Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Internet Newsgroups

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Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 06-18-2008, 07:18 PM:

I'm thinking the 'classic' newsgroups are pretty much dead. Is that true? The spam level was so high, and the time the hosting companies would keep messages so short, it seems like they are gone. Is rec.movies.arts.movies.tech still there?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-18-2008, 08:50 PM:

I hope so.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-18-2008, 08:55 PM:

Hope what? That classic newsgroups are dead or if the movies.tech ng is still around?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-18-2008, 09:33 PM:

I was answering the question that the thread title asked.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 06-18-2008, 09:45 PM:

What's a newsgroup?

Really, I never did get into that whole thing. It was too BBS-ey for me. I much preferred websites.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 06-19-2008, 12:00 AM:

Kinda when I started into computers in the early 90's and found the internet with the blazing speeds of 2400kbs using a USRobotics external modem...and subscribing to the BBS services.

Tons of info out there in these services.

Then, with Windows coming around, the newsgroups really popped up and tons of info left the BBS and over to here.

Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 06-19-2008, 01:19 AM:

I was cruzin the local BBSes at a blazingly fast 1200 baud modem on my Commodore 64c. I had a 40 column terminal program, and a cutting edge 80 column terminal program, though it was less compatible, and a bigger pain in the ass. Had some good fun in those days, especially since some of the security protocols didn't work correctly on the C64, so sometimes I had admin privaleges when I shouldn't, no hacking necessary. I never really did take much advantage of that. Just changed some people's profiles a little to make them silly.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-19-2008, 08:21 AM:

Newsgroups haven't gone anywhere. Unfortunately, though, most ISP newsfeeds suck badly and miss large numbers of messages and/or don't carry all groups. If your ISP has a poor quality feed, then you will need to either change ISPs or get an account with a third-party news service (e.g. Supernews).

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 06-19-2008, 09:52 PM:

They haven't gone anywhere - except almost nobody is looking for them. And they're still a nightmare mess of spam and crap, except for moderated groups which are 1: Rare, and 2: Dead (almost all moderated groups have no active moderator so nothing gets posted). You can still find a lot of active binary groups but fewer and fewer ISPs even have NNTP access any more and a service with binary groups costs a fair penny... so pirate bay or other torrent trackers make more sense to get bimary stuff.
It won't completely die but should, like IRC, fade down to near nothing.

Posted by Blaine Young (Member # 3992) on 06-19-2008, 11:54 PM:

My ISP dropped thier newsgroup server and access to groups completely...

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-20-2008, 09:56 AM:

The binary groups were always a stupid way of distributing files once FTP became common. When most people only had UUCP access, it might have made sense to send copies of binary files to every news server, but that day is long past (for the most part) and there are email-to-ftp gateways that can bridge that gap.

The text-only discussion groups continue to be valuable and interesting, although the signal-to-noise ratio varies widely. Spam isn't really a problem at sites with good newsfeeds and anti-spam software installed to cancel excessive crossposts and multi-posts.

News service is important and I am sorry to hear that ISPs are dropping it or reducing their services. Web forums (fora?) are fine, but I really prefer the usenet interface, which is more flexible (try reading a web forum offline!) and consistant for all groups.

Is IRC dying? What (if anything) has replaced it? I haven't paid attention to it for years, but I wasted a lot of time on IRC at one point.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 06-20-2008, 11:16 PM:

Scott, I think the various "Instant Messengers" have taken a good deal of the chat activity.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-22-2008, 10:24 AM:

quote: Tim Reed
What's a newsgroup?

Really, I never did get into that whole thing. It was too BBS-ey for me. I much preferred websites.

But Tim... You'd have fit right in! You're the king of BSS'ers!

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 06-22-2008, 10:33 AM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
But Tim... You'd have fit right in! You're the king of BSS'ers

Talk about the Pot calling the kettle black.....

Anyway...give "Google Groups" a try. I think it is http://groups.google.com

Steve