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From: David Combs on 24 Jun 2010 20:38
In article <hvvtlr$5kt$1(a)Kil-nws-1.UCIS.Dal.Ca>,
<hume.spamfilter(a)bofh.ca> wrote:
>hama08 <hama08.2009(a)ma.yer.at> wrote:
>> it seems that comp.unix.solaris is dead ?
>> 10 or 15 years ago, there were sometimes more than 100 new articles
>> per day.
>
>That was 10-15 years ago, in Usenet's heyday. I would say it's more likely
>that Usenet itself is drying up than any one specific group. And I say this
>as a Usenet server administrator who has been watching my daily article
>counts drop drastically over just the past couple of months.
>
>> where is the discussion now ?
>
>Most likely on the Sun/Oracle Solaris forums and on opensolaris.org.
>
>--
>Brandon Hume - hume -> BOFH.Ca, http://WWW.BOFH.Ca/

(1) the group will die only if we LET it die.

(2) myself, I find trn4 etc a VASTLY better interface for back-and-forth
question-answer-further-question--comment--etc than any browser
could ever be.

IF most others here agree with that, than maybe we can put some effort
into TEACHING the younger folk, almost by definition unfamiliar with
usenet, how to use tools LIKE trn4, etc, and entice them FROM
browser-world over to HERE.

Again, that's only if most people here (this being a pseudo survey)
agree that usenet way outweighs, FOR DISCUSSIONS, forums.

We could train people via one of the test groups easy enough, to
at least READ usenet groups (three or four commands would suffice
for a newbie?) and on how to reply. Pretty simple stuff.


(this post having evolved into a survey) WHAT DO YOU THINK?


David


From: Richard B. Gilbert on 24 Jun 2010 21:47
David Combs wrote:
> In article <hvvtlr$5kt$1(a)Kil-nws-1.UCIS.Dal.Ca>,
> <hume.spamfilter(a)bofh.ca> wrote:
>> hama08 <hama08.2009(a)ma.yer.at> wrote:
>>> it seems that comp.unix.solaris is dead ?
>>> 10 or 15 years ago, there were sometimes more than 100 new articles
>>> per day.
>> That was 10-15 years ago, in Usenet's heyday. I would say it's more likely
>> that Usenet itself is drying up than any one specific group. And I say this
>> as a Usenet server administrator who has been watching my daily article
>> counts drop drastically over just the past couple of months.
>>
>>> where is the discussion now ?
>> Most likely on the Sun/Oracle Solaris forums and on opensolaris.org.
>>
>> --
>> Brandon Hume - hume -> BOFH.Ca, http://WWW.BOFH.Ca/
>
> (1) the group will die only if we LET it die.
>
> (2) myself, I find trn4 etc a VASTLY better interface for back-and-forth
> question-answer-further-question--comment--etc than any browser
> could ever be.
>
> IF most others here agree with that, than maybe we can put some effort
> into TEACHING the younger folk, almost by definition unfamiliar with
> usenet, how to use tools LIKE trn4, etc, and entice them FROM
> browser-world over to HERE.
>
> Again, that's only if most people here (this being a pseudo survey)
> agree that usenet way outweighs, FOR DISCUSSIONS, forums.
>
> We could train people via one of the test groups easy enough, to
> at least READ usenet groups (three or four commands would suffice
> for a newbie?) and on how to reply. Pretty simple stuff.
>
>
> (this post having evolved into a survey) WHAT DO YOU THINK?
>
>
> David
>
>

I'm reading this on my Windows/XP desktop. I've been reading net news
since about 1985 using whatever platforms were available: VAX/Alpha VMS,
IRIX, Solaris, RHEL V4.0 and W/XP.

I never heard of "trn4".

I think we are better off with plain text that can be read by just about
any system.

From: Thad Floryan on 25 Jun 2010 03:43
On 6/24/2010 6:47 PM, Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
> [...]
> I never heard of "trn4".

I suppose you've never heard of Google, either? Just for
starters, initial results of a Google search:

<http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=trn4>
<http://www.freshports.org/news/trn4/>
<http://sourceforge.net/projects/trn/>
<http://stanford.edu/services/pubsw/package/news/trn4.html>
<http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/i386/trn4/filelist>
[... another 108,000 URLs ...]

> I think we are better off with plain text that can be read by just about
> any system.

That's how Usenet began. Sadly, Duke, the origin of Usenet, has shut
down its Usenet server:

<http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/05/18/2342241/Duke-To-Shut-Down-Usenet-Server>
"
" This week marks the end of an era for one of the earliest pieces
" of Internet history, which got its start at Duke University more
" than 30 years ago. On May 20, Duke will shut down its Usenet
" server, which provides access to a worldwide electronic discussion
" network of newsgroups started in 1979 by two Duke graduate students,
" Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis.
"
" Rantastic and other readers wrote about the shutdown of the British
" Usenet indexer Newzbin today; the site sank under the weight of a
" lawsuit and outstanding debt. Combine these stories with the recent
" news of Microsoft shuttering its newsgroups, along with other recent
" stories, and the picture does not look bright for Usenet.

Duke article:
<http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html>

The Newzbin article was here: <http://www.newzbin.com/> but is now being
redirected to: <http://deepsharer.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/newzbin-gossip/>

Microsoft's Usenet shutting down here:
<http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/05/05/1232253/Spam-Causes-Microsoft-To-Kill-Newsgroups>

Other Usenet badnews:
<http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/07/01/1332215/RIAA-Victory-Over-Usenetcom-In-Copyright-Case>
From: David Combs on 25 Jun 2010 16:51
In article <S46dnesjpO0Fl7nRnZ2dnUVZ_jSdnZ2d(a)giganews.com>,
Richard B. Gilbert <rgilbert88(a)comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>
>I'm reading this on my Windows/XP desktop. I've been reading net news
>since about 1985 using whatever platforms were available: VAX/Alpha VMS,
> IRIX, Solaris, RHEL V4.0 and W/XP.
>
>I never heard of "trn4".
>
It's just an upgrade, with Threads (the "T") of the old "rn"
unix program from WAY back. "4" for "4th major upgrade" (over maybe
20 years?).

>I think we are better off with plain text that can be read by just about
>any system.

Plain text -- have you ever seen anything OTHER THAN plain
(ascii) text on usenet? (Well, html is creeping in via
people using browsers, rather than "newsreaders", for
dealing with newsgroups.

Newsgroups, I think, are SUPPOSED to be ONLY PLAIN TEXT!


----

Come visit sometime (New Rochelle, NY, 35 min N of Grand Central Station)
and I'll DEMONSTRATE this thing I (and many, many, MANY others too)
use for reading "news", and you'll never go back to your web interface!


(Try me!)


David




From: Ian Collins on 25 Jun 2010 16:58
On 06/26/10 08:51 AM, David Combs wrote:
>
> Come visit sometime (New Rochelle, NY, 35 min N of Grand Central Station)
> and I'll DEMONSTRATE this thing I (and many, many, MANY others too)
> use for reading "news", and you'll never go back to your web interface!

I'm sure most people here do as I do and use their mail client
(Thunderbird in my case) to access Usenet.

--
Ian Collins
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