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It was because of people, not the medium. Usenet was a great place for discussions, especially (but not only) on technical topics, by and for relatively compet

It was because of people, not the medium. Usenet was a great place for discussions, especially (but not only) on technical topics, by and for relatively competent people - at the beginning most people using it were from the academia. At some point (around AOL?) the inflow of newbies completely broke that paradigm. Mind you, newsgroups had their dark aspects, too. Some binary groups had contents you'd prefer not to see - simply because the public at large was not really aware NNTP exists.

Multicomp 5y ago
> At some point (around AOL?) the inflow of newbies completely broke that paradigm. That event was called Eternal September, and netiquette has never been the same, or so I am told.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  Kids these days have no respect for saving bandwidth with their inane top posting.
sp332 5y ago
Yeah, when AOL allowed Usenet access.
globular-toast 5y ago
I think it's a bit of both. Most people under 30 have only known the type of email emitted by Microsoft products, Gmail, spammers and retailers etc. To these people, bottom-quoting is the only option that exists (mail readers like Gmail will hide your message from them if you attempt to do top or inline/correct/sane quoting)). HTML mail is normal and expected. Proprietary attachments with "invitations" and the like is normal and expected. It's just a completely different thing to what those users were using back then. Mailing lists work because they work best with old-fashioned email. Old-fashioned email just works better. It requires a certain level of training to use properly (e.g. how to do inline quoting etc.). This is a good thing. But people seem reluctant to learn skills as an adult, especially when it comes to IT. More importantly, mailing lists rely on etiquette (netiquette) to function well. This is essential for any interactions between responsible adults. But nowadays people have been trained to expect coded rules. They are used to operating in a playpen where they can test the boundaries with no consequences, like children. Discord is just the latest regression in a long line of distilling what it means to have discourse into a few easily managed rules. It's ironic because, on the face of it, Discord with its huge array of "stickers", "emojis" and "fun" attachments etc. seems like it should be more expressive and allow for deeper discussion. But, in fact, by pushing aside language, etiquette and training in favour of emojis, canned phrases, and strict rules we get shallow, repetitive, and, frankly, boring exchanges. Great for mindless drones to do bullshit jobs, I'm sure. Bad for deep and enlightening discussion and debate.
- speed_spread 5y ago
  I find plain mailing lists to be less search-friendly. They're fine if you're an active participant but IMO need to be complemented with a proper web facade for passive consultation of past issues, design decisions, etc.
  - minusf 5y ago
    really depends on the mailing list software. unfortunately there is basically google grouops and/or mailman2/mailman3. for self hosting there isn't even a choice at all: mailing lists suffer even more from what forums suffer as well: little software choice that ticks all the boxes for different people with different needs. however the real (search) power of the mailing lists is of course that you have the mails locally for the lists where you are subscribed to... i remember forum searches becoming so heavy, site wide search forms had to be hidden behind sign up walls... and it was mostly poor keywords search, forget about full text. with local emails at least i get a shot at organizing and searching for it. try saving a local copy of a forum thread...
  - layer8 5y ago
    The traditional way as a mailing list subscriber is to automatically filter incoming messages of each mailing list into a dedicated folder, which builds you an archive from when you first joined. In addition, mailing list servers (at least used to) provide zip archives of messages by month/year in mbox format that you can import into your local folder. When that wasn’t available, I sometimes asked long-time subscribers for a copy of their archive. The benefit is that you are not dependent on whatever search tooling the list server provides, but can use the email client of your choice, and you still have the archive in case the list server shuts down.
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  > More importantly, mailing lists rely on etiquette (netiquette) to function well. This is essential for any interactions between responsible adults. But nowadays people have been trained to expect coded rules. They are used to operating in a playpen where they can test the boundaries with no consequences, like children I think netiquette breaks down the moment you have a diverse group of participants. (Early Usenet) and (Fidonet) were comprised of very knowledgeable participants of very similar cultural milleus. Usenet was mostly scholarly, young, white, and male (the standard demographic of academics at the time, I'm not trying to insinuate anything more than that), and Fidonet was more diverse because it was less tied to academia but was also very specific. That's not to say something like netiquette couldn't be enforced, but I also think it's correlation and not causation that early Usenet and Fidonet had meaningful conversations; I've been in Discord/Matrix rooms with mostly highly educated people with similar outlooks on life and they rarely require moderation, even with varying strong opinions. > Discord is just the latest regression in a long line of distilling what it means to have discourse into a few easily managed rules. It's ironic because, on the face of it, Discord with its huge array of "stickers", "emojis" and "fun" attachments etc. seems like it should be more expressive and allow for deeper discussion. But, in fact, by pushing aside language, etiquette and training in favour of emojis, canned phrases, and strict rules we get shallow, repetitive, and, frankly, boring exchanges. Great for mindless drones to do bullshit jobs, I'm sure. Bad for deep and enlightening discussion and debate. This just comes off as angry and elitist. Discords are there for regular people to engage in conversations. I don't think putting up these barriers to engagement is relevant for anything other than selecting for technical trivia or ability. If you want to actually select for a good community, I agree that moderation is important, but not using technical barriers. I'm glad the internet is such that nowadays I'm not just talking to some other person who is interested in heavy metal, anime, gaming, and programming (as it was until the late-90s for the most part).
ColinWright 5y ago
As others have said, it was the "Eternal September": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September It was when the flood of incomers was large enough that the enculturation process failed.
- wyager 5y ago
  I think the enculturation model is incomplete; I think another big aspect of it is that the system’s capacity as an IQ filter diminishes. It’s easy to get 100 people together that are mostly >2stddev, but it’s basically impossible to get 10,000 people together that are mostly >2stddev. The same process has occurred on many websites. I don’t think the culture necessarily changes as much as the userbase just gets dumber.
  - BizarroLand 5y ago
    IQ doesn't have the relevance you think it does, it's basically an thinly veiled excuse to be an elitist jerk. Being technical is a pathway and IQ only identifies how fast you can travel down that pathway. Someone who started before you but who moves slower can still be far beyond you or have gone down paths to treasures you would never discover because you with your high IQ decided it was dumb.
  - exo-pla-net 5y ago
    Axiom 1: Knowledgeable and mature people are repulsed by windbags and vicious people. Axiom 2: There are vastly more windbags and vicious people than there are knowledgeable and mature people. Axiom 3: Online moderation / gatekeeping is imperfect. Axiom 4: Successful moderation depends on a few keystone people. Lemma 1: A community of knowledgeable, mature people will be under perpetual assault by entropy. The internet baseline of know-nothing gasbags and vicious, damaged people will be pounding on the gates of any community. Lemma 2: Some of the horde will bypass any gatekeeping and moderation to land blows on the knowledgeable and mature people. They'll be repulsed, and some will leave the community. Lemma 3: The keystone moderators are inevitably among the people subjected to these blows. After a serious blow or one blow too many, some will get fed up and leave, and moderation will get worse, increasing the rate of knowledgeable and mature people getting repulsed by their own community and leaving. A hole will form in the fortifications, and the barbarians will flood in, driving out everyone mature and knowledgeable. Thereom: A knowledgeable, mature online community that is open to new users will eventually collapse into the internet baseline. Corollary 1: If you're knowledgeable and mature and currently part of an open online community you love, you too will eventually get repulsed by it and leave. Enjoy it while it lasts. Corollary 2: There are several knowledgeable and mature people here on Hacker News. They're here entirely because of dang. He is our keystone, weathering the assault of the barbarians for all of our sake. When he throws in the towel, we're done.

Multicomp 5y ago

> At some point (around AOL?) the inflow of newbies completely broke that paradigm. That event was called Eternal September, and netiquette has never been the same, or so I am told.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
Kids these days have no respect for saving bandwidth with their inane top posting.

sp332 5y ago

Yeah, when AOL allowed Usenet access.

globular-toast 5y ago

I think it's a bit of both. Most people under 30 have only known the type of email emitted by Microsoft products, Gmail, spammers and retailers etc. To these people, bottom-quoting is the only option that exists (mail readers like Gmail will hide your message from them if you attempt to do top or inline/correct/sane quoting)). HTML mail is normal and expected. Proprietary attachments with "invitations" and the like is normal and expected. It's just a completely different thing to what those users were using back then. Mailing lists work because they work best with old-fashioned email. Old-fashioned email just works better. It requires a certain level of training to use properly (e.g. how to do inline quoting etc.). This is a good thing. But people seem reluctant to learn skills as an adult, especially when it comes to IT. More importantly, mailing lists rely on etiquette (netiquette) to function well. This is essential for any interactions between responsible adults. But nowadays people have been trained to expect coded rules. They are used to operating in a playpen where they can test the boundaries with no consequences, like children. Discord is just the latest regression in a long line of distilling what it means to have discourse into a few easily managed rules. It's ironic because, on the face of it, Discord with its huge array of "stickers", "emojis" and "fun" attachments etc. seems like it should be more expressive and allow for deeper discussion. But, in fact, by pushing aside language, etiquette and training in favour of emojis, canned phrases, and strict rules we get shallow, repetitive, and, frankly, boring exchanges. Great for mindless drones to do bullshit jobs, I'm sure. Bad for deep and enlightening discussion and debate.

speed_spread 5y ago
I find plain mailing lists to be less search-friendly. They're fine if you're an active participant but IMO need to be complemented with a proper web facade for passive consultation of past issues, design decisions, etc.
- minusf 5y ago
  really depends on the mailing list software. unfortunately there is basically google grouops and/or mailman2/mailman3. for self hosting there isn't even a choice at all: mailing lists suffer even more from what forums suffer as well: little software choice that ticks all the boxes for different people with different needs. however the real (search) power of the mailing lists is of course that you have the mails locally for the lists where you are subscribed to... i remember forum searches becoming so heavy, site wide search forms had to be hidden behind sign up walls... and it was mostly poor keywords search, forget about full text. with local emails at least i get a shot at organizing and searching for it. try saving a local copy of a forum thread...
- layer8 5y ago
  The traditional way as a mailing list subscriber is to automatically filter incoming messages of each mailing list into a dedicated folder, which builds you an archive from when you first joined. In addition, mailing list servers (at least used to) provide zip archives of messages by month/year in mbox format that you can import into your local folder. When that wasn’t available, I sometimes asked long-time subscribers for a copy of their archive. The benefit is that you are not dependent on whatever search tooling the list server provides, but can use the email client of your choice, and you still have the archive in case the list server shuts down.
Karrot_Kream 5y ago
> More importantly, mailing lists rely on etiquette (netiquette) to function well. This is essential for any interactions between responsible adults. But nowadays people have been trained to expect coded rules. They are used to operating in a playpen where they can test the boundaries with no consequences, like children I think netiquette breaks down the moment you have a diverse group of participants. (Early Usenet) and (Fidonet) were comprised of very knowledgeable participants of very similar cultural milleus. Usenet was mostly scholarly, young, white, and male (the standard demographic of academics at the time, I'm not trying to insinuate anything more than that), and Fidonet was more diverse because it was less tied to academia but was also very specific. That's not to say something like netiquette couldn't be enforced, but I also think it's correlation and not causation that early Usenet and Fidonet had meaningful conversations; I've been in Discord/Matrix rooms with mostly highly educated people with similar outlooks on life and they rarely require moderation, even with varying strong opinions. > Discord is just the latest regression in a long line of distilling what it means to have discourse into a few easily managed rules. It's ironic because, on the face of it, Discord with its huge array of "stickers", "emojis" and "fun" attachments etc. seems like it should be more expressive and allow for deeper discussion. But, in fact, by pushing aside language, etiquette and training in favour of emojis, canned phrases, and strict rules we get shallow, repetitive, and, frankly, boring exchanges. Great for mindless drones to do bullshit jobs, I'm sure. Bad for deep and enlightening discussion and debate. This just comes off as angry and elitist. Discords are there for regular people to engage in conversations. I don't think putting up these barriers to engagement is relevant for anything other than selecting for technical trivia or ability. If you want to actually select for a good community, I agree that moderation is important, but not using technical barriers. I'm glad the internet is such that nowadays I'm not just talking to some other person who is interested in heavy metal, anime, gaming, and programming (as it was until the late-90s for the most part).

ColinWright 5y ago

As others have said, it was the "Eternal September": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September It was when the flood of incomers was large enough that the enculturation process failed.

wyager 5y ago
I think the enculturation model is incomplete; I think another big aspect of it is that the system’s capacity as an IQ filter diminishes. It’s easy to get 100 people together that are mostly >2stddev, but it’s basically impossible to get 10,000 people together that are mostly >2stddev. The same process has occurred on many websites. I don’t think the culture necessarily changes as much as the userbase just gets dumber.
- BizarroLand 5y ago
  IQ doesn't have the relevance you think it does, it's basically an thinly veiled excuse to be an elitist jerk. Being technical is a pathway and IQ only identifies how fast you can travel down that pathway. Someone who started before you but who moves slower can still be far beyond you or have gone down paths to treasures you would never discover because you with your high IQ decided it was dumb.
- exo-pla-net 5y ago
  Axiom 1: Knowledgeable and mature people are repulsed by windbags and vicious people. Axiom 2: There are vastly more windbags and vicious people than there are knowledgeable and mature people. Axiom 3: Online moderation / gatekeeping is imperfect. Axiom 4: Successful moderation depends on a few keystone people. Lemma 1: A community of knowledgeable, mature people will be under perpetual assault by entropy. The internet baseline of know-nothing gasbags and vicious, damaged people will be pounding on the gates of any community. Lemma 2: Some of the horde will bypass any gatekeeping and moderation to land blows on the knowledgeable and mature people. They'll be repulsed, and some will leave the community. Lemma 3: The keystone moderators are inevitably among the people subjected to these blows. After a serious blow or one blow too many, some will get fed up and leave, and moderation will get worse, increasing the rate of knowledgeable and mature people getting repulsed by their own community and leaving. A hole will form in the fortifications, and the barbarians will flood in, driving out everyone mature and knowledgeable. Thereom: A knowledgeable, mature online community that is open to new users will eventually collapse into the internet baseline. Corollary 1: If you're knowledgeable and mature and currently part of an open online community you love, you too will eventually get repulsed by it and leave. Enjoy it while it lasts. Corollary 2: There are several knowledgeable and mature people here on Hacker News. They're here entirely because of dang. He is our keystone, weathering the assault of the barbarians for all of our sake. When he throws in the towel, we're done.