Topic drift: The death of Usenet

[Sam Trenholme]

> Drifting quite off-topic here... but missing usenet myself, I wonder if
> anyone knows of something "nearly as good as" ? And please, no
> webforums or facebook.

Well, to answer that question, I would have to know what it is you
like about Usenet more than, say, PhpBB or Facebook.  When I was
saying goodbye to Usenet this week, I asked on rec.audio.pro about why
it is they weren't using a web forum which covers the same topic.

People liked the ability to read and post offline (one great strength
which no web forum has today); people like the threading a good
newsreader does; people like not having to see postings they have
already read again; and blind people like the accessibility of Usenet.

I think what most people want out of Usenet can be done with something
like PhpBB with NNTP support.  You connect to the server on port 119,
it looks like a NNTP server.  The server has a "text" hierarchy for
people who don't want any HTML (it converts the postings to/from ASCII
text), and a "html" or "ubb" hierarchy for people who want to
read/post rich text/HTML/whatever via NNTP.

There are advantages to this over Usenet: Post-moderation; the owner
of the board can remove the spam, trolls, and flamers.  (I would also
require registration to access the NNTP server) A web interface that
is more friendly and modern (and can be used from an average
smartphone, unlike Usenet, which requires 80 columns) for most users.

I don't think Usenet's way of propagating "articles" (postings) makes
sense today; it's a solution to a problem that no longer exists.  I
think a web forum with a NNTP backend would satisfy the needs of those
who want the flavor of Usenet again.  These do exist, but I can't
think of an open-source one.

A final thought: I think Usenet would not have died if Usenet had
embraced instead of shunned HTML during the dot-com expansion, and if
a solution to runaway flamewars had been found (probably by
implementing a form of after-the-fact moderation).

- Sam