The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
What is Usenet?
NeonBlackJack
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey everyone,
Just wondering if somebody could explain to me what Usenet is and what it's used for?
Thanks
Just wondering if somebody could explain to me what Usenet is and what it's used for?
Thanks
NeonBlackJack on
0
Posts
SC2 NA: exoplasm.519 | PA SC2 Mumble Server | My Website | My Stream
I use it some, but I don't understand it 100% unfortunately, but that is the basics of it.
Oh, how about that, my ISP has one. Neato!
How the fuck does a fellow subscribe / read from / whatever a newsgroup? I have a few addresses, and I can read from the or subscribe using Google Groups, but... I want to use a newsreader program. Every time I try, they just tell me that the connection is refused.
I'm... confused here.
I'm under the impression that most serious discussion long ago migrated to web-based forums...
Did you put in your ISP's NNTP server info along with your login credentials? What newsreader are you using?
It has. I think IRC is the only real remnant if the old internet still in common use today.
Ah, the good ol' days.
Ever since The Long September, USENET has slowly eroded to just a ghost of what it once was, yeah... I go onto Google Groups to read the comp.risks newsletter, and that's pretty much it.
It's quite jarring to read this thread and see how many people don't even know what USENET is. Although the news earlier this year that most ISPs are pulling the plug on USENET access I think is the death knell. It's really quite sad, since USENET really was the Internet Oracle. There was a news group for pretty much every and any topic (and I mean any) and to see it go away... made me nostalgic. It seems a shame that it's all but gone, but then, it served its purpose, and things have moved on. I don't know that the Web-based communities where you have to hunt down, join, and deal with different interfaces and styles is the greatest improvement changes in technology have had to offer though. It was nice to just start up your threaded news reader and you had all the communities right there, and you used one interface to them.
The Wikipedia article pretty much covers what it is/was though.
I had no idea I even had to use any NNTP server info. For that matter, I don't know what a NNTP server is. I guess this is my problem, eh?
Anyway, the newsreaders I've tried are Thunderbird and Pan, both on linux. I don't recall anywhere where I was asked to fill in my ISP's server info, only the address that I was trying to connect to. Guess it could be easy enough to miss, though.
No huge deal I guess, Google Groups would probably work just fine for what I want. I assumed it would be easy, like using an RSS feed reader or something.
I currently have a few subscriptions, mostly to technical things. comp.risks, rec.games.video.sony, rec.games.video.microsoft.xbox360, alt.comp.linux, comp.groupware.groupwise, comp.unix.admin, comp.unix.aix, and alt.comp.answers.
With the exception of my the console stuff, the above groups are pretty good for getting general information for things related to work.
Sadly, TimeWarner cut off USENET access back in october (I think), but news.motzarella.org offers free accounts to access to non-binary groups and works like a champ.
An NNTP server is what a web server is to a web site. It's the computer that stores the information you're accessing. Private companies and ISP's run NNTP servers. When you post a message to a news group it is uploaded to your news server. From there it is passed on to other news servers until it's on every server that is updating.
Google Groups is just a web interface to the NNTP servers Google runs or pays for. It does however give the perception that newsgroups exist on the same network as the "web" which they very much do not.
This was one of the best aspects of Usenet-based discussion versus web bulletin boards. There was no need to hunt for niche discussions nor register a dozen accounts across several bulletin boards. If Penny Arcade had existed Way Back Whenâ„¢ as a newsgroup it might have been alt.comics.penny-arcade and that's all anyone would have needed to post on the board. While Usenet definitely has its problems I really valued the ability to follow lots of simultaneous discussions on a variety of topics from the same client.
I hope y'all look forward to explaining to people on the neurolink or digibrain or whatever what 'that internet thing' was. *shakes fist*
It's not hard guys, we have javascript and DOM scripting, surely one of you can come up with a collapsible, multi-threaded view in one pane and the message body in the other? And a "next unread" button for the thread. And a decent pattern matching kill-file feature. It's not rocket science, I just want to *PLONK* some threads.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
If it had existed way back when then it clearly would have been:
alt.comics.penny-arcade
alt.comics.penny-arcade.gabe
alt.comics.penny-arcade.tycho
alt.comics.penny-arcade.bork.bork.bork
alt.comics.penny-arcade.binaries
alt.comics.penny-arcade.binaries.bork.bork.bork
alt.comics.penny-arcade.discuss
alt.comics.penny-arcade.westley.crusher.must.die.bork.die.bork.die
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
alt.comics.penny-arcade.binaries.hiddenchildporn
What I'm getting at is that it's all usenet's fault my favorite childhood book was torn to shreds by an inquisitive one-year-old.
Yup, real smart.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
IBCB (in before charles babbage).
Steam/PSN/XBL/Minecraft / LoL / - Benevicious | WoW - Duckwood - Rajhek
I was gonna say, back when I first got the internet (God I'm old), Usenet was still basically a bunch of discussion groups / mail lists.
[brodie-bruce]
You say that like it's bad.
[/brodie-bruce]