In article ,
David Rance wrote:

URG is a child of its time. It's like the Fidonet which was the first
worldwide general means of electronic communication. ...

Like hell it was! Sorry, but that accolade must go to UUCP; while
it was little used outside of academia, that was simply because few
other people had computers that weren't tightly tied down. Even
Usenet (i.e. newsgroups as we know them) dates from several years
before Fidonet, and I have been using it in its previous form since
1979. By the time Fidonet appeared, UUCP had escaped from academia,
and the 'Internet revolution' had started. Google have stopped
making their history public, but their group archive dates from
1981. Fidonet dates from 1983.

But, yes, URG is a child of its time - I agree with Sacha, except
that I don't agree that the currently favoured alternatives are
a functional replacement or will continue to host reasonable
discussions in the long term. This is a social issue, associated
with the dumbing down of most forms of communication - I have heard
that things are somewhat better outside the USA/UK/etc. grouping,
especially in the Far East.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.