From: ivan@siamics.net   
      
   >>>>> John W Kennedy  writes:   
   >>>>> On 6/30/18 12:15 PM, Ivan Shmakov wrote:   
   >>>>> John W Kennedy  writes:   
      
   […]   
      
    >>> USENET is dead.   
      
    >> That doesn’t seem entirely true.  For example, looking through Aioe   
    >> reveals the following groups.   
      
   […]   
      
    >> Given that retention there is about four months (or so) for most of   
    >> the groups, it looks like there’re a number of groups that get   
    >> around a hundred posts a day.   
      
    >> It does not, of course, guarantee that a specific individual will   
    >> find anything of value to him- or herself among these groups.   
      
    >>> But, realistically speaking, for celebrities to communicate with   
    >>> ordinary people, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are today’s   
    >>> world, and, of those three, Twitter is, on the whole, the most   
    >>> satisfactory.   
      
    >> Personally, any communication medium that is decentralized and has   
    >> an open protocol is fine with me.  Bonus points for having a working   
    >> Emacs-based user agent (or at least one accessible via tty.)   
      
    >> AFAICT, none of the above fits these criteria.   
      
    > Unfortunately, USENET is vulnerable to months-long spam-bomb attacks,   
    > to political shutdowns based on allegations (true or not) of kiddie   
    > porn, and to increased desertion by ISPs.   
      
   	And how’s that different to any other public service, especially   
   	one operated mainly by volunteers?   
      
   	For instance, many public wikis, including those run by   
   	Wikimedia Foundation, get a fair share of spam (and other kinds   
   	of abuse), too.  It takes considerable manpower of unpaid   
   	volunteers to mitigate that.  (I know as I have been part of that.)   
      
   	That approach could made to work for Usenet, too; the technical   
   	part is already here (cf. news:news.lists.filters, for instance.)   
      
   	As for the shutdowns, there was recently an attempt to block   
   	Telegram in Russia due to allegations of it being used by   
   	terrorists.   
      
   	Finally, ISPs are irrelevant.  ISPs have increasingly abandoned   
   	email, without much ill effects, and you don’t really expect ISP   
   	to run its own search engine or host a copy of Wikipedia, right?   
      
   	That is, there’s simply no way an ISP can meaningfully compete   
   	with a free email service, a free search engine, a free   
   	encyclopedia, – or a free Usenet server, like Aioe or E-S.   
      
    > Of the thirty-odd USENET groups I’ve been following since the early   
    > 90s, whether technical, academic, or pop-culture, most have an   
    > average of less than one posting per day, and almost never rise to as   
    > many as ten unless there’s a spam attack.   
      
   	Like I said, there’s no guarantee that there would be an active   
   	group that matches a specific interest of a given individual.   
      
    > Some obscure corners may still be alive,   
      
   	I’m somewhat puzzled as to how you define ‘obscure’?   
      
    > but most people who weren’t online 10 years ago don’t even know that   
    > USENET exists, or how to use it, except via Google Groups.   
      
   	Well, I was introduced to WWW in 1998 (I think), and to Internet   
   	at large (including Usenet) the next year, so I didn’t witness   
   	that myself, yet I don’t think that apart from a few years   
   	starting with September 1993 and ending with WWW gaining   
   	prominence, Usenet was all that popular among the general public   
   	(IOW, those lacking technical background) to begin with.   
      
   --   
   FSF associate member #7257  np. To Catch a Falling Star — Forest Rain   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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