Re: What does it mean when a legitimate business uses a "private" IP address?

On Fri, 2 Jan 2009, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.internet.wireless, in article
<5ed877f4-240a-48c8-a166-88d5a4ff7605@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, bod43 wrote:

NOTE: Posting from groups.google.com (or some web-forums) dramatically
reduces the chance of your post being seen. Find a real news server.

I am convinced that usenet text newsgroups are declining
and will continue to decline. I think that there are two
main factors.

1, 2, 3... OK - that's close

1.
Ease of creation of 'discussion groups' on numerous web sites along
with the presumed ease of creation of such sites. There are dozens
and dozens of sites.

A problem is finding them. There is no "common" place to look. I add
a single keyword to the newstool, and I get a list of the 110 thousand
groups on the server I'm using.

2.
Unmoderated groups are in the long term less viable due to "bad
actors".

You seem to be using a browser - they are rather limited in capability
in such things as filtering.

[compton ~]$ grep -vE '^([%\[ ]|Score|$)' /var/spool/slrnpull/score |
cut -d' ' -f1 | sort | uniq -c | column
1057 From: 16 References: 2 ~Subject:
2 Lines: 434 Subject:
35 Message-ID: 82 Xref:
[compton ~]$

A lot of noise disappears that way.

I have only regularly read a few groups (less than 10) and of those
one has been destroyed by a single individual as a matter of his
policy over a period of a *decade* and another two are presently
wrecked. The damage being caused by a large volume of ridiculous
(usually rude and insulting) posts. When a newcomer to such things
appears and sees death threats then it does not take much to persuade
them to go away quitely.

I'm down to 76 groups - I mainly scan them, as you don't have time to
actually read every word, but I can't say that I've seen death threats.
Rude or insulting posts - I don't see many of those either, as it
doesn't take much to enter that killfile.

3.
Barrier to entry - news-servers, new-readers...

That browser you are using can be used. You don't need to know anything
about news servers, other than the name of one - just as you need to
know the name of that web page. That's difficult? Spending a few
minutes to learn how to use a real server does pay off in versatility.
Plus, you aren't bombarded with all those advertisements. You probably
don't have the tools to sniff the information that you browser is
giving to the web site. Recall those sites depend on advertising
revenue, and they get that by knowing all about you.

I looked at a video made by the Computer History Museum where a
gentleman who may have been the founder of usenet newsgroups said that
the idea had failed due to the influence of Bad Actors. i.e. people up
to no good on the group.

Tom Truscott, or Jim Ellis? Usenet originated as a UUCP scheme at
Duke University in 1979.

There are significant barriers to entry unless you use Google Groups

You're using a browser - that's the minimum needed. The barrier is not
very significant.

however there is a small but not completely insignificant pressure to
banish google users from usenet by popularising the idea that they are
undesireable.

The main complaint about google _users_ is spam. Several of the groups
I scan are constantly polluted by advertisements for shoes, fake sports
goods, fake watches, cigarettes, and all of those pills you simply
must be interested in. The problem is google absolutely refuses to
control that spam. Complaints are ignored. Some people feel that if
google ignores complaints, they can ignore google posts - it's trivial
to do with even a half competent news reader. More competent news tools
can even filter _replies_ to posts from google.

I bumped into a campaign website of such an organisation only today.

The Usenet Improvement Project: http://improve-usenet.org

Probably that one - but you may notice that they suggest alternatives.

Old guy
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: RAID 1
    ... >> repeated context that also clutters the archives, ... I suppose I should have given up on usenet ... he didn't have google to help sift through the cruft and probably ... It shows parts of your 100 most recent posts with links to the full text ...
    (comp.os.linux.networking)
  • Re: Troll Activity Going Through The Roof!!! Amazing!!!
    ... Google has permitted large numbers of individuals to access usenet who ... this thread is a person who, if you run a search on all his posts in this ... posting volume through the eyes of the Google interface, ...
    (alt.sports.football.pro.ne-patriots)
  • Re: iso image
    ... On Fri, 05 Oct 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux, in article ... news server, not one of the web interfaces. ... posts from six months to a year earlier. ... Google also intentionally ignores all abuse reports, ...
    (comp.os.linux)
  • Re: Why the complaints about Google Usenet ? [telecom]
    ... Google Groups, a service where many people, including me, post to ... when it comes to Usenet posting, ... The address for email submissions has changed: if you submit posts via email, ... If you submit posts via a newsreader or Google groups, you don't need to change anything. ...
    (comp.dcom.telecom)
  • Re: [OT] Silly (copyright?) claim by "Galen". (was: Is it safe to use a strangers WiFi cha
    ... >> There's sites which steal, yes steal, the usenet posts and insert ... >> Please note that if you're reading this in a browser and the domain ... > So are you talking about forum software that implements a gateway to ...
    (comp.security.misc)