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Not sure I follow the argument. You're saying that Tcl programmers don't have a place on the mainstream internet? Also, I'm not sure I understand your argument

by geofft 5y ago

Not sure I follow the argument. You're saying that Tcl programmers don't have a place on the mainstream internet? Also, I'm not sure I understand your argument about NNTP and IRC. Why did NNTP became obscure and why did its accessibility and visibility shrink, when the same did not happen to IRC? Given that NNTP is distributed and open and superior to many things that are not obscure, accessible, and visible, how could such a thing have happened?

NoGravitas 5y ago
I think partly, it's that NNTP is harder to run than IRC. You need to (at minimum) set aside a substantial amount of storage space, how much depending on whether you carry binary groups, and how long you retain articles for. The other thing is that people tended to rely on their ISPs to provide NNTP service, and they started tending to drop it in the late 90s and early 2000s, and there were few/no free alternatives at the time.
- Kye 5y ago
  Yep. Compare to IRC which has always had an abundance of free servers and free clients that run on anything. You can telnet into an IRC server if you type fast enough. It's still the go-to support channel for major open source projects because of that accessibility.
jonathankoren 5y ago
My guess is spam. The way I remember it, back in the late 90s and early aughts every news group became useless due to cross posting spam. Sure spam was always a thing, but I remember groups I used to read became unreadable by the sheer number of binary files being posted. IRC could avoid this problem because it is transitory. But I think the biggest reason is that usenet is unmoderated[0], while there’s always an op on an irc channel. [0] Yes, there’re some things people try to do, but they always felt bolted on, and a bit awkward. I’m not even sure how widespread they are, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen them actually work. Then again, I’m talking about a Usenet from 25 years ago.

by geofft 5y ago

NoGravitas 5y ago

I think partly, it's that NNTP is harder to run than IRC. You need to (at minimum) set aside a substantial amount of storage space, how much depending on whether you carry binary groups, and how long you retain articles for. The other thing is that people tended to rely on their ISPs to provide NNTP service, and they started tending to drop it in the late 90s and early 2000s, and there were few/no free alternatives at the time.

Kye 5y ago
Yep. Compare to IRC which has always had an abundance of free servers and free clients that run on anything. You can telnet into an IRC server if you type fast enough. It's still the go-to support channel for major open source projects because of that accessibility.

jonathankoren 5y ago

My guess is spam. The way I remember it, back in the late 90s and early aughts every news group became useless due to cross posting spam. Sure spam was always a thing, but I remember groups I used to read became unreadable by the sheer number of binary files being posted. IRC could avoid this problem because it is transitory. But I think the biggest reason is that usenet is unmoderated[0], while there’s always an op on an irc channel. [0] Yes, there’re some things people try to do, but they always felt bolted on, and a bit awkward. I’m not even sure how widespread they are, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen them actually work. Then again, I’m talking about a Usenet from 25 years ago.