Another Nail In Usenet's Coffin?

Karamchand writes "Today news.individual.net in an email to its more than 250.000 registered users announced that they won't be able to continue offering free Usenet access. While it provided text-only groups many people relied on individual.net's service to take part in one of the Internet's older services. In a time were a working news server is not a selling point for ISPs and most internet users never heard about this service, will this be another nail in the coffin of Usenet?"

Google Groups

[Anonymous Coward]

No, for text usenet group access, Google Groups is fine. For binary access, well, you probably have to pay but it is worth it.

Usenet once again an underground geek hangout?

[vandrad]

Between the decline of Kazaa (possible logging of downloads. RIAA lawsuits) and AOL terminating Usenet access [slashdot.org], I can't help but think that Usenet might make a comeback among geeks now that it's off the mainstream radar.

Sucks about Individual.net, but network services ain't free to provide. I'm quite happy with a Supernews account at $5.95 a month.

Re:No.

[luxis]

Might want to check out Talk About Network [talkaboutnetwork.com] which offers free web access to usenet groups. Nothing like having RSS on your favorite group :)

Usenet died along time ago.

[Dougthebug]

most internet users never heard about this service

That is a bit of an understatement.

I can't think of more than two people I know outside of academia that have ever heard of usenet or newsgroups. Use net has been dead along time. Yes, it still has many users. But theres still people out there browsing the web with netscape 4.1 too, that doesn't mean the old school netscape userbase is flourishing though.

Re:its been dead

[PepeGSay]

I've used newsgroups since around the same time as you. And I still use them for the core of any troubleshooting searches. The signal to noise *is* too high unless you use some form of search tool though.

Usenet is Small!

[entropy123]

IMHO the valuable portion of the usenet are the various groups which answer questions re: programming and review books and the like. When I was learning C++ a while back (on my own) I found the usenet groups/archives accessible through google groups to be invaluable. I, for one, respect those guys who maintain their own archives (is there a place where I may get a copy btw?...don't trust google) Amazon and other websites basically obtain the right to distribute content; at least shut down the servers with all the reviews. The usenet is more freeform, semipermanent, and essentially honest as a ne'er do well disseminator of pure unadulterated opinion...

Movies and the like are essentially worthless compared to the opinions/ideas on usenet. I can't imagine a time when I will be unable to buy something off amazon as opposed to a download from a usenet server. So, strip out the movies, mp3s, and leave the test!

Dead? No, Just More $$!

[Newt-dog]

Like anything else good, it will cost you extra dollars to use. The SpeakEasy.net I signed up for a few months ago gives me 1 gig a month free, the rest I have to pay a steep price for. Ok for text posting, but that sure puts a damper on the binaries' groups. ;-)
Goodbye to the freebies!

Newt-dog

Home UseNet

[nurb432]

Well, how about running your own local server... And collect only what you are intrested in?

A workable idea?

Re:Google Groups

[bigberk]

Not to mention the un-intuitive user interface which encourages posting without quoting the parent.

I agree with you, Google's groups service (the beta) really isn't impressive at all. There is no quoting of parents, and the threads are difficult to navigate. I still use the old groups system [google.ca], which was far superior. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I really hope Google reverts to their old interface.

as far as I'm concerned...

[idlake]

As far as I'm concerned, USENET died when people started making searchable archives of it available. I had been using USENET since the 1980s, and, while it had some problems, it was a discussion forum where people discussed things freely and under their own names. USENET also was mostly a mix of academics, students, and corporate computer geeks. Binary newsgroups and postings were few, but the comp.sources newsgroups were the primary vehicle for the distribution of open source software. People got to know each other personally and even made professional contacts.

Once you had to worry about any hasty post coming back to haunt you a decade later, I stopped using it. And the influx of huge numbers of other users also made it a lot less fun for me.

I'm sure a new generation of USENET users found other uses for USENET, after the community changed and after DejaNews came into existence. But that USENET isn't the USENET I grew up with--it's already something different.

Good riddance, I say

[petrus4]

Usenet needs to die. As I've said before, its only real function is as an online replacement for the conventional mental health system.

There are plenty of other forms of communication online now. Usenet is a relic in the same sense that Ultima Online is to MMORPGs...From the point of view that in UO's heyday, it was the only game of its kind in existence...and so therefore the sorts of brainsick freaks that you customarily encounter on Usenet and those of us who *are* sane were forced to interact with each other...something which ironically made *both* groups unhappy.

The Internet has been slowly moving away from generalised, one-size-(doesn't)-fit-all forms of communication to highly insular, segregated forms classified according to interests and comparitive levels of mental health, among other things. That also is exactly how it ought to be. I'm not saying that I believe any particular group should not be allowed to exist...all should, and all generally serve a purpose. What I *have* always been a very firm believer in however is voluntary segregation. It works, and it's better for everyone concerned.

Web Forums private and potentially lost forever

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO the biggest problems with the waning of usenet and the rise of web forums is that so much information is going to be lost forever and it is getting so spread out that it is simply hard to find. Thanks to DejaNews and later Google I could/can find answers to questions asked a decade ago on a plethora of diverse subjects. Web forums have fissioned this central, diversified/redundant, and archived repository of knowledge into thousands of special forums that exist at the whim of private interests. The information is balkanized and the knowledge can disappear at anytime, forever.

what are you talking about?

[Anonymous Coward]

Usenet is alive and well. Zillions of posts daily, thoughtful answers to obscure but useful question all over the place, intelligent conversations carried on for weeks. It's got much more vitality than Slashdot. I search and browse it several times a day and post to it several times a week. Predict the imminent death of telephones, English, and burritos, why don't you.

Re:With a negative SNR, what's the point?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Why? I think abuse of anonymity is probably the single largest killer.

Bingo. It was Usenet that started me on the path to being a misanthrope. :) The anonymity allows people to post what they really have in their heads, without the threat of the beating they so richly deserve.

It's the same thing here at work. I overhear people being talked about behind their backs. The slightest flaws or oversights are blown up into mortal sins punishable by eternal bile, although never to the person's face. I can't imagine what people say about me, but I make more than most of them, so I don't care all that much.

It was also Usenet that taught me that strongly held political beliefs are most likely a type of mental degeneration or illness.

Me: We need to know more about any sort of Social Security plan before we can judge it.
KMarxIsGod: BUSH IS A NAZI AND HIS FAMILY IS RAPING IRAQ TO KILL THE WORLD'S FLUFFY KITTENS!
Me: Is there someone else here to talk to?

I mean, that just isn't sanity in operation there. Some might be trolls, but some of these guys will type for HOURS to make some obscure point about how Dick Cheney's second cousin once ran a red light in 1972 without getting a ticket, and therefore the USA is a police state to end all police states.

So I got a Tivo and Netflix account, and just use Usenet to find new music via MP3 groups.

Re:What?

[dgallard]

Unlike ad hoc Web forums, USENET is based on an
IETF standards. See:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0977.txt?number=977 [ietf.org]
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0850.txt?number=850 [ietf.org]

Unlike the web, USENET articles include a
subject, date, and author as part of the
formalism and are intrinsically threaded.

Unlike forums, news articles have their own
URL (news://...) so can be linked to.

Unlike mailing lists, newsgroup articles
reside on servers so they do not encumber
your mail box. You go to them, they do not
come to you.

Almost all email readers come with a news reader.

Finally, although public forums are subject to
spam, the spam problem will be solved eventually,
it is possible to set up moderated newsgroups,
and, one of the least used possibilities of
the internet, private newsgroups make for an
excellent means to collaborative project
management.

GoogeGroups is good. Some posts here point out
that the default reply operation does not
include the quoted post being replied to. But
the 'show options > reply' method of creating
a reply *does* quote the post being replied to.

I consider the lack of that in the default
reply to be design flaw but not a condemnation
of either GoogleGroups or USENET.

Cheers,
Dennis Allard

Death of a salesman

[OSXexpert]

Finding alternative feeds for pay or free (got a friend at an ISP?) is never a problem it seems. Usenet news is not going to die any sooner than IRC, or IAM or Google Search. Its been around, it will stick around as long as people find it useful to communicate ideas. I find it as likely that Usenet will die as Mail will discontinue being sent via the postal systems in the world.

Digit

[Graymalkin]

While it is disappointing to see ISPs dropping Usenet support doing so will hardly kill it. The awesome part of Usenet is it is a naturally distributed network of systems. It doesn't take much to carry the text-only traffic of Usenet, especially considering the price of processing power and network bandwidth anymore. Binary feeds take quite a bit more but if you want the basics the barrier of entry is relatively low.

While web-based forums have gotten very popular in the past few years they simply do not have the advantages of Usenet groups. A forum is limited by a single server/cluster's capacity in terms of both bandwidth and processing power. An angry admin, hacker, FBI raid, or backhoe can take down even the largest of web forums. It would take a lot of doing to kill a newsgroup. A couple of yahoos with spare Linux boxes could keep a group going without much effort. Forums also fall down when it comes to availability. To access a thread on a forum you need to be connected to the web. A newsgroup's posts can be downloaded once and held onto for as long as you'd like. This is a feature mailing lists also have over web forums, the entire history of the list can be stored in your local mail spool. While a forum is likely to be public accessible the sum of its content is rarely available for anyone to mirror if they have the prerogative.

Programs like Leafnode [sourceforge.net] allow you to create local mirrors of feeds while Usenet-Web [nihongo.org] can process those spools to make them available to anyone with a web browser. Emoticons and oversized picture signatures are little reason to use web forums in lieu of newsgroups.

Re:What?

[l3v1]

It's a terribly inefficient method for propagating information across the Internet

You obviously never ever had any good non- or professional conversations on usenet groups, ever. It was the bless of heavens for group messaging. It was very efficient and very easy to use. And very huge amounts of information was delivered. And you didn't need a web browser full of fracking holes and useless web interfaces to do that. It was all simple and good. That was back when spammers were modded out, that is. Today, when the new, brilliant, all-knowing internet-generation grows up, they all very dumbly and dead-seriously know that nothing can be useful unless they use it. And guys like you come up from time to time and show us the brilliance that only dumb ignorance can gather.