We're all Dinosaurs

[Not Responding]

Yesterday I met some internet people in RL. It was a ride put together
by someone on the C+ web forum.

It was all good fun. But I was struck by how this new generation of
internet users have almost no knowledge of usenet. I've been using
usenet for years; I like the relatively open and non-proprietorial
structure. I even grudgingly tolerate deja style archiving as it
creates a truely open and searchable cache of knowledge.

It appears that however much I dislike web forums, they do seem to be
taking over as the internet discussion tool.

John Mallard

[Not Responding] wrote:
[...]
> But I was struck by how this new generation of
> internet users have almost no knowledge of usenet.
[...]

Shh! Don't tell them we're here. ;-)

> It appears that however much I dislike web forums, they do seem to be
> taking over as the internet discussion tool.

Ah, usenet. The Radio Four of internet discussion tools.

--
Cheerful Pedalling
John Mallard

Paul - xxx

[Not Responding] vaguely muttered something like ...
> Yesterday I met some internet people in RL. It was a ride put together
> by someone on the C+ web forum.
>
> It was all good fun. But I was struck by how this new generation of
> internet users have almost no knowledge of usenet. I've been using
> usenet for years; I like the relatively open and non-proprietorial
> structure. I even grudgingly tolerate deja style archiving as it
> creates a truely open and searchable cache of knowledge.
>
> It appears that however much I dislike web forums, they do seem to be
> taking over as the internet discussion tool.

From what I've seen of 'forums' they are mostly a victory of style over
function and content. There _are_ some good ones out there, specialist
forums that cater for very particular niches that might not be tolerated or
be OT in many newsgroups but without the traffic to sustain themselves
without trolls and spammers moving in. One major problem I have with them
is the need, in many I've seen, for moderators and the general time-lag
betweeen posting and appearance of an article. This alone can create some
weird threads, if you can call them threads

OTOH, if newcomers to computing and the Internet like them ...

I guess a lot depends upon the base aplication for the web forum too, though
...

--
Paul ...
http://www.4x4prejudice.org/index.php
"A tosser is a tosser, no matter what mode of transport they're using."
(8(|) Homer Rules !!!

Nick Kew

In article <41bc1c37$1_2@mk-nntp-1.news.uk.worldonline.com>,
"John Mallard" <not_me@all> writes:

>> It appears that however much I dislike web forums, they do seem to be
>> taking over as the internet discussion tool.

Different purposes and functions. It's worse when people try to
emulate IRC in the Web.

>> It appears that however much I dislike web forums, they do seem to be
>> taking over as the internet discussion tool.

Enclosure of the Commons?

> Ah, usenet. The Radio Four of internet discussion tools.

ROTFL! That's .sig material.

--
Nick Kew

Tony Raven

John Mallard wrote:
>
> Shh! Don't tell them we're here. ;-)
>

Too late, we've already been found by Cyclingforums

Tony

Sniper8052(L96A1)

John Mallard wrote:
> [Not Responding] wrote:
> [...]
>
>>But I was struck by how this new generation of
>>internet users have almost no knowledge of usenet.
>
> [...]
>
> Shh! Don't tell them we're here. ;-)
>
>
>>It appears that however much I dislike web forums, they do seem to be
>>taking over as the internet discussion tool.
>
>
> Ah, usenet. The Radio Four of internet discussion tools.
>

I thought I had dragged myself into the 21st century, now you say
there's another way to talk to people. What's the difference between a
usenet group and a web forum?

Sniper8052

David Hansen

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 10:32:26 -0000 someone who may be "Paul - xxx"
<notcheckedever@hotmail.com> wrote this:-

>There _are_ some good ones out there, specialist
>forums that cater for very particular niches that might not be tolerated or
>be OT in many newsgroups

Indeed. I lurk in one.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me by using the RIP Act 2000.

Simon Brooke

in message <423or0lcol7rbpv3br1tp5ebav7rubo18n@4ax.com>, [Not
Responding] ('not_responding@dev.null.invalid') wrote:

> Yesterday I met some internet people in RL. It was a ride put together
> by someone on the C+ web forum.
>
> It was all good fun. But I was struck by how this new generation of
> internet users have almost no knowledge of usenet.

True. New Internet users are not now introduced to Usenet, and when they
do try it it looks clunky and old fashioned to them. Of course, it is
clunky and old fashioned - but it also works extremely well, and I
honestly don't know of any 'web forum' system which works (and scales)
anything like as well.

So, frankly, I'm happy to remain a dinosaur.

--
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; When your hammer is C++, everything begins to look like a thumb.

Simon Brooke

in message <PrWud.12679$qr4.3082@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk>, Sniper805
(L96A1) ('sniper8052@yahoo.co.uk') wrote:

> John Mallard wrote:
>> [Not Responding] wrote:
>> [...]
>>
>>>But I was struck by how this new generation of
>>>internet users have almost no knowledge of usenet.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> Shh! Don't tell them we're here. ;-)
>>
>>>It appears that however much I dislike web forums, they do seem to be
>>>taking over as the internet discussion tool.
>>
>> Ah, usenet. The Radio Four of internet discussion tools.
>>
> I thought I had dragged myself into the 21st century, now you say
> there's another way to talk to people. What's the difference between
> a usenet group and a web forum?

Usenet is ancient, vast, public, decentralised, flexible, anarchic,
highly efficient in its use of network resources, and allows highly
sophisticated filtering of messages (you shouldn't ever get offered a
message you've seen before, for example, even if it was also posted to
another group you read; you can choose to highlight or wholly ignore
posts based on a wide range of criteria; and so on). You can choose
from a variety of tools to interact with Usenet through a user
interface which suits you. The 'problem' with Usenet is that although
it is cheap to run, no-one has found any way of making money out of it.

Web forums are newer, small, insular, individually centralised,
inflexible, policed, highly inefficient in use of network resources;
few allow any filtering of messages, and those that do allow only
limited filtering; and you can only interact with a web forum through
its own user interface, which is inevitably different to every other
forums user interface.

--
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
"The result is a language that... not even its mother could
love. Like the camel, Common Lisp is a horse designed by
committee. Camels do have their uses."
;; Scott Fahlman, 7 March 1995

Simon Brooke

in message <87lt82-lu.ln1@hugin.webthing.com>, Nick Kew
('nick@hugin.webthing.com') wrote:

>>> It appears that however much I dislike web forums, they do seem to
>>> be taking over as the internet discussion tool.
>
> Enclosure of the Commons?

Precisely.

--
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

IMHO, there aren't enough committed Christians, but that's care
in the community for you. -- Ben Evans

Tony Raven

Simon Brooke wrote:
>
> True. New Internet users are not now introduced to Usenet, and when they
> do try it it looks clunky and old fashioned to them. Of course, it is
> clunky and old fashioned - but it also works extremely well, and I
> honestly don't know of any 'web forum' system which works (and scales)
> anything like as well.
>

I find it far from clunky and old fashioned (maybe that says something
about me). I hate reading e-mails through a web interface, preferring a
good e-mail programme like Thunderbird to read my e-mails and reading
Usenet in it is just like reading e-mails. I can download everything to
my laptop and browse, search and read everything off-line on the train,
plane or just sat around.

Tony

MSeries

[Not Responding] wrote:
> Yesterday I met some internet people in RL. It was a ride put together
> by someone on the C+ web forum.
>
> It was all good fun. But I was struck by how this new generation of
> internet users have almost no knowledge of usenet. I've been using
> usenet for years; I like the relatively open and non-proprietorial
> structure. I even grudgingly tolerate deja style archiving as it
> creates a truely open and searchable cache of knowledge.
>
> It appears that however much I dislike web forums, they do seem to be
> taking over as the internet discussion tool.

So why do you C+ forum then ? What is your point ? That everyone should
be using usenet instead of web forums ? While I agree that it would
indeed serve the same purpose, especially as the C+ forum with no
graphics I'd like to suggest a possible reason why usenet isn't used
more widely. Not everyone uses an mail/new client. Not everyone is able
nor wants to install such a beast on their machines. Look at the flack
people, including myself, have recieved on here when attempting to use a
browser interface to u.r.c. . Google groups access is delayed makingit
useless, GG 2 is quirky, intermitent and doesn't follow the rules.
Cycclingforums is highly frowned upon. Is it any wonder that people
don't bother using usenet for this group ?

Just zis Guy, you know?

Simon Brooke <simon@jasmine.org.uk> wrote:

> Usenet is ancient, vast, public, decentralised, flexible, anarchic,
> highly efficient in its use of network resources, and allows highly
> sophisticated filtering of messages (you shouldn't ever get offered a
> message you've seen before, for example, even if it was also posted to
> another group you read; you can choose to highlight or wholly ignore
> posts based on a wide range of criteria; and so on). You can choose
> from a variety of tools to interact with Usenet through a user
> interface which suits you. The 'problem' with Usenet is that although
> it is cheap to run, no-one has found any way of making money out of it.
> Web forums are newer, small, insular, individually centralised,
> inflexible, policed, highly inefficient in use of network resources;
> few allow any filtering of messages, and those that do allow only
> limited filtering; and you can only interact with a web forum through
> its own user interface, which is inevitably different to every other
> forums user interface.

But /apart/ from that, what have the Romans ever done for us?

--
Guy

Just zis Guy, you know?

Sniper8052(L96A1) <sniper8052@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> What's the difference between a
> usenet group and a web forum?

One advantage is that you can use a free choice of lightweight clients
to present the newsgroups of your choice in a common, usually highly
configurable interface. Kill-filters, crosspost filtering, decent
support for proper interleaved quoting and so on - all these are
collateral benefits.

The biggest drawback of web forums is you have to visit them each in
turn. Also, few of them follow the threading model particularly well.

--
Guy