Re: Committee Representatives

In MsgID<kgg3v2ht0b416pu29vvjn9ia91h6ct1msc@xxxxxxx> on Fri, 09 Mar 2007
20:56:36 +0000, in uk.net.news.management, '*** Gaughan' wrote:

In <esrjvj$p7d$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> on Fri, 09 Mar 2007 12:30:43
+0000, Dave J. <requiem@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I think the main inerta (stopping the takeoff if there really are people
still interested in talking) is that the sysops of the various blogs all
want to leech^Hearn money, which, thanks to the range of off the shelf
interfaces being so limited involves keeping people using their dire
version and prevents them gaining from the perfect protocol for discussion
groups. One trouble is that even users who know about NNTP have no say in
the matter, if you think a moderated usenet group can be biased, try it
when the moderator 'owns' the whole caboodle :(

That's a hell of a lot of strawmen in one wee post.

No, strawmen, just my thoughts on web forums[1] in general I do know that
some are run in as friendly and social a way as possible and my comments
were referring to the 'average' if you like. My real problems with them
(and one which leaves me bemused over the users' preference) is lack of a
properly threaded single key read plus the way they are each isolated in
their own 'world' rather than one connection serving thousands of
different subjects. I just don't see that as a step forward.

[1] I used to use fora as the plural, someone pointed me at a couple of
dictionaries and it appears that 'forum' has three meanings, 'Fora' is the
plural for just one of those, viz. the ancient Roman public square. I
think I agree (or at least the dictionaries I've looked at seem to agree)
and therefore use 'forums'. It's not quite as clunky a blunder as using
'virii' as it is a genuine word, but I reckon it's the same category of
error.

I don't particularly like web-based fora - in fact the only one I
use is the one I own and it bears no resemblance to any of the
sweeping generalisations quoted above. There are no ads, posts are
not moderated, I don't take money from anyone, it costs me money
to provide it and it also costs me and my co-admin a great deal of
work. But it provides a service to the small community who use it
which is why I give it server space. The closest thing to it would
be the Usenet of the early 90s.

My direct apologies. You realise (I hope) that my generalisations were
just that, and it was assumed anyone reading would know it.

The single thing that upsets me is the way that with usenet you've got
immediate access to all the forums you could want, from one server with
one client. This idea that it's out of date just doesn't hold water until
someone can point out how a bastardisation of HTTP for discussion purposes
is better than a protocol designed specifically for textual interaction,
with all the 'trimmings' that are downloaded with blog-style pages already
built into the client.

The Usenet I knew and passionately loved has gone, no amount of
DoU ranting is going to help save it, and no amount of wistful
longing for the golden age is going to bring it back. It was a
phase we grew through and which I am deeply grateful to have been
a part of but which we have to gracefully and affectionately let
go of and lovingly cherish the memories.

Wild frontiers can only ever exist for a short time until the
roads and railways arrive. And they arrived on ours in the shape
of the September that never ended. The best we can do is to retain
what we can of what's left and still purposeful (and there's still
some) and try to carry what we learned from what was best about it
all with us into other areas. Like web fora.

You seem to be in amongst the people who see usenet that way (old relic
and only relevant at 'the beginning' of the net), whereas I see it as
NNTP, a protocol designed around and for discussion groups. I have yet to
see a single advantage to web forums beside simultaneous use of a usenet
client and a browser (for the graphical stuff - mypics etc)

Usenet isn't the 'wild frontier' it's just a free discussion area. The
reason for wishing I could think how to breath new life into it is nothing
to do with wanting to 'keep things going' its to do with the way that this
country desperately *needs* intelligent people talking to one another.
I've yet to find any internet text medium that's better.

As a more on topic sidetrack, I wonder if anyone here is brave enough to
write a php based discussion site (blog style) which allows two way
linking to usenet servers. It'd be interesting to have uk.blogs.XYZ as a
new hierarchy, echoing and adding to various web forums. IOW people
involved in more than one web forum from the 'uk.*' family could partake
in each via their news client if they chose. Or, for that matter, could
partake in the rest of uk.* via the client they're already running
courtesy of the website..

Best incentive I've yet to see for my learning Java - if people will run
Java apps via their browser then they don't even have to know they're
running a different client, it's just another web page. Hey presto, new
interface to whatever forums I can conjure up, plus (as a freebie) about
50000 others. (-:

The key (beyond my learning enough Java and/or PHP) would be getting
permission from one of the free nntp server admins to allow registration
with them in parallel with registration to the website.

Dave J.
--
Support a referendum on UK ID cards before they are
inflicted at stupendous cost for negligible reward.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/IDreferendum/
.

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