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Re: Netvision NNTP Server



On Sat, 17 Mar 2001, Nadav Har'El wrote:

> In the last several years newsgroups are becoming less and less useful, and
> mailing lists are taking over. Even for huge subscriber-base (e.g., bugtraq)
> mailing lists are winning.

no argument from me here. i spend several minutes each day going over
news, and sometimes up to several hours (!) going over mailing lists. so
by the only tangible commodity, my time, mailing lists have definitely
won.

> I remember 8 years ago, when I stumbled across Tcl/Tk and wanted to learn
> it, I immediately started reading the newsgroup and participating. Today
> I probably would have joined a mailing list, or use a search engine when
> I have a question - does new software or interest areas even have newsgroups
> open for it?  If so why are things like egroups and sourceforge's mailing
> lists so successful?

when i first stumbled accros the ineternet, in 95 or 96 (hey, i was a late
bloomer ;)) i had a job in the morning doing internet stuff for some
company and a job at night at a computer store, and then i'd go home and
explore the internet some more. since my morning job took all of 15
minutes once i automated it using a few scripts and search engines, i used
the spare time to read a lot of usenet. of course, i used to read usenet
at home at night too. so, to remain synchronized, i mailed my newsrc file
from home to work and backwards every day.

> So I'd say that, yes, usenet has become less useful lately. People don't
> care about bandwidth anymore (Usenet's newsfeed was designed to save
> bandwidth by copying each message once!), their mail servers have 24/7
> connections (rather then having the NNTP connection innitiate a UUCP
> transfer once in a while, like in the good-old-days), so mailing lists have
> become a very viable solution. People have mail filters, and subscribe to
> dozens of mailing lists (I subscribe to about 50, of varying degrees of
> busyness). Mailing lists are better managed, and offer more sense of
> community, at least nowadays when most of the usenet readers are either
> spammers or search engine robots - few people will actually stick around
> the newsgroup to hear an answer to their question, and see other frequently
> asked questions, and that sucks.

i beg to disagree on the last point, nadav. some usenet groups, just like
some irc channels, have very much a thriving community. mailing lists have
a huge advantage community wise, since they are somewhat closed to begin
with- you must subscribe to post. no such restriction on most news groups
and irc channels.

> People are also more inclined to start a mailing lists (especially when free
> services like egroups are available) because it gives them some flattering
> sense of control.

we have been skirting around the main issue, imho. mailing lists are just
more comfortable, since they land directly in your inbox. 

> My current favorites:
> 
> news.admin.net-abuse.email
> alt.usage.english
> rec.humor.funny
> rec.humor.funny.reruns

ooh, alt.humour.best-of-usenet is great too. 
-- 
mulix
http://www.advogato.com/person/mulix

linux/reboot.h: #define LINUX_REBOOT_MAGIC1 0xfee1dead


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