, users were a lot more committed and thus the quality of discussions was a lot higher.
Interestingly, Hacker News has a fairly low barrier of entry and high quality discussions. Maybe because it's kind of ugly and scares away the average user expecting animated prompts and fancy style sheets.
Speaking of BBSs, there is nothing today that quite captures the full value proposition of BSSs. Back in the day, you could sign up to one of them and meet a lot of locals due to the high long distance phone bills. I made a lot of "real world" friends, even a girlfriend or two, back in the BBS days.
by dredmorbius on 7/25/23, 9:13 AM
"Spammers have decided "it's not profitable to send a few bytes to these open boards anymore" and if you think about it it's kinda sad"
As much as I hate spam, and I hate it a lot, yes, that's pretty damning evidence.
You know a new comms platform has arrived when the spammers, scammers, griefers, and propagandists do.
And you know it's dead when they don't even bother any more.
(afr-l notwithstanding)
by barrysteve on 7/25/23, 10:44 AM
I never did get into Usenet but the internet in the nineties and before was like that.
Your online niche was a bubble of private elitism and secret joy that people wondered about, but never knew. You were ensconced and free. People were amazed and curious about the images and magical pull into the future, that people who knew how to work computers, could access in front of them.
Your arcane knowledge of (what is now basic and made easy for us) connecting to the internet and plunging into this otherwordly language of buttons and code words... a different time. Contrasted to your father who wore a suit and tie to work at the bank and read the newspaper, and lived through the invention of the Television set.
You didn't need a reason to shout into what we now call an echochamber, it held all the hope and promise of working out to some unknown magical end anyway.
by hsjqllzlfkf on 7/25/23, 9:06 AM
I keep seeing people wanting to build distributed this and distributed that. According to Wikipedia, usenet was already distributed. Why did it die?
Edit: follow-up question, what about freenet? Are they the same thing? Are they different, compatible, implementations of the same protocol? Are they incompatible but share some properties? Etc
by rglullis on 7/25/23, 10:10 AM
Which in turn will die and give way to Lemmy (generally ActivityPub).
by billpg on 7/25/23, 10:55 AM
You filed an "request for discussion" and if approved, there would be a discussion for a month or so. Then you'd file a "call for votes" and people would email their votes to a mailbox and there would need to be two thirds in favour.
If not, just curious, what was the last newsgroup to be created this way?
by jwestbury on 7/25/23, 9:10 AM
by jsnell on 7/25/23, 10:45 AM
Is there more to the thread, actually looking at all 65k groups or a fair sample of them? Where can one find it?
by mrweasel on 7/25/23, 10:16 AM
by Parker51 on 7/26/23, 1:32 AM
alt.computer.workshop:
alt.culture.usenet:
alt.fan.usenet:
alt.folklore.computers:
alt.obituaries:
alt.os.linux.slackware:
alt.privacy:
alt.tv.simpsons:
ba.broadcast:
comp.ai:
comp.arch:
comp.compilers:
comp.dcom.telecom:
comp.infosystems.gemini:
comp.infosystems.gopher:
comp.lang.c++:
comp.lang.c:
comp.lang.forth:
comp.lang.misc:
comp.lang.perl.misc:
comp.lang.postscript:
comp.lang.python.announce:
comp.lang.python:
comp.lang.raspberry-pi:
comp.lang.tcl:
comp.misc:
comp.mobile.android:
comp.mobile.misc:
comp.os.cpm:
comp.os.linux.announce:
comp.os.linux.misc:
comp.risks:
comp.sys.apple2:
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action:
comp.text.tex:
comp.unix.shell:
comp.windows.x:
gnu.emacs.help:
misc.legal.moderated:
misc.news.internet.discuss:
misc.taxes.moderated:
news.admin.moderation:
news.announce.important:
news.announce.newgroups:
news.groups.proposals:
news.groups:
news.software.readers:
rec.arts.drwho:
rec.arts.movies.current-films:
rec.arts.sf.tv:
rec.arts.sf.written:
rec.autos.sport.f1:
rec.aviation.soaring:
rec.bicycles.tech:
rec.food.cooking:
rec.games.backgammon:
rec.music.beatles:
rec.music.classical.recordings:
rec.music.opera:
rec.radio.amateur.antenna:
rec.radio.amateur.boatanchors:
rec.radio.amateur.equipment:
rec.radio.amateur.homebrew:
rec.radio.amateur.misc:
rec.radio.amateur.moderated:
rec.radio.amateur.policy:
rec.radio.amateur.space:
rec.radio.info:
rec.radio.shortwave:
rec.sport.rowing:
rec.woodworking:
sci.astro:
sci.electronics.design:
sci.electronics.repair:
sci.logic:
sci.physics.relativity:
sci.physics.research:
talk.origins:
uk.comp.sys.mac:
uk.radio.amateur.moderated:
uk.rec.sheds:
uk.sci.weather:by self_awareness on 7/25/23, 10:06 AM
by gbuechler on 7/25/23, 9:33 PM
Had an client that I had an ongoing search contract to fill their needs for Unix Sys Ads at the NAS facility at NASA in Mt. View. Cool client that got me into playing Flight Simulator on SGI Power Series in their lobby.
by pelasaco on 7/25/23, 2:25 PM
by RamblingCTO on 7/25/23, 11:12 AM
by soniman on 7/25/23, 10:55 AM
by superkuh on 7/25/23, 1:41 PM
by larsbrinkhoff on 7/25/23, 9:40 AM
by nilespotter on 7/25/23, 10:39 PM
Yes, yes. That is correct. Move along.
by runesofdoom on 7/25/23, 1:16 PM
by toyg on 7/25/23, 10:55 AM
What if they were spies in the field, exchanging coded messages? Like posting classified ads in newspapers, it's one of those places nobody will look at.
Or, they could all be Putinistas talking to each other, justifying their job of spreading propaganda. "Hey boss, I posted 3k messages just this month! Worth a few more rubles, right?!"
Or they could be experiments, AIs talking to AIs. That's the most cyberpunk explanation, and Usenet being a '90s thing, it's hence the most likely.
by evilbob93 on 7/27/23, 3:48 PM
by jondiggsit on 7/28/23, 1:26 PM
by stOneskull on 7/25/23, 9:59 AM