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The nostalgia that this makes me feel is unbelievable. Some things about old Usenet are probably lost forever: 1. The feeling that "this matters". Usenet wasn'

The nostalgia that this makes me feel is unbelievable. Some things about old Usenet are probably lost forever: 1. The feeling that "this matters". Usenet wasn't just one discussion forum among millions, it was The One. 2. The life of the mind - the all-text nature of the old Usenet was somehow incredibly conductive to treating people as pure intellects. "On Usenet, it doesn't matter if you're a dog." Somehow even forums like HN don't capture that feeling today. Also, a decent newsreader is still ahead of all modern browser-based software by a mile when it comes to following many discussion threads. For me, nothing today compares with trn. Yeah, I know Usenet is still out there, and I can even be found there sometimes, but it's not the same feeling anymore, not of intellectual wonder and horizons and of being a pioneer. Probably, that's hard to explain to the youngsters who weren't there - wow, the internet has produced its crop of old-timers.

beej71 15y ago
> Also, a decent newsreader is still ahead of all modern browser-based software by a mile when it comes to following many discussion threads. For me, nothing today compares with trn. You're far from the only one who feels this way. I'm not quite sure why it is, but I think it's because trn's tree is basically drawn "orthogonally" (if I might use that word), with siblings stacked vertically, and children moving off to the right. A "normal" newsreader uses the standard indented list, which gives the whole thread a "meandering set of diagonals" shape, and has a less strong visual connection between siblings (which is an important connection, because they're all replying to the same parent.) So I was just looking for a screenshot of trn for people who didn't know what it looked like, and I found this blog entry talking about exactly this (with screenshot): http://cafbit.com/entry/the_lost_art_of_threaded http://cafbit.com/entry/the_lost_art_of_threaded
- yaakov34 15y ago
  Yeah, but it's by no means just that. I was thinking of the simplest things, like messages you've read not showing up again (unless asked for), using a single key to advance to the next message, pressing a key to mark a thread read. The advanced threading and killfile features were great, of course, but the web interface is just so fantastically less convenient for basic stuff - it's unbelievable. Imagine going to the HN front page, clicking on all the threads you're not going to follow and marking them read or killed (meaning they don't show up again), and then clicking on the threads you want brings you to the last UNREAD messages in those threads. And you press space to go the next unread message. Imagine all forums being like that. Give me that, and I don't care if you give me a vertical or a horizontal tree display (tho' I prefer the trn way). It seems so simple that I almost can't believe I'm not missing something subtle.
  - joe_bleau 15y ago
    Exactly! Even HN (one of the best web forums, IMO), is still clunky compared to usenet. Usenet made it so easy and efficient to follow topics you were interested in while ignoring the crap. I think I'd be willing to give up the ability to upvote comments/submissions in exchange for a good usenet interface to HN.
    - Natsu 15y ago
      > I think I'd be willing to give up the ability to upvote comments/submissions in exchange for a good usenet interface to HN. Given that this is HN. I wonder how long before someone implements something like that for fun.
  - btilly 15y ago
    The simple things that you're describing are all in gmail.
    - swaits 15y ago
      Not really, no.
      - btilly 15y ago
        Read http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6594 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6594 and then tell me which of the simple described features are not in gmail. Be specific so that I can be specific in explaining how it is, in fact, present. (Do remember that gmail's keyboard shortcuts were designed by people who had used Usenet extensively.)
        foobarqux 15y ago
        How about "T K" (mark current message and children as read) and "A T" (go up-thread to original post) in gnus. If your claim is that Gmail implements most of the "simple" features present in powerful news-readers then it is manifestly absurd.
- carmen 15y ago
  a structure of a thread is informative in itself http://joey.kitenet.net/blog/entry/thread_patterns/ http://joey.kitenet.net/blog/entry/thread_patterns/ or a somewhat modernized take http://blog.whats-your.name/post/2011/06/02/pas-de-titre http://blog.whats-your.name/post/2011/06/02/pas-de-titre
- patrickgzill 15y ago
  Sounds like a weekend project - adapt trn style reading to something that scrapes HN and keeps track for the user of all those things... heck I would pay $5/month for such a webapp.
  - jacques_chester 15y ago
    I remember folk writing such apps for Slashdot. Since 1997 we've known that HTTP+HTML is the worst way to achieve any task online. It is, however, the most popular.
- gwern 15y ago
  Wow, that links is interesting. I used to do a bit of Usenet in the early 2000s - some groups are still alive - and while I'd heard of trn, I didn't know that it did anything special. The screenshot dispels my ignorance.
kahawe 15y ago
I think one part of this can be attributed to the average Internet/Usenet users back then and typical Internet users of today and to the huge difference in numbers.

beej71 15y ago

> Also, a decent newsreader is still ahead of all modern browser-based software by a mile when it comes to following many discussion threads. For me, nothing today compares with trn. You're far from the only one who feels this way. I'm not quite sure why it is, but I think it's because trn's tree is basically drawn "orthogonally" (if I might use that word), with siblings stacked vertically, and children moving off to the right. A "normal" newsreader uses the standard indented list, which gives the whole thread a "meandering set of diagonals" shape, and has a less strong visual connection between siblings (which is an important connection, because they're all replying to the same parent.) So I was just looking for a screenshot of trn for people who didn't know what it looked like, and I found this blog entry talking about exactly this (with screenshot): http://cafbit.com/entry/the_lost_art_of_threaded http://cafbit.com/entry/the_lost_art_of_threaded

yaakov34 15y ago
Yeah, but it's by no means just that. I was thinking of the simplest things, like messages you've read not showing up again (unless asked for), using a single key to advance to the next message, pressing a key to mark a thread read. The advanced threading and killfile features were great, of course, but the web interface is just so fantastically less convenient for basic stuff - it's unbelievable. Imagine going to the HN front page, clicking on all the threads you're not going to follow and marking them read or killed (meaning they don't show up again), and then clicking on the threads you want brings you to the last UNREAD messages in those threads. And you press space to go the next unread message. Imagine all forums being like that. Give me that, and I don't care if you give me a vertical or a horizontal tree display (tho' I prefer the trn way). It seems so simple that I almost can't believe I'm not missing something subtle.
- joe_bleau 15y ago
  Exactly! Even HN (one of the best web forums, IMO), is still clunky compared to usenet. Usenet made it so easy and efficient to follow topics you were interested in while ignoring the crap. I think I'd be willing to give up the ability to upvote comments/submissions in exchange for a good usenet interface to HN.
  - Natsu 15y ago
    > I think I'd be willing to give up the ability to upvote comments/submissions in exchange for a good usenet interface to HN. Given that this is HN. I wonder how long before someone implements something like that for fun.
- btilly 15y ago
  The simple things that you're describing are all in gmail.
  - swaits 15y ago
    Not really, no.
    - btilly 15y ago
      Read http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6594 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6594 and then tell me which of the simple described features are not in gmail. Be specific so that I can be specific in explaining how it is, in fact, present. (Do remember that gmail's keyboard shortcuts were designed by people who had used Usenet extensively.)
      - foobarqux 15y ago
        How about "T K" (mark current message and children as read) and "A T" (go up-thread to original post) in gnus. If your claim is that Gmail implements most of the "simple" features present in powerful news-readers then it is manifestly absurd.
carmen 15y ago
a structure of a thread is informative in itself http://joey.kitenet.net/blog/entry/thread_patterns/ http://joey.kitenet.net/blog/entry/thread_patterns/ or a somewhat modernized take http://blog.whats-your.name/post/2011/06/02/pas-de-titre http://blog.whats-your.name/post/2011/06/02/pas-de-titre
patrickgzill 15y ago
Sounds like a weekend project - adapt trn style reading to something that scrapes HN and keeps track for the user of all those things... heck I would pay $5/month for such a webapp.
- jacques_chester 15y ago
  I remember folk writing such apps for Slashdot. Since 1997 we've known that HTTP+HTML is the worst way to achieve any task online. It is, however, the most popular.
gwern 15y ago
Wow, that links is interesting. I used to do a bit of Usenet in the early 2000s - some groups are still alive - and while I'd heard of trn, I didn't know that it did anything special. The screenshot dispels my ignorance.

kahawe 15y ago

I think one part of this can be attributed to the average Internet/Usenet users back then and typical Internet users of today and to the huge difference in numbers.