Re: YASD: Trank the Conjurer


Rubinstein wrote:

Nothing wrong with that. I'm not at all against the "idea" of Google
Groups and it's perfectly ok as long as its users are aware of the
current limitations (note GG is still in beta stage). But the latter
unfortunately isn't the case, for most of the GG users at least.

What limitations are those? I can read what others write, reply to
them, and start new topics. I wasn't aware that I wanted to do more
than that.

Agreed, that's the main problem and that's where GG drops in filling a
hole. I had the same problem recently after changing my provider and it
seems that more and more of the low-cost resellers are dropping this
service. Personally I didn't want to accept this situation and the
cheesy compromise of using GG instead. At first I was looking for one of

Cheesy because it's free? I can't tell what your problem with Google
actually is.

the free newsservers, but meanwhile the situation here has become really
bad. The still existing free servers I found were either plain crap or,
in case of the better ones, not free anymore. And that's where I am now:
paying for a newsserver (10 Euro/year) but I don't regret this. It's a

I would. GG is free. Thank you, Google Groups.

really good one, very fast and very well maintained: no zombie groups
for instance which usually are the "trademark" for free newsservers
(lets them look really big but 1/3 of the excisting groups are dead).
In other words, surely worth the less than 1 Euro/month (for my new
provider I need to pay ~15 Euro less per *month* with a 6* speed boost
at the same time).

Still failing to see the advantage over GG here. It doesn't sound like
your provider charges you by the minute or anything, so GG's online
only nature shouldn't be a problem.

All in all, I think Google Groups is a very good technical solution
for the whole Usenet thingy.

I would prefer the term "better than nothing".

And I'd prefer better than the clunky solutions I've seen earlier. It
works, it's free, you don't install anything, it's simple. Don't go
thinking I'm closed-minded on this, though. If you can come up with
some good reasons why I'd want to try something else and it was free,
I'd give it a try. For all I know, my ISP provider does have something.
I just don't see any reason not to go with GG.

The problem is the whole AOL syndrome that's repeating itself
apparently. You know, when something becomes "easy" for wide
population, closed "elite" communities get flooded.

I really don't know where your impression of an "elite" community came
from. I'd bet most of the "old-school" users never felt this way and I
wonder whether you did when you're saying you're no noob to usenet...

I'm generally pro-newbie. There comes a point when I've heard what
you've got to say. It's the quality of the newbie that counts. If a
group is overrun with idiot newbies, probably the topic appeals to
idiots.

But I have to agree with Erik: "just that without sources of fresh
blood such as GG is, the blood would get way too thick in here".

More GG noobs and *my* blood will getting thick. :-)

What's your problem, exactly? The quoting thing? Tough titty, like you
really need to know what "LOL" is in reply to.

Here's my theory on netiquette:

For the most part, it's simple, commonsense rules that help people get
along online. After these are established, less functional rules creep
in. For instance, your objection to the reply "LOL" with no quote. Now,
if LOL actually meant anything interesting or you have to see it in
context to understand it, OK. But it doesn't. All it meant was
"something in the previous post amused me". The idea that every time
somebody says something they have to quote somebody else is a
non-functional rule.

Then there's the pet peeves. This sort of rule isn't functional either,
and it's imposed by whoever is the loudest and stubbornest. For
instance, remember Britto? Nice guy, posted a lot for a while. Some
lurker comes along and criticizes him for using "u" for "you". Britto,
sadly, took offence and abandoned the group. So, to please a useless
lurker we lost somebody who supplied content.

Another example is the "spoiler space" rule in the ADOM group. Every
time you post something spoily, you're supposed to put in all this
white space. Now what sort of idiot would be reading that group if they
didn't want to be spoiled? Worse, people think that they can only refer
to certain parts of the game in stupidly vague ways. "I went to a
spoily place and did a spoily thing and then I..." Wow, that's so
useful I think I just spoiled my pants. It's a completely retarded
situation, where the flow of information is blocked for no good reason.
I don't recall ever reading somebody saying they didn't want to be
spoiled when it comes to ADOM. On the contrary, the general feeling
seems to be that you can never be too spoiled.

There never was such a thing like a "closed" community. Instead there
was (and *still* is) a well sorted source of informations, which always
had somewhat anarchic structures, but also tried to prevent from sinking
in chaos. In the latter I see the actual danger coming from Google
Groups.

I don't see the newbies being the problem here. A newbie didn't derail
this topic. I see you being a curmudgeon, though. And where is this
army of newbies who are threatening Usenet? I wish they'd show up.
Things are slow.

A last note: usenet can very well exist without Google Groups but not
vice versa. GG is in no way a provider rather than just a hitchhiker.

Provide a free service, get called a parasite. I stopped reading and
posting to Usenet because it was a PITA. It's not anymore. GG provided
a solution and a reason.

.

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