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Getting a home Internet connection in 1997 I was still lucky enough to enjoy Usenet. Back then I spent the bulk of my time answering emails and Usenet posts, ra
by vascocosta 7y ago
Getting a home Internet connection in 1997 I was still lucky enough to enjoy Usenet. Back then I spent the bulk of my time answering emails and Usenet posts, rather than surfing the web or gopher space. The almost identical interface shared by email and Usenet was what truly captivated me.
Usenet was also great due to it's subscription model with a pull paradigm. Instead of getting all emails in a mailing list pushed to you, you could pull only a selection of newsgroups and messages to read, depending on your mood. I loved this way of interacting with people in the nineties.
Like already mentioned, Usenet promoted thoughtful answers, as opposed to quick superficial answers like on IRC. I spent a lot of time on the latter, nevertheless Usenet was where I learnt critical thinking and massively improved my English. Thank you for that, rec.autos.sport.f1, a newsgroup which is still active by the way.
Having gone through a reasonable amount of Internet eras, IMHO the main roadblock to a perfect community, no matter which protocol is used, will always be an elevated number of users. Thus, a possible solution is to have more communities with less users.
- mmcgaha 7y agoI couldn't agree more; In the 90s, my main internet usage was lurking various news groups. Everything that I wanted was on usenet. I could get answers to programming questions, tech support, source code, software, quality images, and plenty of reading material. I am not sure when my net habits changed, but I was still setting up leafnode as late as 2003.
- vascocosta 7y agoIndeed. I forgot to mention what you just did. Usenet, despite its distributed/federated technical nature, which made the network extremely resilient, centralised the way we searched for information on all sort of different topics. There was no need to use dozens of different protocols or visit different websites. I remember I had my newsgroups grouped by topic like programming, operating systems, science, sports and so on.
- beezle 7y agoBack in the day...guess around 91 or 92... I was taking a full feed from UUNET using a Trailblazer modem. Clearly had to drop the binaries not long after but kept the rest until around 97 when a local ISP emerged that also had access to a feed. Memory lane!