On 29/12/2014 18:06, sacha wrote:

I hope their service continues but to be honest, I'm not worrying too
much yet. Newsgroups are attracting fewer and fewer people and many of
us now 'talk' on Facebook in gardening groups there, of which there are
several. Membership is moderated, up to a point, so trolls aren't
allowed in and nor are the terminally angry and rude! I have never seen
a genuine post deleted but politeness is expected and is the norm, even
where views conflict! Nuisances are easily expelled or blocked, too, if
necessary and that rarely happens. I regret to say that I think
newsgroups will soon become empty spaces and that few servers will carry
them.

Yes. As we have discussed before, Usenet has been on a gradual decline
for years and that will continue. It predates the WWW as we now know it
and most new computer users are not even aware it exists. I do hope that
NIN can continue their external service because if they withdraw it will
certainly hasten that demise.

Facebook has its own problems of course, particularly if one is not a
stickler for security (and sometimes in spite of it).

We'll see what happens after the 1st Jan...

--
RG