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> USENET is another one, but well out of favor. Fact is, someone could spiff USENET up and it could very easily come back. Fwiw this does seem to work pretty w

by e12e 6y ago

> USENET is another one, but well out of favor. Fact is, someone could spiff USENET up and it could very easily come back. Fwiw this does seem to work pretty well: https://forum.dlang.org/help https://forum.dlang.org/help > About > This website is powered by DFeed, an NNTP / mailing list web frontend / forum software, news aggregator and IRC bot. DFeed was written mostly by Vladimir Panteleev. The source code is available under the GNU Affero General Public License on GitHub: https://github.com/CyberShadow/DFeed https://github.com/CyberShadow/DFeed > This DFeed instance (forum.dlang.org) is a frontend to the DigitalMars NNTP server and mailing lists. Portions of the web interface (including style and graphics) are Copyright © by Digital Mars. I've looked at dfeed a couple of times, but it seems just a little bit convoluted to set up - and I wouldn't really want an irc integration. But the web forum is snappy and the NNTP integration seems like a great idea.

criddell 6y ago
I think sites like Reddit are the modern version of Usenet. The subreddits aren't hierarchical, but I'm not sure that matters. The clear problem with that is the lack of federation, but I don't think users generally care about that.
- e12e 6y ago
  > I think sites like Reddit are the modern version of Usenet. Closed, propiatary, with separate ux/client for every silo? They are not usenet in any meaningful way. They're more like bbs forums in a world were there was no improvements made, and the internet never happened. The only thing (most) have, is that for traffic purposes they allow spiders like Google and Bing to enable federated search. But there are variants like Instagram that allow search, but force login - and things like Facebook groups, that are opaque. The ux of most forums (including hn) is terrible. HNs one saving grâce is that it's simple (as it should be). I don't mean to jump on you; I get that things like reddit is a place were all people can exchange messages - but I don't think that makes it modern usenet. Just like mailing lists were/are not usenet.
  - ddingus 6y ago
    The UX here is excellent! Threaded discussion is best done simple, and that is what we have.
    - e12e 6y ago
      Hehe, I am a fan of hn, but it's very bare bones compared to something like mutt or (al)pine. That said, there's a couple of decades of horrible web platforms from nuke/phpbb thorough reddit and Twitter. It's not exactly high price to be "not as stupid" as all the the ones taking pride in their convoluted stupidity...
      - ddingus 6y ago
        Bare bones does not mean a poor UX. What we have here is dead simple, works great, very lean, effective. All excellent. We could have more and that may or may not trend toward excellent.
  - criddell 6y ago
    I say it's the modern version of Usenet because anybody can create a subreddit and as a result a group exists for just about everything you can think of. Compare the process of creating a new subreddit to the process for creating a non-alt newsgroup[1]. In some ways, Reddit is arguably more open than Usenet. The defining characteristics of Usenet was not the license or client (IMHO the UX of most NNTP clients was pretty terrible for casual users) but the content. There was a group for everything that anybody could access as long as their ISP provided access. If you asked me if there was some place on the internet that had a discussion group for everything I'd probably say Reddit is the closest thing. All you need is a connection to the internet and a browser and you can start reading. Posting requires an account but they are free. I agree with you that forums, BBS message boards and mailing lists are nothing like Usenet. [1]: https://www.savetz.com/yic/YIC05FI_26.html https://www.savetz.com/yic/YIC05FI_26.html

by e12e 6y ago

criddell 6y ago

I think sites like Reddit are the modern version of Usenet. The subreddits aren't hierarchical, but I'm not sure that matters. The clear problem with that is the lack of federation, but I don't think users generally care about that.

e12e 6y ago
> I think sites like Reddit are the modern version of Usenet. Closed, propiatary, with separate ux/client for every silo? They are not usenet in any meaningful way. They're more like bbs forums in a world were there was no improvements made, and the internet never happened. The only thing (most) have, is that for traffic purposes they allow spiders like Google and Bing to enable federated search. But there are variants like Instagram that allow search, but force login - and things like Facebook groups, that are opaque. The ux of most forums (including hn) is terrible. HNs one saving grâce is that it's simple (as it should be). I don't mean to jump on you; I get that things like reddit is a place were all people can exchange messages - but I don't think that makes it modern usenet. Just like mailing lists were/are not usenet.
- ddingus 6y ago
  The UX here is excellent! Threaded discussion is best done simple, and that is what we have.
  - e12e 6y ago
    Hehe, I am a fan of hn, but it's very bare bones compared to something like mutt or (al)pine. That said, there's a couple of decades of horrible web platforms from nuke/phpbb thorough reddit and Twitter. It's not exactly high price to be "not as stupid" as all the the ones taking pride in their convoluted stupidity...
    - ddingus 6y ago
      Bare bones does not mean a poor UX. What we have here is dead simple, works great, very lean, effective. All excellent. We could have more and that may or may not trend toward excellent.
- criddell 6y ago
  I say it's the modern version of Usenet because anybody can create a subreddit and as a result a group exists for just about everything you can think of. Compare the process of creating a new subreddit to the process for creating a non-alt newsgroup[1]. In some ways, Reddit is arguably more open than Usenet. The defining characteristics of Usenet was not the license or client (IMHO the UX of most NNTP clients was pretty terrible for casual users) but the content. There was a group for everything that anybody could access as long as their ISP provided access. If you asked me if there was some place on the internet that had a discussion group for everything I'd probably say Reddit is the closest thing. All you need is a connection to the internet and a browser and you can start reading. Posting requires an account but they are free. I agree with you that forums, BBS message boards and mailing lists are nothing like Usenet. [1]: https://www.savetz.com/yic/YIC05FI_26.html https://www.savetz.com/yic/YIC05FI_26.html