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Goodbye with mixed feelings
I have been using usenet for decades now and regularly on these two NGs for
about 12 years as far as I recall. I have learned much and I hope sometimes taught something useful. At times it has been real fun and I felt a comradeship with people who I will never meet in the flesh. There has always been some noise, a background of posts that were a waste of time and some posters who were always or nearly always a waste of time. On the whole it was worthwhile. But usenet is dying. The number of posters reduces every year. It seems there are too few good ones left to maintain critical mass. There has always been the ignorant the foolish and the arrogant but now the proportion has grown in the population and so the signal to noise ratio has declined. For those who say you can always plonk the idiots and the terminally toxic, the problem is by the time you do that there isn't much left. I have been reading and posting less and less. Aside from the general decline in numbers the core problem is those who want to abuse the system for fun or profit. Spammers and the selfish are with us in every medium and you need to cope with that somehow. In this respect interfaces where users must be identified and can be banned by administrators for either reason have an advantage but clearly this winnowing is never completely effective. Nonetheless most NGs survived a long time without resorting to moderation - but no more. Smaller groups (eg aus.gardens) have shrunk to the point where they are pretty much useless and the energy isn't there to amalgamate or reorganise to groups with sufficient mass to continue. The medium has had its day, Sadly. The sad, the sick, the crazy and the selfish are sometimes amusing but often just annoying and time wasting. Their common characteristic is they have no appreciation of their own behaviour. In real life there are consequences to bad behaviour in society, nobody will talk to you if you go far enough. The medium to some extent enables the socially ill by providing real-life anonymity, allowing nymshifting and seeming like people are not actually real, they are just streams of electrons out in the ether. If you are sick enough to spend all your efforts getting attention by being a turd then usenet will make it possible. If (however well meaning you may be) you feel it your bounden duty to jam your politics, religion or wackiness down the throats of an international audience then you can do it here. If you are 15 years old (in years or attitude) you can perversely get an ego massage wasting the time of good people who just want to talk about plants. It no longer seems possible to agree to disagree, you must have the last word and go over the same ground again and again. The dead horse is no longer getting beaten but a hole in the ground where the dust of the horse used to be must be assailed daily. The extremists of the left and right of US politics are both blind the fact that around the world NOBODY ****ING CARES about your sectarian poison. You are both safe and warm in your respective blankets ( red and blue to be sure) of national, social and moral insularity - a plaque on both your houses. I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over your life. -- David |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
David Hare-Scott wrote:
I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over your life. For someone who claims to be subsribed for as long as you claim you are demonstating an exceptionately shallow intellect... usenet is no different now from how it's always been. All anyone can hope to get from any Newsgroup is as much as they contribute. Perhaps you are simply too full of yourself because over the years you've contributed very little, nothing meaningful other than your self absorbed claptrap. Adios and don't let the door hit your ignorant ass. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 11/13/2015 6:46 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
I have been using usenet for decades now and regularly on these two NGs for about 12 years as far as I recall. I have learned much and I hope sometimes taught something useful. At times it has been real fun and I felt a comradeship with people who I will never meet in the flesh. There has always been some noise, a background of posts that were a waste of time and some posters who were always or nearly always a waste of time. On the whole it was worthwhile. But usenet is dying. The number of posters reduces every year. It seems there are too few good ones left to maintain critical mass. There has always been the ignorant the foolish and the arrogant but now the proportion has grown in the population and so the signal to noise ratio has declined. For those who say you can always plonk the idiots and the terminally toxic, the problem is by the time you do that there isn't much left. I have been reading and posting less and less. Aside from the general decline in numbers the core problem is those who want to abuse the system for fun or profit. Spammers and the selfish are with us in every medium and you need to cope with that somehow. In this respect interfaces where users must be identified and can be banned by administrators for either reason have an advantage but clearly this winnowing is never completely effective. Nonetheless most NGs survived a long time without resorting to moderation - but no more. Smaller groups (eg aus.gardens) have shrunk to the point where they are pretty much useless and the energy isn't there to amalgamate or reorganise to groups with sufficient mass to continue. The medium has had its day, Sadly. The sad, the sick, the crazy and the selfish are sometimes amusing but often just annoying and time wasting. Their common characteristic is they have no appreciation of their own behaviour. In real life there are consequences to bad behaviour in society, nobody will talk to you if you go far enough. The medium to some extent enables the socially ill by providing real-life anonymity, allowing nymshifting and seeming like people are not actually real, they are just streams of electrons out in the ether. If you are sick enough to spend all your efforts getting attention by being a turd then usenet will make it possible. If (however well meaning you may be) you feel it your bounden duty to jam your politics, religion or wackiness down the throats of an international audience then you can do it here. If you are 15 years old (in years or attitude) you can perversely get an ego massage wasting the time of good people who just want to talk about plants. It no longer seems possible to agree to disagree, you must have the last word and go over the same ground again and again. The dead horse is no longer getting beaten but a hole in the ground where the dust of the horse used to be must be assailed daily. The extremists of the left and right of US politics are both blind the fact that around the world NOBODY ****ING CARES about your sectarian poison. You are both safe and warm in your respective blankets ( red and blue to be sure) of national, social and moral insularity - a plaque on both your houses. I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over your life. What do you mean "comes without news client" and you don't want to buy one? I use Mozilla's Thunderbird for mail and ng's and its free and easy to set up. I agree usenet is shrinking, mainly do to large isp's not subscribing to giga news or what ever but there are free feeds like eternal september, while not handling binaries cover most discussion groups. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
"David Hare-Scott" writes:
I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. As other posters have already mentioned, there are plenty of free Usenet clients. I'm using GNUS, (part of Emacs). There's even "Google Groups". Not really a Usenet client, but it will get you here. Anyway, I've always looked forward to your posts and you never disappoint. If you find something online that you like better, please come back and tell us about it. Sorry, that kill files are all that we have. I'm sure the guys at Bell Labs that dreamed this up never anticipated the spammers and trolls, or the idiots. -- Dan Espen |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:
But usenet is dying. The number of posters reduces every year. It seems there are too few good ones left to maintain critical mass. The reports of Usenet's death are greatly exaggerated. (Sorry, Sam!). It's still light years ahead of BBS systems run on a Commodore 64, or Fidonet... it has been diluted by a zillion blogs and other resources, and I can't possibly follow all of them and still have time to garden and send binary data with a hand-activated switch! Like all families, we have our share of crazies, more easily ignored than the ones we're related too. So, thank you very much, I'm sticking around. But that's just my opinion. I may be wrong. -- Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic Zone 5/4 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 13 Nov 2015, "David Hare-Scott" wrote in
rec.gardens: I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. You have to be either foolish or very discriminating to actually pay for a Usenet newsreader. There are many good free ones. The for-pay ones are different but not necessarily better. You have to set them all up, of course. But if you're looking for an excuse to quit, by all means carry on with your misconception. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
Derald wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote: X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5931 I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client Well, your present machine didn't, either; har! so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. Nah: Too many free Linux and Windows newsreading clients-with flexible means of eliminating unpleasantness-as well as free servers out there in the Zone and Mrs. Jones has you ;-) You'll be back, even if just for the occasional drive-by, I betcha. Most will not care which is fine. I am not in that group. Nor am I . There are too few here who actually post , much less useful information . You leaving makes that one less positive contributor in the group . FWIW , Mozilla Thunderbird and eternal-september news server are a free and easy to configure combination . And both are free . -- Snag |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
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Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 11/15/2015 6:53 AM, Terry Coombs wrote:
Derald wrote: "David Hare-Scott" wrote: X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5931 I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client Well, your present machine didn't, either; har! so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. Nah: Too many free Linux and Windows newsreading clients-with flexible means of eliminating unpleasantness-as well as free servers out there in the Zone and Mrs. Jones has you ;-) You'll be back, even if just for the occasional drive-by, I betcha. Most will not care which is fine. I am not in that group. Nor am I . There are too few here who actually post , much less useful information . You leaving makes that one less positive contributor in the group . FWIW , Mozilla Thunderbird and eternal-september news server are a free and easy to configure combination . And both are free . It has been a long time ago since I signed up with Block.News, bought 20GB then for not much money. Just checked my account and I've only used 0.78203GB up to now. Secure system, no problems in the last many years. Lots of places out there to get signed up. I use Thunderbird vs Microsoft's crap. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 11/13/2015 6:46 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
I have been using usenet for decades now and regularly on these two NGs for about 12 years as far as I recall. I have learned much and I hope sometimes taught something useful. At times it has been real fun and I felt a comradeship with people who I will never meet in the flesh. There has always been some noise, a background of posts that were a waste of time and some posters who were always or nearly always a waste of time. On the whole it was worthwhile. But usenet is dying. The number of posters reduces every year. It seems snip... Well, yes you could say that Usenet is dying. That is because people are leaving. _You_ are leaving. Need I say more? You can certainly keep up with this group at no cost beyond a bit of time using the eternal-september server and Thunderbird as a client just as I'm doing for this reply. No need to subscribe to any other discussions if that is what you want so the extraneous noise will be less of a bother. Sure, we get some a-hole posts here but they are remarkably few compared to other groups. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 11/13/2015 5:46 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
I have been using usenet for decades now ...snip...] I've been on usenet for many years. I usually post in the group alt.narcissists.text. BTW, are you leaving because of something I said? ADule |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
"adule" wrote in message ... On 11/13/2015 5:46 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote: I have been using usenet for decades now ...snip...] I've been on usenet for many years. I usually post in the group alt.narcissists.text. BTW, are you leaving because of something I said? ADule It is what you did not say... |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 11/15/2015 4:58 PM, SG1 wrote:
"adule" wrote in message ... On 11/13/2015 5:46 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote: I have been using usenet for decades now ...snip...] I've been on usenet for many years. I usually post in the group alt.narcissists.text. BTW, are you leaving because of something I said? ADule It is what you did not say... I knew that. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 17:16:22 -0600, adule wrote:
On 11/15/2015 4:58 PM, SG1 wrote: "adule" wrote in message ... On 11/13/2015 5:46 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote: I have been using usenet for decades now ...snip...] I've been on usenet for many years. I usually post in the group alt.narcissists.text. BTW, are you leaving because of something I said? ADule It is what you did not say... I knew that. Not to worry, people leave Newsgroups, and have to announce it yet, because they have very thin skin... usenet is much better off without them. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 11/15/2015 7:59 PM, Brooklyn1 wrote:
On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 17:16:22 -0600, adule wrote: On 11/15/2015 4:58 PM, SG1 wrote: "adule" wrote in message ... On 11/13/2015 5:46 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote: I have been using usenet for decades now ...snip...] I've been on usenet for many years. I usually post in the group alt.narcissists.text. BTW, are you leaving because of something I said? ADule It is what you did not say... I knew that. Not to worry, people leave Newsgroups, and have to announce it yet, because they have very thin skin... usenet is much better off without them. I'm leaving. Going to watch the Walking Dead. Be back tomorrow. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 14/11/2015 11:45 AM, Brooklyn1 wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote: I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over your life. For someone who claims to be subsribed for as long as you claim you are demonstating an exceptionately shallow intellect... usenet is no different now from how it's always been. Oh yes it is different! But you are still the same old curmudgeon you have always been. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 14/11/2015 10:46 AM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. ???? I'm not really computer literate but I use eternal setember and I managed to get it onto this machine and am using it without having spent a cent to get it here and working so you might want to check it out before making your final decision. Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over your life. Thank you David. I have missed your posts here already and had noticed already that you were seldom posting. I have always enjoyed your posts - intelligent, thoughtful and informative and based on experience not googling. What more could one want. But I do understand. US politics is infesting another group in which I post and despite the offenders being told in no uncertain fashion that US politics is off topic, unwelcome and not of any interest to anyone in that ng (since it is an aus only group) there is no way the offenders will stop their cross posting. All the best. May your animals always be well grazed, your garden abundant and may global warming not impact on you or yours. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 16/11/2015 9:58 AM, SG1 wrote:
It is what you did not say... Hello SG1! Good to see you again :-))) |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
"Fran Farmer" wrote in message ... On 16/11/2015 9:58 AM, SG1 wrote: It is what you did not say... Hello SG1! Good to see you again :-))) Unlike many I post only when I have something to say. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
Fran Farmer wrote:
On 14/11/2015 10:46 AM, David Hare-Scott wrote: I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. ???? I'm not really computer literate but I use eternal setember and I managed to get it onto this machine and am using it without having spent a cent to get it here and working so you might want to check it out before making your final decision. Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over your life. Thank you David. I have missed your posts here already and had noticed already that you were seldom posting. I have always enjoyed your posts - intelligent, thoughtful and informative and based on experience not googling. What more could one want. But I do understand. US politics is infesting another group in which I post and despite the offenders being told in no uncertain fashion that US politics is off topic, unwelcome and not of any interest to anyone in that ng (since it is an aus only group) there is no way the offenders will stop their cross posting. All the best. May your animals always be well grazed, your garden abundant and may global warming not impact on you or yours. GDay Fran A few people have focussed on the issue of the newsreader and skipped over the rest of what I said. I could use a free one, I could buy one, I could easily make time to set it up, that isn't the issue. Perhaps I wasn't clear - having to make a small effort wasn't the reason to quit that was just the stimulus to think about what I do with my time and to make a decision. So I looked at what is happening and decided to give it away. Should you (or a few others) want to stay in touch you can reach me via email on (yes a bunch of rabid greenies but you probably guessed that already). That contact email is not my personal email but it is well polluted by spam and nonsense already because it appears in plain text on the corresponding publicly accessible website. Most of the dross goes straight to junk but it is checked by humans and a message there will reach me and be kept private. Best wishes - David - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Corporate propaganda is their protection against democracy |
I'm back
On 11/15/2015 8:54 PM, Frank wrote:
On 11/15/2015 7:59 PM, Brooklyn1 wrote: On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 17:16:22 -0600, adule wrote: On 11/15/2015 4:58 PM, SG1 wrote: "adule" wrote in message ... On 11/13/2015 5:46 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote: I have been using usenet for decades now ...snip...] I've been on usenet for many years. I usually post in the group alt.narcissists.text. BTW, are you leaving because of something I said? ADule It is what you did not say... I knew that. Not to worry, people leave Newsgroups, and have to announce it yet, because they have very thin skin... usenet is much better off without them. I'm leaving. Going to watch the Walking Dead. Be back tomorrow. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 11/16/2015 1:01 AM, Fran Farmer wrote:
On 14/11/2015 11:45 AM, Brooklyn1 wrote: David Hare-Scott wrote: I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over your life. For someone who claims to be subsribed for as long as you claim you are demonstating an exceptionately shallow intellect... usenet is no different now from how it's always been. Oh yes it is different! But you are still the same old curmudgeon you have always been. It's like going to the zoo Fran, Please don't feed the animals. Sheldon has been floating around UseNet since the nineties trying to start arguments. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 11/16/2015 8:37 AM, George Shirley wrote:
On 11/16/2015 1:01 AM, Fran Farmer wrote: On 14/11/2015 11:45 AM, Brooklyn1 wrote: David Hare-Scott wrote: I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over your life. For someone who claims to be subsribed for as long as you claim you are demonstating an exceptionately shallow intellect... usenet is no different now from how it's always been. Oh yes it is different! But you are still the same old curmudgeon you have always been. It's like going to the zoo Fran, Please don't feed the animals. Sheldon has been floating around UseNet since the nineties trying to start arguments. So's Sara and the late Billy. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
In article
"David Hare-Scott" writes: I have been using usenet for decades now and regularly on these two NGs for about 12 years as far as I recall. I have learned much and I hope sometimes taught something useful. At times it has been real fun and I felt a comradeship with people who I will never meet in the flesh. There has always been some noise, a background of posts that were a waste of time and some posters who were always or nearly always a waste of time. On the whole it was worthwhile. But usenet is dying. The number of posters reduces every year. It seems there are too few good ones left to maintain critical mass. There has always been the ignorant the foolish and the arrogant but now the proportion has grown in the population and so the signal to noise ratio has declined. Usenet has certainly gone through many rounds of transformation. I am a little taken aback to do the math and find that I've been posting to Usenet for 30 years (plus a month or two, I guess). And I don't really think of myself as an old-timer (just an old-fart). There have been many waves of "personality" (for lack of a perfect term) as to who is coming in and who is leaving. In retrospect, I guess it was a generatoional thing in ways. It rose with a one group, transformed with another and then got more and more grafitti on the walls. As for dying, I can't really draw a line. Both it and I will die in this century. I'm just not sure which one of us will go first. I still think it is a medium superior to web forums, and for exactly the same reasons that Facebook and such don't like it -- no one owns Usenet. -- Drew Lawson | If dreams were thunder, | and lightning was desire, | This old house would have burnt down | a long time ago |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 11/16/2015 2:13 PM, Drew Lawson wrote:
In article "David Hare-Scott" writes: I have been using usenet for decades now and regularly on these two NGs for about 12 years as far as I recall. I have learned much and I hope sometimes taught something useful. At times it has been real fun and I felt a comradeship with people who I will never meet in the flesh. There has always been some noise, a background of posts that were a waste of time and some posters who were always or nearly always a waste of time. On the whole it was worthwhile. But usenet is dying. The number of posters reduces every year. It seems there are too few good ones left to maintain critical mass. There has always been the ignorant the foolish and the arrogant but now the proportion has grown in the population and so the signal to noise ratio has declined. Usenet has certainly gone through many rounds of transformation. I am a little taken aback to do the math and find that I've been posting to Usenet for 30 years (plus a month or two, I guess). And I don't really think of myself as an old-timer (just an old-fart). There have been many waves of "personality" (for lack of a perfect term) as to who is coming in and who is leaving. In retrospect, I guess it was a generatoional thing in ways. It rose with a one group, transformed with another and then got more and more grafitti on the walls. As for dying, I can't really draw a line. Both it and I will die in this century. I'm just not sure which one of us will go first. I still think it is a medium superior to web forums, and for exactly the same reasons that Facebook and such don't like it -- no one owns Usenet. Amen. I think I started in 1990 or close to it, seems like forever. Some of the newsgroups I've been on were taken over by the crazies and I moved on to something else. There are still a few that aren't full of stuff that is irrelevant. Threatened rain this morning but, alas, it moved off somewhere else. Winter garden doing well and the !@#$% sweet peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant planted in early spring are still putting on fruit. I chopped and froze about five lbs of sweet peppers yesterday. May not need to grow anymore next year, Nah! I like them fresh too. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 16/11/2015 9:58 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
Fran Farmer wrote: On 14/11/2015 10:46 AM, David Hare-Scott wrote: I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. ???? I'm not really computer literate but I use eternal setember and I managed to get it onto this machine and am using it without having spent a cent to get it here and working so you might want to check it out before making your final decision. Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over your life. Thank you David. I have missed your posts here already and had noticed already that you were seldom posting. I have always enjoyed your posts - intelligent, thoughtful and informative and based on experience not googling. What more could one want. But I do understand. US politics is infesting another group in which I post and despite the offenders being told in no uncertain fashion that US politics is off topic, unwelcome and not of any interest to anyone in that ng (since it is an aus only group) there is no way the offenders will stop their cross posting. All the best. May your animals always be well grazed, your garden abundant and may global warming not impact on you or yours. GDay Fran A few people have focussed on the issue of the newsreader and skipped over the rest of what I said. :-)) Yep, that's typically usenet. I could use a free one, I could buy one, I could easily make time to set it up, that isn't the issue. Perhaps I wasn't clear - having to make a small effort wasn't the reason to quit that was just the stimulus to think about what I do with my time and to make a decision. So I looked at what is happening and decided to give it away. Fair enough. I should spend more time doing more useful things too. I find usenet and the Internet provide a good break from doing other chores or form the heat or the cold. I can sit down for a while but still get things done by using a kitchen timer. I set it if things need to be checked on (like things on the stove top or in the oven or rising or to go out and move hoses or to go and spend 15 minutes doing X and then sit for 15 mins or.......) Should you (or a few others) want to stay in touch you can reach me via email on (yes a bunch of rabid greenies but you probably guessed that already). That contact email is not my personal email but it is well polluted by spam and nonsense already because it appears in plain text on the corresponding publicly accessible website. Most of the dross goes straight to junk but it is checked by humans and a message there will reach me and be kept private. Thank you David. I may (or may not) take you up on that offer. Enjoy your increased time away from the screen. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 17/11/2015 7:13 AM, Drew Lawson wrote:
I still think it is a medium superior to web forums, and for exactly the same reasons that Facebook and such don't like it -- no one owns Usenet. Agreed. FB is a PITA. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On 17/11/2015 12:37 AM, George Shirley wrote:
On 11/16/2015 1:01 AM, Fran Farmer wrote: On 14/11/2015 11:45 AM, Brooklyn1 wrote: David Hare-Scott wrote: I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over your life. For someone who claims to be subsribed for as long as you claim you are demonstating an exceptionately shallow intellect... usenet is no different now from how it's always been. Oh yes it is different! But you are still the same old curmudgeon you have always been. It's like going to the zoo Fran, Please don't feed the animals. Sheldon has been floating around UseNet since the nineties trying to start arguments. I know Sheldon well. He and I used to both post in a group called misc.rural many years ago. He hasnt'changede and is always the same. A curmudgeon who has neat lawns and likes powered equipment. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
Dan Espen wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" writes: I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. As other posters have already mentioned, there are plenty of free Usenet clients. I'm using GNUS, (part of Emacs). There's even "Google Groups". Not really a Usenet client, but it will get you here. Anyway, I've always looked forward to your posts and you never disappoint. If you find something online that you like better, please come back and tell us about it. Sorry, that kill files are all that we have. I'm sure the guys at Bell Labs that dreamed this up never anticipated the spammers and trolls, or the idiots. No kill files available on most online forums I've seem. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On Thu, 19 Nov 2015 21:19:25 -0800, "Bob F"
wrote: Dan Espen wrote: "David Hare-Scott" writes: I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. As other posters have already mentioned, there are plenty of free Usenet clients. I'm using GNUS, (part of Emacs). There's even "Google Groups". Not really a Usenet client, but it will get you here. Anyway, I've always looked forward to your posts and you never disappoint. If you find something online that you like better, please come back and tell us about it. Sorry, that kill files are all that we have. I'm sure the guys at Bell Labs that dreamed this up never anticipated the spammers and trolls, or the idiots. No kill files available on most online forums I've seem. Is that English... do you mean no kill files 'are' available? Usenet does not supply killfiles, killfiles are available on newsreaders, typically the free news readers do not have killfile ability. However there's really no need to use a killfile at rec.gardens, spam is very rare, and posts are rather sparse, often days pass with no posts... and it's pretty easy to not read posts from those posters you'd rather not read, just delete those posts unread. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
Brooklyn1 wrote:
On Thu, 19 Nov 2015 21:19:25 -0800, "Bob F" wrote: Dan Espen wrote: "David Hare-Scott" writes: I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. As other posters have already mentioned, there are plenty of free Usenet clients. I'm using GNUS, (part of Emacs). There's even "Google Groups". Not really a Usenet client, but it will get you here. Anyway, I've always looked forward to your posts and you never disappoint. If you find something online that you like better, please come back and tell us about it. Sorry, that kill files are all that we have. I'm sure the guys at Bell Labs that dreamed this up never anticipated the spammers and trolls, or the idiots. No kill files available on most online forums I've seem. Is that English... do you mean no kill files 'are' available? Usenet does not supply killfiles, killfiles are available on newsreaders, typically the free news readers do not have killfile ability. However there's really no need to use a killfile at rec.gardens, spam is very rare, and posts are rather sparse, often days pass with no posts... and it's pretty easy to not read posts from those posters you'd rather not read, just delete those posts unread. Pretty clear english except for one typo. Show me a couple online forums that offer kill files if you disagree. Obviously, I don't mean online repetitions of usenet forums, but even there kill files are not an option I've seen. \ |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
Brooklyn1 writes:
On Thu, 19 Nov 2015 21:19:25 -0800, "Bob F" wrote: Dan Espen wrote: "David Hare-Scott" writes: I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. As other posters have already mentioned, there are plenty of free Usenet clients. I'm using GNUS, (part of Emacs). There's even "Google Groups". Not really a Usenet client, but it will get you here. Anyway, I've always looked forward to your posts and you never disappoint. If you find something online that you like better, please come back and tell us about it. Sorry, that kill files are all that we have. I'm sure the guys at Bell Labs that dreamed this up never anticipated the spammers and trolls, or the idiots. No kill files available on most online forums I've seem. Is that English... do you mean no kill files 'are' available? The above reads fine to me. Usenet does not supply killfiles, killfiles are available on newsreaders, typically the free news readers do not have killfile ability. I can think of at least 3 free news readers with kill files. Just so happens to be all 3 I've used. However there's really no need to use a killfile at rec.gardens, spam is very rare, and posts are rather sparse, often days pass with no posts... and it's pretty easy to not read posts from those posters you'd rather not read, just delete those posts unread. The signal to noise ratio hasn't been bad lately. But that could be my kill files in action... -- Dan Espen |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
"Bob F" writes:
Brooklyn1 wrote: On Thu, 19 Nov 2015 21:19:25 -0800, "Bob F" wrote: Dan Espen wrote: "David Hare-Scott" writes: I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. As other posters have already mentioned, there are plenty of free Usenet clients. I'm using GNUS, (part of Emacs). There's even "Google Groups". Not really a Usenet client, but it will get you here. Anyway, I've always looked forward to your posts and you never disappoint. If you find something online that you like better, please come back and tell us about it. Sorry, that kill files are all that we have. I'm sure the guys at Bell Labs that dreamed this up never anticipated the spammers and trolls, or the idiots. No kill files available on most online forums I've seem. Is that English... do you mean no kill files 'are' available? Usenet does not supply killfiles, killfiles are available on newsreaders, typically the free news readers do not have killfile ability. However there's really no need to use a killfile at rec.gardens, spam is very rare, and posts are rather sparse, often days pass with no posts... and it's pretty easy to not read posts from those posters you'd rather not read, just delete those posts unread. Pretty clear english except for one typo. Show me a couple online forums that offer kill files if you disagree. Obviously, I don't mean online repetitions of usenet forums, but even there kill files are not an option I've seen. Investorvillage offers the equivalent of kill files. -- Dan Espen |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
"Bob F" wrote:
Brooklyn1 wrote: "Bob F" wrote: Dan Espen wrote: "David Hare-Scott" writes: I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. As other posters have already mentioned, there are plenty of free Usenet clients. I'm using GNUS, (part of Emacs). There's even "Google Groups". Not really a Usenet client, but it will get you here. Anyway, I've always looked forward to your posts and you never disappoint. If you find something online that you like better, please come back and tell us about it. Sorry, that kill files are all that we have. I'm sure the guys at Bell Labs that dreamed this up never anticipated the spammers and trolls, or the idiots. No kill files available on most online forums I've seem. do you mean no kill files 'are' available? Usenet does not supply killfiles, killfiles are available on newsreaders, typically the free newsreaders do not have killfile ability. However there's really no need to use a killfile at rec.gardens, spam is very rare, and posts are rather sparse, often days pass with no posts... and it's pretty easy to not read posts from those posters you'd rather not read, just delete those posts unread. Show me a couple online forums that offer kill files if you disagree. Obviously, I don't mean online repetitions of usenet forums, but even there kill files are not an option I've seen. I already said that newsreaders offer killfiles, the ones you pay for... the freebies generally do not. I read Usenet with Forte Agent: http://forteinc.com/agent/ A one time copy costs $29, then $2.95 a month for support: http://www.forteinc.com/apn/contact.php It's well worth the 10¢ a day for a newreader that's hassle free. It's trouble free and has excellent killfile capability, actually has many features I don't use, there's not enough time in a day to use even half their features... you'd need to pick, choose, and refuse. There are many others if you search newsreaders: http://www.newsreaders.info/recommended-newsreaders.htm |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
Dan Espen wrote:
Brooklyn1 writes: On Thu, 19 Nov 2015 21:19:25 -0800, "Bob F" wrote: Dan Espen wrote: "David Hare-Scott" writes: I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. As other posters have already mentioned, there are plenty of free Usenet clients. I'm using GNUS, (part of Emacs). There's even "Google Groups". Not really a Usenet client, but it will get you here. Anyway, I've always looked forward to your posts and you never disappoint. If you find something online that you like better, please come back and tell us about it. Sorry, that kill files are all that we have. I'm sure the guys at Bell Labs that dreamed this up never anticipated the spammers and trolls, or the idiots. No kill files available on most online forums I've seem. Is that English... do you mean no kill files 'are' available? The above reads fine to me. Usenet does not supply killfiles, killfiles are available on newsreaders, typically the free news readers do not have killfile ability. I can think of at least 3 free news readers with kill files. Just so happens to be all 3 I've used. I've never used a newsreader without killfile capability. Not that I've used them all. However there's really no need to use a killfile at rec.gardens, spam is very rare, and posts are rather sparse, often days pass with no posts... and it's pretty easy to not read posts from those posters you'd rather not read, just delete those posts unread. The signal to noise ratio hasn't been bad lately. But that could be my kill files in action... |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On Sat, 14 Nov 2015 10:46:37 +1100, "David Hare-Scott"
wrote: I have been using usenet for decades now and regularly on these two NGs for about 12 years as far as I recall. I have learned much and I hope sometimes taught something useful. At times it has been real fun and I felt a comradeship with people who I will never meet in the flesh. There has always been some noise, a background of posts that were a waste of time and some posters who were always or nearly always a waste of time. On the whole it was worthwhile. But usenet is dying. The number of posters reduces every year. It seems there are too few good ones left to maintain critical mass. There has always been the ignorant the foolish and the arrogant but now the proportion has grown in the population and so the signal to noise ratio has declined. For those who say you can always plonk the idiots and the terminally toxic, the problem is by the time you do that there isn't much left. I have been reading and posting less and less. Aside from the general decline in numbers the core problem is those who want to abuse the system for fun or profit. Spammers and the selfish are with us in every medium and you need to cope with that somehow. In this respect interfaces where users must be identified and can be banned by administrators for either reason have an advantage but clearly this winnowing is never completely effective. Nonetheless most NGs survived a long time without resorting to moderation - but no more. Smaller groups (eg aus.gardens) have shrunk to the point where they are pretty much useless and the energy isn't there to amalgamate or reorganise to groups with sufficient mass to continue. The medium has had its day, Sadly. The sad, the sick, the crazy and the selfish are sometimes amusing but often just annoying and time wasting. Their common characteristic is they have no appreciation of their own behaviour. In real life there are consequences to bad behaviour in society, nobody will talk to you if you go far enough. The medium to some extent enables the socially ill by providing real-life anonymity, allowing nymshifting and seeming like people are not actually real, they are just streams of electrons out in the ether. If you are sick enough to spend all your efforts getting attention by being a turd then usenet will make it possible. If (however well meaning you may be) you feel it your bounden duty to jam your politics, religion or wackiness down the throats of an international audience then you can do it here. If you are 15 years old (in years or attitude) you can perversely get an ego massage wasting the time of good people who just want to talk about plants. It no longer seems possible to agree to disagree, you must have the last word and go over the same ground again and again. The dead horse is no longer getting beaten but a hole in the ground where the dust of the horse used to be must be assailed daily. The extremists of the left and right of US politics are both blind the fact that around the world NOBODY ****ING CARES about your sectarian poison. You are both safe and warm in your respective blankets ( red and blue to be sure) of national, social and moral insularity - a plaque on both your houses. I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over your life. That's one of the more cogent comments on the current situation that I've seen. I'm rapidly losing interest as well, there's very few groups with posters that are worth reading or communicating with any more. Of course, this has been going on for years now, but lately... for me Usenet hasn't never been at such a low point as it is right now. When you think about it, there isn't a better venue on the Internet for those purely into conflict, trolling or just plain arguing. So as long time genuine posters bail, the signal to noise ratio has deteriorated. And any new blood finding their way onto Usenet is coming from technically inept google group users... enough said there. It ain't looking terribly good at this stage. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On Sun, 22 Nov 2015 07:36:10 +1100, Jeßus wrote:
On Sat, 14 Nov 2015 10:46:37 +1100, "David Hare-Scott" wrote: I have been using usenet for decades now and regularly on these two NGs for about 12 years as far as I recall. I have learned much and I hope sometimes taught something useful. At times it has been real fun and I felt a comradeship with people who I will never meet in the flesh. There has always been some noise, a background of posts that were a waste of time and some posters who were always or nearly always a waste of time. On the whole it was worthwhile. But usenet is dying. The number of posters reduces every year. It seems there are too few good ones left to maintain critical mass. There has always been the ignorant the foolish and the arrogant but now the proportion has grown in the population and so the signal to noise ratio has declined. For those who say you can always plonk the idiots and the terminally toxic, the problem is by the time you do that there isn't much left. I have been reading and posting less and less. Aside from the general decline in numbers the core problem is those who want to abuse the system for fun or profit. Spammers and the selfish are with us in every medium and you need to cope with that somehow. In this respect interfaces where users must be identified and can be banned by administrators for either reason have an advantage but clearly this winnowing is never completely effective. Nonetheless most NGs survived a long time without resorting to moderation - but no more. Smaller groups (eg aus.gardens) have shrunk to the point where they are pretty much useless and the energy isn't there to amalgamate or reorganise to groups with sufficient mass to continue. The medium has had its day, Sadly. The sad, the sick, the crazy and the selfish are sometimes amusing but often just annoying and time wasting. Their common characteristic is they have no appreciation of their own behaviour. In real life there are consequences to bad behaviour in society, nobody will talk to you if you go far enough. The medium to some extent enables the socially ill by providing real-life anonymity, allowing nymshifting and seeming like people are not actually real, they are just streams of electrons out in the ether. If you are sick enough to spend all your efforts getting attention by being a turd then usenet will make it possible. If (however well meaning you may be) you feel it your bounden duty to jam your politics, religion or wackiness down the throats of an international audience then you can do it here. If you are 15 years old (in years or attitude) you can perversely get an ego massage wasting the time of good people who just want to talk about plants. It no longer seems possible to agree to disagree, you must have the last word and go over the same ground again and again. The dead horse is no longer getting beaten but a hole in the ground where the dust of the horse used to be must be assailed daily. The extremists of the left and right of US politics are both blind the fact that around the world NOBODY ****ING CARES about your sectarian poison. You are both safe and warm in your respective blankets ( red and blue to be sure) of national, social and moral insularity - a plaque on both your houses. I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over your life. That's one of the more cogent comments on the current situation that I've seen. I'm rapidly losing interest as well, there's very few groups with posters that are worth reading or communicating with any more. Of course, this has been going on for years now, but lately... for me Usenet hasn't never been at such a low point as it is right now. When you think about it, there isn't a better venue on the Internet for those purely into conflict, trolling or just plain arguing. So as long time genuine posters bail, the signal to noise ratio has deteriorated. And any new blood finding their way onto Usenet is coming from technically inept google group users... enough said there. It ain't looking terribly good at this stage. That's because most of the dimwitted/non contributers are now facebooking. I've always found it ironic when some say they have learned here but those are the information takers who rarely if ever have contributed. They flap their gums about gardening but seem to have nothing to contribute, not even a single photo of their garden. Perhaps it's best they depart and create a vaccuum that will suck in real gardeners, who talk less but demonstrate more. Imagine, someone types over a thousand words about why they are leaving because it's other's fault but hasn't spent nearly that much effort in meaningful contributions. The truth is facebooking requires much of ones time, facebookers don't have time for usenet... facebookers really enjoy that inane soap opera. I spent a day looking around at facebook, all BSing morons out lying each other. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
On Friday, November 13, 2015 at 5:46:40 PM UTC-6, David Hare-Scott wrote:
But usenet is dying. The number of posters reduces every year. It seems there are too few good ones left to maintain critical mass. I agree that usenet is dying, but some groups are closer to dead than others, and of course some groups are like zombies since they are active but swamped with unrelated spam. In rec.gardens.edible I have not seen too much spam and I don't even bother with filtering other than whatever google.groups may do without my knowledge. |
Goodbye with mixed feelings
Once upon a time on usenet David Hare-Scott wrote:
I have been using usenet for decades now and regularly on these two NGs for about 12 years as far as I recall. I have learned much and I hope sometimes taught something useful. At times it has been real fun and I felt a comradeship with people who I will never meet in the flesh. There has always been some noise, a background of posts that were a waste of time and some posters who were always or nearly always a waste of time. On the whole it was worthwhile. But usenet is dying. The number of posters reduces every year. It seems there are too few good ones left to maintain critical mass. There has always been the ignorant the foolish and the arrogant but now the proportion has grown in the population and so the signal to noise ratio has declined. For those who say you can always plonk the idiots and the terminally toxic, the problem is by the time you do that there isn't much left. I have been reading and posting less and less. Aside from the general decline in numbers the core problem is those who want to abuse the system for fun or profit. Spammers and the selfish are with us in every medium and you need to cope with that somehow. In this respect interfaces where users must be identified and can be banned by administrators for either reason have an advantage but clearly this winnowing is never completely effective. Nonetheless most NGs survived a long time without resorting to moderation - but no more. Smaller groups (eg aus.gardens) have shrunk to the point where they are pretty much useless and the energy isn't there to amalgamate or reorganise to groups with sufficient mass to continue. The medium has had its day, Sadly. The sad, the sick, the crazy and the selfish are sometimes amusing but often just annoying and time wasting. Their common characteristic is they have no appreciation of their own behaviour. In real life there are consequences to bad behaviour in society, nobody will talk to you if you go far enough. The medium to some extent enables the socially ill by providing real-life anonymity, allowing nymshifting and seeming like people are not actually real, they are just streams of electrons out in the ether. If you are sick enough to spend all your efforts getting attention by being a turd then usenet will make it possible. If (however well meaning you may be) you feel it your bounden duty to jam your politics, religion or wackiness down the throats of an international audience then you can do it here. If you are 15 years old (in years or attitude) you can perversely get an ego massage wasting the time of good people who just want to talk about plants. It no longer seems possible to agree to disagree, you must have the last word and go over the same ground again and again. The dead horse is no longer getting beaten but a hole in the ground where the dust of the horse used to be must be assailed daily. The extremists of the left and right of US politics are both blind the fact that around the world NOBODY ****ING CARES about your sectarian poison. You are both safe and warm in your respective blankets ( red and blue to be sure) of national, social and moral insularity - a plaque on both your houses. I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC gets retired. Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over your life. David that is such a damn eloquent post about not just what is wrong with usenet but society - in fact society moreso. Thunderbird is a free email / newsgroups client and Eternal September a free NNTP server so I for one hope that you'll reconsider. I'm seeing this first in aus-gardens as I've been so busy in my own (NZ) garden I haven't had time to check the groups for a while and aus.gardens is alphabetically superior to the two rec. groups (both of whch I read) and is in the same hemisphere as me. Also I see a lot of posts for the first time in ages.... I have copied your post to my saved folder where it joins several similar posts from over the years from other decent rational people. Good people who are worth 'reading' and the loss of whom is a blow to this medium. Some of those people reconsidered and I hope that you do too (I see a bunch of posts in this thread hopefully entreating you to stay). If you don't go then you give in to the arseholes - and leave me (and I'm sure many others) with less of a reason to check these groups. I've been trying hard not to give in to the exodus to advertising sponsored on-line forums where petty dictators get to control who can and can't say what they want to say. Your presence if you do decide to go will be sorely missed me me at least. I'm more of a reader than a poster and your posts are always worth the time taken to read them. Whatever you decide I wish you all the best - may your life be filled with love and laughter. Sincerely, Shaun. |
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