What is happening with Newsgroups?

Charles Carroll

10-02-2008, 11:01 PM

Dear all,

I just received a notice that my internet service provider (ISP) will
discontinue its Newsgroups service as of 25 October 2008. Comcast claims it
has seen "a decline in popularity of newsgroups as customers have chosen to
get information from other sources."

I am curious. What are these other sources? Are there other rowing
discussion groups with members comparable to rec.sport.rowing? Have I just
missed out on these? I know where to find a lot of resources on rowing, but
I don't know where to find a discussion group of this caliber.

And can anyone recommend another Newsgroups service? Comcast recommends
Giganews. Giganews' minimum 2 gigabytes service is $7.00 US a month. I
wonder if this means that Comcast will reduce my monthly bill by this
amount. I know! I know! Old Chinese gambler - Fat Chance!

Cordially,

Charles

Henry Law

10-02-2008, 11:32 PM

Charles Carroll wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I just received a notice that my internet service provider (ISP) will
> discontinue its Newsgroups service as of 25 October 2008. Comcast claims
> it has seen "a decline in popularity of newsgroups as customers have
> chosen to get information from other sources."
>
> I am curious. What are these other sources? Are there other rowing
> discussion groups with members comparable to rec.sport.rowing? Have I
> just missed out on these? I know where to find a lot of resources on
> rowing, but I don't know where to find a discussion group of this caliber.

I think the other sources are principally the so-called "Google Groups".
These are in fact the same NNTP newsgroups as you currently use, but
with a (rather lame) web front-end, which you have to be online to use.
So if I'm right it's not the groups themselves that are going away,
but the NNTP interface to them.

The whole thing is both depressing and at the same time interesting from
a social point of view. A perfectly good, efficient, high-function
system has been replaced by something much less good, for no
particularly good reason except fashion and the marketing muscle of
Google, who from the very first pretended that they'd invented "groups"
and ignored all other ways of reading them.

--

Henry Law Manchester, England

Ted van de Weteringe

10-02-2008, 11:38 PM

Charles Carroll wrote:
> I am curious. What are these other sources? Are there other rowing
> discussion groups with members comparable to rec.sport.rowing?

A Prince/Sinead O'Conner song comes to mind.

Other sources are webboards like:
http://rowingillustrated.com/boards/
http://www.talkrowing.co.uk/talkrowing/index.php?act=idx
http://www.rowersworld.com/
and 1000s of more specialised versions. I hate web boards.

> And can anyone recommend another Newsgroups service?

Don't go for Giganews et al. unless you want to download binary (as
opposed to text) files from the newsgroups: music, movies, pictures. Be
warned (informed?) that 99.9% is either porn or pirated.

A dependable text news service is http://news.individual.net/

An interim solution may be to use the web interface to rsr at
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.sport.rowing/topics Compared to
dedicated clients (even Thunderbird...) the Google website has a lot of
limitations. It's an archive foremost.

Carl Douglas

10-03-2008, 01:07 AM

Ted van de Weteringe wrote:
> Charles Carroll wrote:
>> I am curious. What are these other sources? Are there other rowing
>> discussion groups with members comparable to rec.sport.rowing?
>
> A Prince/Sinead O'Conner song comes to mind.
>
> Other sources are webboards like:
> http://rowingillustrated.com/boards/
> http://www.talkrowing.co.uk/talkrowing/index.php?act=idx
> http://www.rowersworld.com/
> and 1000s of more specialised versions. I hate web boards.
>
>> And can anyone recommend another Newsgroups service?
>
> Don't go for Giganews et al. unless you want to download binary (as
> opposed to text) files from the newsgroups: music, movies, pictures. Be
> warned (informed?) that 99.9% is either porn or pirated.
>
> A dependable text news service is http://news.individual.net/
>
> An interim solution may be to use the web interface to rsr at
> http://groups.google.com/group/rec.sport.rowing/topics Compared to
> dedicated clients (even Thunderbird...) the Google website has a lot of
> limitations. It's an archive foremost.

It might be the company we all keep, & the way we write, that drives the
rest away ......

More likely groups like RSR are being choked by the heaps of idiot
garbage posted by spam morons (e.g. Home Shite 18) which are not
filtered out by web-interface empire-builders like Google.

I too use news.individual.net (annual fee of EUR10 - the smart types
were onto it before they started charging) after my ISP kept "losing"
RSR & fibbing that they hadn't. But some of us do need friends to take
us through the (actually simple) steps of getting our mail & news
readers to download our Usenet choice(s). There, but only there, lies
any vestigial charm of such as Google & its "groups". Wouldn't it be
dandy if the real experts here were put up a web-page with easy
instructions so those less geeky among us could see how to set up
newsgroup access through a cheap or free services that do sift out >95%
of the spam.

Otherwise, as has been said, you're stuck with moderated boards
populated by pretentious pen-names & thoroughly twittish kiddies
shouting which of them's best.

Maybe rowers just like being corralled into organised groups, told what
they can & can't say & advertised at? Where are the freethinkers?

:(
Carl

--
Carl Douglas Racing Shells -
Fine Small-Boats/AeRoWing Low-drag Riggers/Advanced Accessories
Write: Harris Boatyard, Laleham Reach, Chertsey KT16 8RP, UK
Find: http://tinyurl.com/2tqujf
Email: carl@carldouglas.co.uk Tel: +44(0)1932-570946 Fax: -563682
URLs: www.carldouglas.co.uk (boats) & www.aerowing.co.uk (riggers)

Mike Sullivan

10-03-2008, 01:31 AM

"Carl Douglas" <carl@carldouglas.co.uk> wrote in message
news:6kl62kF8h3omU1@mid.individual.net...
> Ted van de Weteringe wrote:

snip

> It might be the company we all keep, & the way we write, that drives the
> rest away ......
>
> More likely groups like RSR are being choked by the heaps of idiot garbage
> posted by spam morons (e.g. Home Shite 18) which are not filtered out by
> web-interface empire-builders like Google.

neither, I think. We get some, but hardly any spam. I frequent a few
other
NGs too, and specific content on them has fallen off, and any site
that has a hook to current US politics has the majority of traffic covering
those issues.

newsgroups were the easiest access to be able to put any sort of
content on the internet, create any dialog. Putting out web pages
required quite a bit of overhead. It grew exponentially
with the numbers of people coming on to the internet. Remember
at one point in the late 90s, people being concerned about the
heaviness of traffic in a lot of sites. Many sites now that scorned OT
are happy to have anything now, as long as the OT are people who
generally contribute content, and don't just rail on their favorite
political topic.

People who drifted away found other venues, some sticking to email
groups as they only want periodic specific info, and youngstas don't
bother with NGs, they text each other, and all do their communication
using myspace type blogging.

I saw an interesting presentation at a MySQL conference last year.
Internet statistics show exponential increases in data storage and only
incremental increases in reads. Site admins set up now for massive
writing of files, rather than quick and easier reading. This tells me
tons of junk nobody is interested in but the person who wrote it.

maybe like this post.... :^)

10-03-2008, 05:57 PM

Charles Carroll wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I just received a notice that my internet service provider (ISP) will
> discontinue its Newsgroups service as of 25 October 2008. Comcast claims
> it has seen "a decline in popularity of newsgroups as customers have
> chosen to get information from other sources."
>
> I am curious. What are these other sources? Are there other rowing
> discussion groups with members comparable to rec.sport.rowing? Have I

There are other forums (fora for the toga set) that are similar in
topics but different in structure. These would be web-based discussion
forums such as http://www.rowersworld.com/

To say the members are "comparable" to RSR's is a stretch in some ways,
or obviously true in others. They are all rowers or interested in
rowing, after all. But RSR over the years (due to attrition) has become
a pretty insular and intolerant group (and I count myself among them).
I've tried joining in on other groups' discussions, but find that so
many of the standard myths that RSR has long ago put to rest (or tired
of discussing) are still rampant, that I quickly give up.

> just missed out on these? I know where to find a lot of resources on
> rowing, but I don't know where to find a discussion group of this caliber.
>
> And can anyone recommend another Newsgroups service? Comcast recommends

I would never pay for NNTP service, especially if you don't want to
download binaries (music, pictures, video, porn, programs/applications
(virtually all pirated)). Google groups may be flawed, but at least
it's a free way to access all the NNTP news groups.

-KC

Anne Rogers

10-03-2008, 10:59 PM

I think there are a few things going on, RSR is one of the few groups
that hasn't seen that much change in traffic and has remained amazingly
junk free. But that is both causing some things and. the consequence of
others.

10 years ago, there was pretty much only newsgroups, it was how people
talked on the internet, there was a relatively small community of techy
people, as the internet expanded so did the number of people wanting to
use discussion type forums, broad band internet was increasing in
availability, computers were coming down in price, the number of hosts,
space available and bandwidth climbed fast and a new phenomena emerged,
message boards. They were accessible with your web browser, required no
special set up or account.

Some nabbed material from newsgroups, but many new boards were born and
many many users only used them, not newsgroups, people who used both
mostly drifted to them and stopped posting on newsgroups.

Meanwhile spam increased, newsgroups no longer felt safe, compared to a
message board which usually had a moderator and could block posters easily.

Personally I've seen major changes in some groups I was part of, back in
2002/2003 I was pregnant and I naturally I subscribed to pregnancy
newsgroups, uk.people.parents.pregnancy was a medium frequency group and
I made friends with a small group of women due around the same time, we
even met in real life and are still in touch. Misc.kids.pregnancy was
way too busy for me to keep up with, I didn't post but enjoyed reading
threads when the subject interested me. Roll on two years and the uk
group was really low traffic, I think I posted a bit that pregnancy, but
there wasn't really anything happening there, misc.kids.pregnancy
became more like what that group had been previously, medium volume and
manageable, but I just looked in there now and only 1 in 20 or so are
not spam and a post that isn't spam is not quite a daily occurance, it
won't last much longer I don't think.

Back in 2002/3 there were sites like babyworld, ivillage, yahoogroups
for particular due months etc. but they were low volume, but now you
head in there and it's crazy there are hundreds of boards and people
chatting all over the place.

Seems like that's what most people prefer :-(. Which I don't understand,
go to a message board and there are often 10 messages per page, each
with flashy signatures and it takes ages to wade through a topic and
it's often mostly fluff, not serious discussion and you don't have all
the facilities of a newsreader to ignore or sort of whatever.

I think googlegroups is really only a very small part of the phenomenon.

Another issue is people taking advantage of newgroups to transfer
binaries, which takes up a lot of space, so it ends up being lots of
bandwidth for a small number of users, from a business perspective it
makes sense, but from a more philosophical perspective I disagree with
it there is a lot about newgroups which make sense from the point of
view of how to organise discussion, if you just banned binary groups
that would help a lot. These message boards and traffic to and from them
must take up an awful lot more space, but as it's just bundled in with
general traffic I don't think anyone is considering that portion of
traffic, afterall, we must have a lot of capacity now, video must be the
biggest user of bandwidth, not messageboards even if the techie know
they could be an awful lot smaller.

Cheers
Anne

Ted van de Weteringe

10-04-2008, 12:22 AM

Anne Rogers wrote:
> I just looked in there now and only 1 in 20 or so are not spam

Some servers do honorate (automatic or individual) cancels and are
almost spamfree, like my server (from my ISP) or news.individual.net. I
see you are using Giganews. Typically, the ones targeting the binaries
market, like Giganews, do not propagate cancel messages. Google Groups,
while text-only, also doesn't. Lots of spam there.

tcyrowing@gmail.com

10-04-2008, 04:47 PM

A note: Rowers' World is in existence, but barely.
Rowingillustrated.com has taken it's place in the US and is quite
active. I searched the sphere and there are few others, but other than
talkrowing, I couldn't find any that were very active.

On Oct 3, 11:57 am, KC <kc_n...@sonic.net> wrote:
> Charles Carroll wrote:
> > Dear all,
>
> > I just received a notice that my internet service provider (ISP) will
> > discontinue its Newsgroups service as of 25 October 2008. Comcast claims
> > it has seen "a decline in popularity of newsgroups as customers have
> > chosen to get information from other sources."
>
> > I am curious. What are these other sources? Are there other rowing
> > discussion groups with members comparable to rec.sport.rowing? Have I
>
> There are other forums (fora for the toga set) that are similar in
> topics but different in structure. These would be web-based discussion
> forums such ashttp://www.rowersworld.com/
>
> To say the members are "comparable" to RSR's is a stretch in some ways,
> or obviously true in others. They are all rowers or interested in
> rowing, after all. But RSR over the years (due to attrition) has become
> a pretty insular and intolerant group (and I count myself among them).
> I've tried joining in on other groups' discussions, but find that so
> many of the standard myths that RSR has long ago put to rest (or tired
> of discussing) are still rampant, that I quickly give up.
>
> > just missed out on these? I know where to find a lot of resources on
> > rowing, but I don't know where to find a discussion group of this caliber.
>
> > And can anyone recommend another Newsgroups service? Comcast recommends
>
> I would never pay for NNTP service, especially if you don't want to
> download binaries (music, pictures, video, porn, programs/applications
> (virtually all pirated)). Google groups may be flawed, but at least
> it's a free way to access all the NNTP news groups.
>
> -KC

10-05-2008, 12:52 AM

tcyrowing@gmail.com wrote:
> A note: Rowers' World is in existence, but barely.
> Rowingillustrated.com has taken it's place in the US and is quite
> active. I searched the sphere and there are few others, but other than
> talkrowing, I couldn't find any that were very active.
>

I *did* say "such as" rowers' world. I knew there was another more
active one (have tried it out, too) but couldn't remember the name at
the time.

-KC

>
> On Oct 3, 11:57 am, KC <kc_n...@sonic.net> wrote:
>> Charles Carroll wrote:
>>> Dear all,
>>> I just received a notice that my internet service provider (ISP) will
>>> discontinue its Newsgroups service as of 25 October 2008. Comcast claims
>>> it has seen "a decline in popularity of newsgroups as customers have
>>> chosen to get information from other sources."
>>> I am curious. What are these other sources? Are there other rowing
>>> discussion groups with members comparable to rec.sport.rowing? Have I
>> There are other forums (fora for the toga set) that are similar in
>> topics but different in structure. These would be web-based discussion
>> forums such ashttp://www.rowersworld.com/
>>
>> To say the members are "comparable" to RSR's is a stretch in some ways,
>> or obviously true in others. They are all rowers or interested in
>> rowing, after all. But RSR over the years (due to attrition) has become
>> a pretty insular and intolerant group (and I count myself among them).
>> I've tried joining in on other groups' discussions, but find that so
>> many of the standard myths that RSR has long ago put to rest (or tired
>> of discussing) are still rampant, that I quickly give up.
>>
>>> just missed out on these? I know where to find a lot of resources on
>>> rowing, but I don't know where to find a discussion group of this caliber.
>>> And can anyone recommend another Newsgroups service? Comcast recommends
>> I would never pay for NNTP service, especially if you don't want to
>> download binaries (music, pictures, video, porn, programs/applications
>> (virtually all pirated)). Google groups may be flawed, but at least
>> it's a free way to access all the NNTP news groups.
>>
>> -KC
>

Charles Carroll

10-05-2008, 03:06 AM

Ewoud,

Much too late last night I took a quick glance at news.individual.net. I
think it wants 10 Euros for a year's subscription. I kind of feel the way
Kieran does, namely, that I shouldn't have to pay for a newsgroup
subscription. On the other hand, 10 Euros a year seems very inexpensive.

I use Google all the time to look up things on rec.sport.rowing. But I
haven't found a way to download rsr posts on Google, or to mark the messages
I have looked at as "read," or to watch particular threads, or to save posts
to my hard disk. In other words, I haven't found a way to do the most basic
tasks that I take for granted in Windows Mail.

Ten Euros seems a fair price to be able to download posts and read them
offlline.

Cordially,

Charles

Ted van de Weteringe

10-05-2008, 11:12 AM

Charles Carroll wrote:
> Much too late last night I took a quick glance at news.individual.net. I
> think it wants 10 Euros for a year's subscription. I kind of feel the
> way Kieran does, namely, that I shouldn't have to pay for a newsgroup
> subscription. On the other hand, 10 Euros a year seems very inexpensive.

Yes, I didn't write about the fee. It's not a lot of money, but in light
of your expectation (and mine!) of not paying for usenet access, perhaps
your final assessment will still be: too expensive. You may be able to
find some traditional usenet access services that are free but I don't
have any experience with them and I believe the consensus is that they
are not very dependable ("you get what you pay for"). I do have
experience with individual.net when I was with another ISP and had
trouble with the included usenet service. That was back when
individual.net did not charge a fee. Even then, I found their service to
be responsive, dependable and wholly satisfactory.

> haven't found a way to download rsr posts on Google, or to mark the
> messages I have looked at as "read," or to watch particular threads, or
> to save posts to my hard disk. In other words, I haven't found a way to
> do the most basic tasks that I take for granted in Windows Mail.

A fine first assessment of the relative inadequecies of the Google
interface. On the other hand, it does give free, and dependable, access.

Henry Law

10-05-2008, 11:42 AM

Anne Rogers wrote:
> I think there are a few things going on, RSR is one of the few groups
> that hasn't seen that much change in traffic and has remained amazingly
> junk free. But that is both causing some things and. the consequence of
> others.

.... etc

A very thoughtful post. Just the kind of thing we expect in this oasis
of sense and informed debate that is r.s.r.

I agree totally with your assessment of the disadvantages of web-based
browsing compared with a "proper" newsreader. Something else which
doesn't come out so strongly in your post is the fragmentation of
information/discussion sources. When news and email were "it" then you
could do both in one tool (as I and many other still do), and you could
easily convert a news post into an email if you wanted to discuss it
with an individual; in the new, improved, maximum-choice environment you
have to go to a dozen different URLs with as many different interfaces
and treat each one as if it were the only "board" in the world. Bah.

--

Henry Law Manchester, England

Carl Douglas

10-05-2008, 01:50 PM

Henry Law wrote:
> Anne Rogers wrote:
>> I think there are a few things going on, RSR is one of the few groups
>> that hasn't seen that much change in traffic and has remained
>> amazingly junk free. But that is both causing some things and. the
>> consequence of others.
>
> ... etc
>
> A very thoughtful post. Just the kind of thing we expect in this oasis
> of sense and informed debate that is r.s.r.
>
> I agree totally with your assessment of the disadvantages of web-based
> browsing compared with a "proper" newsreader. Something else which
> doesn't come out so strongly in your post is the fragmentation of
> information/discussion sources. When news and email were "it" then you
> could do both in one tool (as I and many other still do), and you could
> easily convert a news post into an email if you wanted to discuss it
> with an individual; in the new, improved, maximum-choice environment you
> have to go to a dozen different URLs with as many different interfaces
> and treat each one as if it were the only "board" in the world. Bah.
>

IOW, Henry, we fuddy-duddies of RSR, in which the whole world, rather
than some small local grouping, can contribute without precondition or
control, agree that the supposed "more" of the fancy-format web-based
groups is mere dressing up, illusion & constraint &, in sum, compares
poorly with, & amounts to far less than, the simplicity of Usenet & the
inclusive & unregulated rationality of RSR.

Cheers -
Carl

--
Carl Douglas Racing Shells -
Fine Small-Boats/AeRoWing Low-drag Riggers/Advanced Accessories
Write: Harris Boatyard, Laleham Reach, Chertsey KT16 8RP, UK
Find: http://tinyurl.com/2tqujf
Email: carl@carldouglas.co.uk Tel: +44(0)1932-570946 Fax: -563682
URLs: www.carldouglas.co.uk (boats) & www.aerowing.co.uk (riggers)

Carl Douglas

10-06-2008, 04:47 PM

Charles Carroll wrote:
> Ewoud,
>
> Much too late last night I took a quick glance at news.individual.net. I
> think it wants 10 Euros for a year's subscription. I kind of feel the
> way Kieran does, namely, that I shouldn't have to pay for a newsgroup
> subscription. On the other hand, 10 Euros a year seems very inexpensive.

Charles -

News.individual.net will, for about $1/month, provide you with a service
which your own ISP used to provide but nolonger wants to give you, even
though you're paying them for a range of internet services. So your ISP
is now charging you the same for less = a price rise.

There's no reason why the Free University of Berlin should give you
their news.individual service for nothing, but I reckon that, for next
to nothing, it is a pretty good deal.

>
> I use Google all the time to look up things on rec.sport.rowing. But I
> haven't found a way to download rsr posts on Google, or to mark the
> messages I have looked at as "read," or to watch particular threads, or
> to save posts to my hard disk. In other words, I haven't found a way to
> do the most basic tasks that I take for granted in Windows Mail.
>
> Ten Euros seems a fair price to be able to download posts and read them
> offlline.
>
> Cordially,
>
> Charles

So we're agreed. Signed up yet?

Cheers -
Carl

--
Carl Douglas Racing Shells -
Fine Small-Boats/AeRoWing Low-drag Riggers/Advanced Accessories
Write: Harris Boatyard, Laleham Reach, Chertsey KT16 8RP, UK
Find: http://tinyurl.com/2tqujf
Email: carl@carldouglas.co.uk Tel: +44(0)1932-570946 Fax: -563682
URLs: www.carldouglas.co.uk (boats) & www.aerowing.co.uk (riggers)

10-06-2008, 07:28 PM

Charles Carroll wrote:
> Ewoud,
>
> Much too late last night I took a quick glance at news.individual.net. I
> think it wants 10 Euros for a year's subscription. I kind of feel the
> way Kieran does, namely, that I shouldn't have to pay for a newsgroup
> subscription. On the other hand, 10 Euros a year seems very inexpensive.
>
> I use Google all the time to look up things on rec.sport.rowing. But I
> haven't found a way to download rsr posts on Google, or to mark the
> messages I have looked at as "read," or to watch particular threads, or
> to save posts to my hard disk. In other words, I haven't found a way to
> do the most basic tasks that I take for granted in Windows Mail.
>
> Ten Euros seems a fair price to be able to download posts and read them
> offlline.
>
> Cordially,
>
> Charles

Charles,

Have you considered dumping your ISP in favor of one that supports
USENET access? You might want to check out Sonic.net (www.sonic.net)
they are based in Santa Rosa, but are providers of net service to much
of the north bay area and all across the state to a lesser extent. I
used them for years while I lived up there, and my parents still have
that account active (switched it to their home when I moved away). I
still use their USENET servers some times from home, when comcast is
down or slow (often) or when I'm on the road. Excellent customer
service and an excellent product. I highly recommend them if you're at
all interested in switching your ISP.

-Kieran

mruscoe

10-06-2008, 09:37 PM

10-06-2008, 09:53 PM

mruscoe wrote:
> Charles Carroll wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I just received a notice that my internet service provider (ISP) will
>> discontinue its Newsgroups service as of 25 October 2008. Comcast
>> claims it has seen "a decline in popularity of newsgroups as customers
>> have chosen to get information from other sources."
> >
> There is a bit more to this story, relating to the New York Attorney
> General:
>
> http://techliberation.com/2008/07/21/comcast-resists-pressure-to-drop-usenet-access/
>
>
> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080922-lights-out-for-usenet-access-through-comcast.html
>

It figures that child pornographers were at the heart of this issue.
Despicable.

Too bad there isn't a type of filter ISPs could use that would block any
USENET post containing binaries. I know that binary USENET posts are
encoded as text, so it would be tough to implement, but it seems there
should be a way. Alas, I'm no computer/software scientist, and don't
know much about the inner workings of USENET.

-KC

Ted van de Weteringe

10-06-2008, 09:55 PM

KC wrote:
> Too bad there isn't a type of filter ISPs could use that would block any
> USENET post containing binaries.

Setting up a text-only server is very easy. AFAIK, all news server
software has built-in "accept binaries" yes/no switches or rules.

Justus J.

10-06-2008, 10:12 PM

On 06/10/2008 22:53, KC wrote (amongst others) :
> ...
>
> Too bad there isn't a type of filter ISPs could use that would block any
> USENET post containing binaries. I know that binary USENET posts are
> encoded as text, so it would be tough to implement, but it seems there
> should be a way. Alas, I'm no computer/software scientist, and don't
> know much about the inner workings of USENET.
>

The "plain text" argument goes for e-mail too; deciphering usenet
messages is equally simple (MIME/BASE64 encoded, mostly). My provider
has a "text only" newsserver, and a "full featured" one. The former
being much better accessible, keeping a longer history of messages and
(of course) serving less newsgroups than the latter.

Justus

Dave Sill

10-06-2008, 10:20 PM

KC wrote:
>
> It figures that child pornographers were at the heart of this issue.
> Despicable.

Child pornographers are, of course despicable. But the culprits here are
opportunistic/lazy ISPs. ISPs could easily block only the groups
carrying kiddie porn, but instead they're taking the opportunity to kill
off their netnews service since it no longer brings in customers.

> Too bad there isn't a type of filter ISPs could use that would block any
> USENET post containing binaries.

That's trivial, actually.

-Dave

Ted van de Weteringe

10-06-2008, 10:29 PM

Justus J. wrote:
> has a "text only" newsserver, and a "full featured" one. The former
> being much better accessible, keeping a longer history of messages and
> (of course) serving less newsgroups than the latter.

Can't comment on the accessibility, but retention time is not
necessarily better on a text-only server. In fact, my isp also has two
servers but the one for binaries has much higher retention in the text
groups. For this particular server software (Diablo), it depends on the
group traffic: more data, less retention.

I don't follow the "of course". Both servers could very well carry all
groups, and one just filters out the binaries. Text messages do get
posted to binary groups. (And vice versa, but sane servers should filter
binaries outside the alt.binaries tree anyway.)

kdavies@kidare.com

10-07-2008, 09:54 AM

On 6 Oct, 21:55, Ted van de Weteringe <myfulln...@xs4all.nl.invalid>
wrote:
> KC wrote:
> > Too bad there isn't a type of filter ISPs could use that would block any
> > USENET post containing binaries.
>
> Setting up a text-only server is very easy. AFAIK, all news server
> software has built-in "accept binaries" yes/no switches or rules.

Indeed it is easy, but it is also fairly easy for organised groups to
encode their binary content in text form and post that instead.
However, text-only would be a good first step and might deter all but
the most determined.

The thing that got me about that article was that ISPs who were
behaving legally and removing content when they found out about it
were still heavily censured for not signing up to the "voluntary"
agreement. Yeah right!
Kit

10-07-2008, 04:44 PM

kdavies@kidare.com wrote:
> On 6 Oct, 21:55, Ted van de Weteringe <myfulln...@xs4all.nl.invalid>
> wrote:
>> KC wrote:
>>> Too bad there isn't a type of filter ISPs could use that would block any
>>> USENET post containing binaries.
>> Setting up a text-only server is very easy. AFAIK, all news server
>> software has built-in "accept binaries" yes/no switches or rules.
>
> Indeed it is easy, but it is also fairly easy for organised groups to
> encode their binary content in text form and post that instead.
> However, text-only would be a good first step and might deter all but
> the most determined.
>
> The thing that got me about that article was that ISPs who were
> behaving legally and removing content when they found out about it
> were still heavily censured for not signing up to the "voluntary"
> agreement. Yeah right!
> Kit

This is what I was talking about text-encoded binaries. Last time I
looked at binary ng's, it was, oh, 1995 or so. They were all text
encoded using something called UUENCODE or something like that. A quick
look at some groups shows this practice still in place. I don't think a
server can easily block these files, as they look like (very large) text
files (granted the text is nonsense to a human).

-KC

Dave Sill

10-07-2008, 05:00 PM

kc wrote:
>
> This is what I was talking about text-encoded binaries. Last time I
> looked at binary ng's, it was, oh, 1995 or so. They were all text
> encoded using something called UUENCODE or something like that. A quick
> look at some groups shows this practice still in place. I don't think a
> server can easily block these files, as they look like (very large) text
> files (granted the text is nonsense to a human).

Like I and others have said, it's trivial. For example, see:

From http://linux.die.net/man/8/cleanfeed

block_binaries
Enables blocking of binary posts in non-binary newsgroups. Which
newsgroups allow binaries is configured with bin_allowed (below).

max_encoded_lines
Sets the number of uuencoded or base64-encoded lines to allow before
considering a post to be a binary. This should be set high enough to
pass regular PGP signatures. (Those satanic Netscape crypto-sigs can
die along with the other binaries.) Default is 15 lines, which may be
a little low if you are lenient, which you're not.

-Dave

tcyrowing@gmail.com

10-08-2008, 03:55 AM

KC:

Here's a brand new one that just opened up this week from the Boston
area. It's a social networking site for rowers.

http://rowersroom.com/

John Davis

On Oct 3, 11:57 am, KC <kc_n...@sonic.net> wrote:
> Charles Carroll wrote:
> > Dear all,
>
> > I just received a notice that my internet service provider (ISP) will
> > discontinue its Newsgroups service as of 25 October 2008. Comcast claims
> > it has seen "a decline in popularity of newsgroups as customers have
> > chosen to get information from other sources."
>
> > I am curious. What are these other sources? Are there other rowing
> > discussion groups with members comparable to rec.sport.rowing? Have I
>
> There are other forums (fora for the toga set) that are similar in
> topics but different in structure. These would be web-based discussion
> forums such ashttp://www.rowersworld.com/
>
> To say the members are "comparable" to RSR's is a stretch in some ways,
> or obviously true in others. They are all rowers or interested in
> rowing, after all. But RSR over the years (due to attrition) has become
> a pretty insular and intolerant group (and I count myself among them).
> I've tried joining in on other groups' discussions, but find that so
> many of the standard myths that RSR has long ago put to rest (or tired
> of discussing) are still rampant, that I quickly give up.
>
> > just missed out on these? I know where to find a lot of resources on
> > rowing, but I don't know where to find a discussion group of this caliber.
>
> > And can anyone recommend another Newsgroups service? Comcast recommends
>
> I would never pay for NNTP service, especially if you don't want to
> download binaries (music, pictures, video, porn, programs/applications
> (virtually all pirated)). Google groups may be flawed, but at least
> it's a free way to access all the NNTP news groups.
>
> -KC