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R.I.P Usenet: 1980-2008 by Sascha Segan of PC Magazine 07.31.08



 
 
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  #1  
Old August 3rd 08, 04:19 AM posted to alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent
Tom Sherman[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9,890
Default R.I.P Usenet: 1980-2008 by Sascha Segan of PC Magazine 07.31.08

Edward Dolan wrote:
Here is an article from PC Magazine that I found interesting and I suspect
some the rest of you might too.

If JimmyMac can stop stalking me momentarily, he could perhaps explain what
binaries are. He is a computer expert and would probably know about this. I
do not believe I have ever encountered it. It is sometimes referrered to as
alt.binaries.

Most groups prohibit posting of anything but plain text. Binary groups
allow posting of various attachments (pictures, video clips, etc).

I believe the only member of ARBR who could be classified as an an old-timer
and who is still with us is Tom Sherman. Perhaps he could tell us if ARBR
was any different back then than it is now?

Yes, the conversation was not dominated by the incessant arguments
between just a couple of people.

I came to Usenet rather late and after a year or so I could clearly see that
it was doomed. Usenet was for the cognoscenti and NOT the general public. It
requires a high level of civility and restraint on the part of its members
in order for it to work. It is now nothing but an asylum for the insane.

Child-porn investigations have doomed one of the last remnants of a smaller,
kinder Net.

by Sascha Segan

...
On the text-only Usenet of my memory, nobody knew whether you were a dog, or
a kid, or Finnish-only what you wrote. There wasn't the obsession with
photos and video that overruns today's social networking sites. Yeah, I know
that sounds like "get off my lawn you darn kids" crotchetiness, but there's
something really nice about just talking to people and not caring what they
look like.

If you can not get your point across with plain text, work on your
writing skills.

Serious conversations went on in forums like comp.sys.atari.8bit; more
frivolous chatter appeared in groups whose names started with "alt," a
freewheeling free-for-all that nobody owned, nobody managed, and nobody
policed. It was a more innocent time on the Net, before most of the
spammers, the crooks, or even the general public showed up. People hewed to
a loosely agreed-upon set of net.manners enforced by self-appointed cops.
The society worked-at least for a while.

Usenet was what the Web is missing nowadays: a genuinely public space, with
unclear ownership. While different people hung out in different groups,
everyone accessed the same group list and there was plenty of
cross-fertilization. Control came down to a bickering cabal of scattered IT
administrators who generally preferred to leave well enough alone. Compared
to chat systems like IRC (and later, instant messaging and texting), Usenet
encouraged thoughtful, long-form writing with lots of quotation and
back-and-forth.

Indeed. Most of the forums on the web are full of posts that would not
pass on a 4th grade English exam.

And yes, the beauty of Usenet is that no one owns and controls it. Truly
a democratic forum, unlike a web based message board with an
owner/moderator/dictator.

Usenet has been dying for years, of course. Some people date Usenet's
decline as early as 1993, when millions of AOL users dropped into what was
previously a geek paradise. As the '90s went on, the eye candy of the Web
and the marketing dollars of Web site owners helped push people over to
profit-making sites. Usenet's slightly arcane access methods and text-only
protocols have nothing on the glitz and glamour of MySpace.

It is a sad commentary on society that the printed work which has
sufficed for thousands of years is no longer good enough.

The Web also gave Usenet a new life through the mid-90s as a searchable
database of questions and answers, via DejaNews and Google. But
searchability also killed off some of Usenet's social functions. More
chaotic and ad-hoc groups functioned through a sort of security in
obscurity; as long as nobody bothered to click on them, nobody would know
what people were talking about. With Google Groups, every word you wrote
became enshrined and eternally searchable.

The biggest improvement to Usenet would be if everyone had to use their
real name.

Meanwhile, as multimedia became popular over the past ten years, Usenet
started to become a way for pirates and pornographers to distribute massive
quantities of binary files in a decentralized, untraceable manner; in other
words, it became a proto-BitTorrent. That was likely when Usenet became
truly doomed. Newsgroups had exchanged code along with text for years, but
by the late '90s the "binaries" groups began taking up huge amounts of space
and Net traffic, and since Usenet libraries reside on each ISP's server,
service providers sensibly started to wonder why they should be reserving
big chunks of their own disk space for pirated movies and repetitive porn.

Many news-servers carry text only groups for this reason, or charge for
downloading high-bandwidth binary files.

It's the porn that's putting nails in Usenet's coffin. AOL dropped Usenet in
2005, but many other large ISPs kept carrying newsgroups. Now major
providers are dropping the full alt. hierarchy, and even Usenet entirely, as
part of a New York State government crusade against child pornographers
who've been using the alt.binaries groups to distribute their wares.
Dropping all of Usenet to lose alt.binaries.videos.of.criminal.acts is
definitely throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but at the same time I
don't have much pity for the binaries crowd. Usenet is a hideously
inefficient way to distribute binary file-you end up making thousands of
unused copies on various servers and encoding your files in inefficient
ways. And way too much of the binaries traffic consists of piracy and warez.

That is a really stupid approach. Just drop the high bandwidth binary
groups and keep the text groups.

It's hard to completely kill off something as totally decentralized as
Usenet; as long as two servers agree to share the NNTP protocol, it'll
continue on in some fashion. But the Usenet I mourn is long gone, anyway, or
long-transformed into interlocking comments on LiveJournals and the forums
boards on tech-support Web sites. Obviously, people lead lives, converse,
and learn on the Internet far more broadly than they did in 1993. But give
me a moment's nostalgia for a Net that had one place to go, that everybody
knew about, but nobody owned.

Maybe this is not a bad thing. The quality of Usenet (excluding the
commercial spammers) is actually improved when those who can not not use
the written word properly head off to web based forums.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken /
She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.”
Ads
  #2  
Old August 3rd 08, 05:27 AM posted to alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent
Edward Dolan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 14,212
Default R.I.P Usenet: 1980-2008 by Sascha Segan of PC Magazine 07.31.08


"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Edward Dolan wrote:
Here is an article from PC Magazine that I found interesting and I
suspect some the rest of you might too.

If JimmyMac can stop stalking me momentarily, he could perhaps explain
what binaries are. He is a computer expert and would probably know about
this. I do not believe I have ever encountered it. It is sometimes
referrered to as alt.binaries.

Most groups prohibit posting of anything but plain text. Binary groups
allow posting of various attachments (pictures, video clips, etc).


I do not much like even links to be posted.

I believe the only member of ARBR who could be classified as an an
old-timer and who is still with us is Tom Sherman. Perhaps he could tell
us if ARBR was any different back then than it is now?

Yes, the conversation was not dominated by the incessant arguments between
just a couple of people.


All Usenet conversation is an argument of sorts. It is just that some
arguments are more raucous than others.

I came to Usenet rather late and after a year or so I could clearly see
that it was doomed. Usenet was for the cognoscenti and NOT the general
public. It requires a high level of civility and restraint on the part of
its members in order for it to work. It is now nothing but an asylum for
the insane.

Child-porn investigations have doomed one of the last remnants of a
smaller, kinder Net.

by Sascha Segan

...
On the text-only Usenet of my memory, nobody knew whether you were a dog,
or a kid, or Finnish-only what you wrote. There wasn't the obsession with
photos and video that overruns today's social networking sites. Yeah, I
know that sounds like "get off my lawn you darn kids" crotchetiness, but
there's something really nice about just talking to people and not caring
what they look like.

If you can not get your point across with plain text, work on your writing
skills.

Serious conversations went on in forums like comp.sys.atari.8bit; more
frivolous chatter appeared in groups whose names started with "alt," a
freewheeling free-for-all that nobody owned, nobody managed, and nobody
policed. It was a more innocent time on the Net, before most of the
spammers, the crooks, or even the general public showed up. People hewed
to a loosely agreed-upon set of net.manners enforced by self-appointed
cops. The society worked-at least for a while.

Usenet was what the Web is missing nowadays: a genuinely public space,
with unclear ownership. While different people hung out in different
groups, everyone accessed the same group list and there was plenty of
cross-fertilization. Control came down to a bickering cabal of scattered
IT administrators who generally preferred to leave well enough alone.
Compared to chat systems like IRC (and later, instant messaging and
texting), Usenet encouraged thoughtful, long-form writing with lots of
quotation and back-and-forth.

Indeed. Most of the forums on the web are full of posts that would not
pass on a 4th grade English exam.

And yes, the beauty of Usenet is that no one owns and controls it. Truly a
democratic forum, unlike a web based message board with an
owner/moderator/dictator.


I have never really looked into a web based message board. Are they really
as bad as you say they are? What would be a good one to investigate so I can
see what you are talking about?

Usenet has been dying for years, of course. Some people date Usenet's
decline as early as 1993, when millions of AOL users dropped into what
was previously a geek paradise. As the '90s went on, the eye candy of the
Web and the marketing dollars of Web site owners helped push people over
to profit-making sites. Usenet's slightly arcane access methods and
text-only protocols have nothing on the glitz and glamour of MySpace.

It is a sad commentary on society that the printed work which has sufficed
for thousands of years is no longer good enough.


Writing anything is hard work. Most folks are way too lazy to write anything
consisting of more than a few words. It is much easier to just send links,
pictures and videos.

The Web also gave Usenet a new life through the mid-90s as a searchable
database of questions and answers, via DejaNews and Google. But
searchability also killed off some of Usenet's social functions. More
chaotic and ad-hoc groups functioned through a sort of security in
obscurity; as long as nobody bothered to click on them, nobody would know
what people were talking about. With Google Groups, every word you wrote
became enshrined and eternally searchable.

The biggest improvement to Usenet would be if everyone had to use their
real name.


AGREED!

Meanwhile, as multimedia became popular over the past ten years, Usenet
started to become a way for pirates and pornographers to distribute
massive quantities of binary files in a decentralized, untraceable
manner; in other words, it became a proto-BitTorrent. That was likely
when Usenet became truly doomed. Newsgroups had exchanged code along with
text for years, but by the late '90s the "binaries" groups began taking
up huge amounts of space and Net traffic, and since Usenet libraries
reside on each ISP's server, service providers sensibly started to wonder
why they should be reserving big chunks of their own disk space for
pirated movies and repetitive porn.

Many news-servers carry text only groups for this reason, or charge for
downloading high-bandwidth binary files.

It's the porn that's putting nails in Usenet's coffin. AOL dropped Usenet
in 2005, but many other large ISPs kept carrying newsgroups. Now major
providers are dropping the full alt. hierarchy, and even Usenet entirely,
as part of a New York State government crusade against child
pornographers who've been using the alt.binaries groups to distribute
their wares. Dropping all of Usenet to lose
alt.binaries.videos.of.criminal.acts is definitely throwing the baby out
with the bathwater, but at the same time I don't have much pity for the
binaries crowd. Usenet is a hideously inefficient way to distribute
binary file-you end up making thousands of unused copies on various
servers and encoding your files in inefficient ways. And way too much of
the binaries traffic consists of piracy and warez.

That is a really stupid approach. Just drop the high bandwidth binary
groups and keep the text groups.


Where would I go to find a Usenet binary newsgroup just to see what they are
like?

It's hard to completely kill off something as totally decentralized as
Usenet; as long as two servers agree to share the NNTP protocol, it'll
continue on in some fashion. But the Usenet I mourn is long gone, anyway,
or long-transformed into interlocking comments on LiveJournals and the
forums boards on tech-support Web sites. Obviously, people lead lives,
converse, and learn on the Internet far more broadly than they did in
1993. But give me a moment's nostalgia for a Net that had one place to
go, that everybody knew about, but nobody owned.

Maybe this is not a bad thing. The quality of Usenet (excluding the
commercial spammers) is actually improved when those who can not use the
written word properly head off to web based forums.


Even so, I feel strongly that the lack of a moderator means the death of
Usenet. Ideally, the moderator should not be a single individual, but rather
a board. This would eliminate bias and various other idiosyncrasies.

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota


  #3  
Old August 3rd 08, 06:26 AM posted to alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent
Tom Sherman[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9,890
Default R.I.P Usenet: 1980-2008 by Sascha Segan of PC Magazine 07.31.08

Edward Dolan wrote:
...
I have never really looked into a web based message board. Are they really
as bad as you say they are? What would be a good one to investigate so I can
see what you are talking about?


Try http://bentrideronline.com/ and click on "Message Board" at the
top right of the home page. You will probably see some names to raise
your blood pressure.

Usenet has been dying for years, of course. Some people date Usenet's
decline as early as 1993, when millions of AOL users dropped into what
was previously a geek paradise. As the '90s went on, the eye candy of the
Web and the marketing dollars of Web site owners helped push people over
to profit-making sites. Usenet's slightly arcane access methods and
text-only protocols have nothing on the glitz and glamour of MySpace.

It is a sad commentary on society that the printed work which has sufficed
for thousands of years is no longer good enough.


Writing anything is hard work. Most folks are way too lazy to write anything
consisting of more than a few words. It is much easier to just send links,
pictures and videos.

Some of us have the unfair advantage of writing for a living.

...
Where would I go to find a Usenet binary newsgroup just to see what they are
like?

Here is a list on Google:

WARNING: While you will not see anything but a listing of groups at the
link below, you will note that almost all the binary groups are devoted
to explicit sexual content.

http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?sel=&q=alt.binaries&start=0&hl=en&.

It's hard to completely kill off something as totally decentralized as
Usenet; as long as two servers agree to share the NNTP protocol, it'll
continue on in some fashion. But the Usenet I mourn is long gone, anyway,
or long-transformed into interlocking comments on LiveJournals and the
forums boards on tech-support Web sites. Obviously, people lead lives,
converse, and learn on the Internet far more broadly than they did in
1993. But give me a moment's nostalgia for a Net that had one place to
go, that everybody knew about, but nobody owned.

Maybe this is not a bad thing. The quality of Usenet (excluding the
commercial spammers) is actually improved when those who can not use the
written word properly head off to web based forums.


Even so, I feel strongly that the lack of a moderator means the death of
Usenet. Ideally, the moderator should not be a single individual, but rather
a board. This would eliminate bias and various other idiosyncrasies.

Until the board members loose interest or do not have time to approve
messages. Moderating rec.bicycles.off-road killed the group (no new
messages in over a year):
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.off-road/topics?hl=en.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken /
She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.”
  #4  
Old August 3rd 08, 09:30 AM posted to alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent
Edward Dolan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 14,212
Default R.I.P Usenet: 1980-2008 by Sascha Segan of PC Magazine 07.31.08


"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Edward Dolan wrote:
...
I have never really looked into a web based message board. Are they
really as bad as you say they are? What would be a good one to
investigate so I can see what you are talking about?


Try http://bentrideronline.com/ and click on "Message Board" at the top
right of the home page. You will probably see some names to raise your
blood pressure.


I do not see all that many names I recognize except for a few. I see Larry
Varney is still there there looking as odd and screwy as ever. I also see
that Mark Stonich is there. A very dull fellow from the Twin Cities, but
smart enough I guess.

Here is what Bryant Ball has to say about ARBR under links:

"alt.rec.bicycles.recumbents - Once proud recumbent newsgroup. Now mostly
full of trolls."

Jeez, I wonder who he could be talking about?

It is probably an OK website for getting information about recumbents. The
message board is worthless. Just chit-chat and extremely dull posts that no
one in their right mind would bother reading.

Usenet has been dying for years, of course. Some people date Usenet's
decline as early as 1993, when millions of AOL users dropped into what
was previously a geek paradise. As the '90s went on, the eye candy of
the Web and the marketing dollars of Web site owners helped push people
over to profit-making sites. Usenet's slightly arcane access methods
and text-only protocols have nothing on the glitz and glamour of
MySpace.

It is a sad commentary on society that the printed work which has
sufficed for thousands of years is no longer good enough.


Writing anything is hard work. Most folks are way too lazy to write
anything consisting of more than a few words. It is much easier to just
send links, pictures and videos.

Some of us have the unfair advantage of writing for a living.

... Where would I go to find a Usenet binary newsgroup just to see what
they are like?

Here is a list on Google:

WARNING: While you will not see anything but a listing of groups at the
link below, you will note that almost all the binary groups are devoted to
explicit sexual content.

http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?sel=&q=alt.binaries&start=0&hl=en&.


Lots of porn 'messages', but many other topics also. But who needs pictures?
I will go to the web for those, not Usenet. I think alt.binaries must be
mostly for teenagers. It is even more of a mess than the rest of Usenet.

By the way, Google Groups should cease archiving Usenet messages. It is all
worthless crap.

It's hard to completely kill off something as totally decentralized as
Usenet; as long as two servers agree to share the NNTP protocol, it'll
continue on in some fashion. But the Usenet I mourn is long gone,
anyway, or long-transformed into interlocking comments on LiveJournals
and the forums boards on tech-support Web sites. Obviously, people lead
lives, converse, and learn on the Internet far more broadly than they
did in 1993. But give me a moment's nostalgia for a Net that had one
place to go, that everybody knew about, but nobody owned.

Maybe this is not a bad thing. The quality of Usenet (excluding the
commercial spammers) is actually improved when those who can not use the
written word properly head off to web based forums.


Even so, I feel strongly that the lack of a moderator means the death of
Usenet. Ideally, the moderator should not be a single individual, but
rather a board. This would eliminate bias and various other
idiosyncrasies.

Until the board members loose interest or do not have time to approve
messages. Moderating rec.bicycles.off-road killed the group (no new
messages in over a year):
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.off-road/topics?hl=en.


What a laugh that group is. Apparently, the Great Mike Vandeman killed it.
It essentially died in late 1999.

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota


  #5  
Old August 3rd 08, 12:41 PM posted to alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent
Tom Sherman[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9,890
Default R.I.P Usenet: 1980-2008 by Sascha Segan of PC Magazine 07.31.08

Edward Dolan wrote:
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Edward Dolan wrote:
...
I have never really looked into a web based message board. Are they
really as bad as you say they are? What would be a good one to
investigate so I can see what you are talking about?

Try http://bentrideronline.com/ and click on "Message Board" at the top
right of the home page. You will probably see some names to raise your
blood pressure.


I do not see all that many names I recognize except for a few. I see Larry
Varney is still there there looking as odd and screwy as ever. I also see
that Mark Stonich is there. A very dull fellow from the Twin Cities, but
smart enough I guess.

Mark is the kind of guy you want as a neighbor when you need a custom
made part for your recumbent.

Here is what Bryant Ball has to say about ARBR under links:

"alt.rec.bicycles.recumbents - Once proud recumbent newsgroup. Now mostly
full of trolls."

Jeez, I wonder who he could be talking about?

Bryan (no trailing "t") Ball encouraged people to leave this group.

It is probably an OK website for getting information about recumbents. The
message board is worthless. Just chit-chat and extremely dull posts that no
one in their right mind would bother reading.

Anything but dull posts get the thread locked by the moderators and/or
the users posting privileges revoked. Fine if you like to self-censor
everything you write.

...
... Where would I go to find a Usenet binary newsgroup just to see what
they are like?

Here is a list on Google:

WARNING: While you will not see anything but a listing of groups at the
link below, you will note that almost all the binary groups are devoted to
explicit sexual content.

http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?sel=&q=alt.binaries&start=0&hl=en&.


Lots of porn 'messages', but many other topics also. But who needs pictures?
I will go to the web for those, not Usenet. I think alt.binaries must be
mostly for teenagers. It is even more of a mess than the rest of Usenet.

Binary groups have the (dis)advantage of people being able to
anonymously post copyrighted and/or "obscene" material.

...
Until the board members loose interest or do not have time to approve
messages. Moderating rec.bicycles.off-road killed the group (no new
messages in over a year):
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.off-road/topics?hl=en.


What a laugh that group is. Apparently, the Great Mike Vandeman killed it.
It essentially died in late 1999.

The moderators become too busy to approve posts, so the regulars left
and formed alt.mountain-bike. Somehow, the spammers were able to find a
way to post. It does serve as an example that moderating a Usenet group
will probably lead to its demise.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken /
She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.”
 




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