On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 12:51 AM, Leo Mauler webgiant@yahoo.com wrote:
Which is a statement about as accurate as "640k is enough for anybody." Usenet may not have been relevant to *you* for eight years, but many thousands of people use the text-only portion of Usenet.
It's the last kind of text-only message board on the Internet, and if you say that web-based message forums are a drop-in replacement then you've clearly never used (or supported a user of) a screen reader for the blind.
Well, go ahead and circle your wagons, partner.
I appreciate that you like USENET. But here's the facts: USENET is _bad_ technology. It was designed at a time when Internet connections were intermittent. That is no longer the case, and its architecture does NOT SCALE. I ran a USENET server for an ISP 11 years ago, and 11 years ago it was a troubled service. 11 years ago ISPs were outsourcing USENET services en masse because it was a pain in the ass to run and ate up lots of resources. In 11 years it's only gotten worse.
It is dying not just because folks want more of a media-rich environment, it's dying because it's technologically unsound and because it's extremely expensive to run. The porn, spam, and virii just act as a catalyst. You're going to have to find another place to go, I'm afraid to say.
Jeffrey.
I'm sure the rich and vibrant community on rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated would be somewhat insulted to discover that we're just there for the "porn" (right now we're mostly there for the current "Battlestar Galactica" discussions, and the fact that JMS and other SciFi writers pop in from time to time). I've seen web message boards which would be happy for 100 new interesting (the key word is "interesting") messages a week, but rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated gets over 600 a month.
Look dude, are you claiming that the majority of USENET is still relevant? My wager is that only 1% is still. Also, there is no reason why the Babylon 5 fans can't move to another forum technology. Heck, I would have figured that they'd be excited about it, as USENET's architecture often results in lost postings.
As far as your arguments about blind access, you do realize that you can have these boards utilize RSS to make it easier on them?
The fact is that Usenet thrives (among people who may not even know about the alt.binaries.* hierarchy) precisely because it is text-only. Not everyone wants to have to upgrade to broadband just to discuss stuff on a graphics-intensive and Flash-intensive web-based message board. If you leave out the alt.binaries.* hierarchy there's still a lot of active text-only Usenet left over, which many thousands of people still use on a regular basis.
I'm sorry man, but you can wave your stick at the kids on your lawn all day long, but USENET's had a death sentence for a long time now. It's about time that you made your peace and moved on.
Jeffrey.