Usenet almost completely defined the Internet for many of us in the old days. In recent years, Usenet has been mostly spam (and on some sites mostly images). I am seriously considering just discontinuing it, as it’s not clear that anybody even cares. Contrary opinions are welcome.
Other than rec.aviation.soaring, I would agree. (That’s the only usenet group I’m aware of that’s not moribund and spam filled). There are others that I follow, but really, really low traffic (mostly “Is this still on”).
Cheers,
=Marcel
I’ve been trying to come up with a rational reason to disagree, and failing. I don’t think my emotional attachment to my strn score files is sufficient, and have to concede that I’ve mainly used the Google web interface for quite some time now.
I’ll miss usenet… although lately the only newsgroup I read and participate in anymore is the local newsgroup ba.food. Usenet had a good run. Other things have moved in to take its place – such as this forum, which used to be handled in the newsfeed.
Although we will no longer have a direct Usenet feed, you can get free nntp access to news.eternal-september.org. Please see instructions on this page:
I spent some time looking through a lot of Usenet newsgroups both on our old servers and on news.eternal-september.org, and sad to say found very little that was useful. There are a handful of not-spam-filled newsgroups, mostly a few moderated ones, and two or three others (including some mentioned in this thread above), but there is hardly anybody there any more.
I think even the spammers are giving up on Usenet, because if only spammers are in a newsgroup, the spam is wasted.
If however a miracle happens and Usenet manages to somehow reawaken and become useful, I will certainly consider adding it back in a selective manner.
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