S
Simon Brooke
Guest
in message <[email protected]>, Sniper805
(L96A1) ('[email protected]') 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.
--
[email protected] (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
(L96A1) ('[email protected]') 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.
--
[email protected] (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