On 2013-11-06 21:14:26 +0000, Jake said:

On Wed, 6 Nov 2013 17:50:07 +0000, Sacha
wrote:

I'm concerned for the future of this group

I've pruned the rest as you can read it in the original post and my
reply's long enough on its own

The truth is often unpalatable. Usenet is changing. URG is dying.
There is no new blood coming in to replace those who move on. In its
death throes, URG has changed from a gardening group to a less
focused, and predominantly male, social gathering.

Sacha refers to the reduction in posts. I archive the group each
month; I used to do it more frequently. The simple volume of posts per
month, measured by file size, has decreased by about 65% in the last
year. I also notice the all too plain disappearance of former regulars
and the less frequent posts of others.

Mention the weather and we're on (again) about how reliable any
forecast isn't. Spuds won't cook properly because of some nuance in
Internet Explorer which means the Firefox won't burn properly and so
the non-Chrome pan won't warm up during the Opera interval. We
exchange witticisms, thoughts about life, the world etc., with some
loose connection to gardening that often ends with the fourth post in
a thread. And at some point in a long thread someone won't like
someone else and we have a public exchange of "views".

We have the occasional bit of interest with the "guess the plant"
posts, unless incursion of advertisements which pay for the free photo
hosting sites diverts the discussion (again).

Then some innocent arrives from GardenBanter, survives the inevitable
discussion about what WE are (does Crowe still interject to say what a
bunch of nasties we are and that he's off on another cruise soon?),
might get an answer to a question and then disappears into a hole in
the rhubarb patch forever.

Then there are those who come other than through GardenBanter. The
difference is that they don't disappear permanently once their
question is answered; they drink wine on the patio for a few months
while thinking up a new question and return here. But much else is
simply repetitive.

Twitter is the only social media entity that I bother with but that
can, if used carefully, be productive. I would be lying if I said that
I do not find Twitter discussions about gardening issues far more
focused, interesting and productive than those in URG. I've never met
an URGler but have met quite a few people via Twitter; some I now meet
with regularly in both a gardening context and at more general social
events.

And there ARE good gardening blogs/web sites. Start with somewhere
like http://www.thinkingardens.co.uk where the discussion,
surprisingly about gardening topics, is active and interesting. Though
probably you won't like the layout or something.

But after many happy years of Usenet, URG is now the only group I
follow. And I too will ask myself the question "Is it worth it?" when
my annual Usenet provider account is due for renewal. The honest
answer is "Probably not."

Applause and a sad endorsement.
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

On 2013-11-06 21:21:07 +0000, David in Normandy said:

On 06/11/2013 22:14, Jake wrote:

But after many happy years of Usenet, URG is now the only group I
follow. And I too will ask myself the question "Is it worth it?" when
my annual Usenet provider account is due for renewal. The honest
answer is "Probably not."


You can always use one of the free usenet providers. Nowadays I use
EternalSeptember. I wouldn't dream of paying for a Usenet provider
account due to my extremely low posting on usenet nowadays.

But that isn't the problem, David. Which is that, even while willing to
pay up until now, Jake sees no POINT in continuing to do so. URG no
longer holds the interest or attraction. He mentions the site
www.thinkingardens.co.uk I've also given that link two or three times
on here and I'd be prepared to bet than less than a quarter of urglers
have bothered to look at it. In fact, I wonder if anyone at all has
done so. Again, it's full of opinion and discussion, some of it from
well-known and expert gardeners, writers and designers. But I have yet
to see anyone, other than Jake or me, refer to it or any subject raised
in it. The conclusion one comes to almost inevitably, is that nobody
is interested enough in keeping urg going to look at or discuss other
sources of information or opinion. You say your own posting is low
nowadays but what none of us have done - until now - is as why and what
we can do about it. Of course, the obvious answer is that, if nobody IS
interested enough in keeping urg going, then it will simply fade away
and that is the prerogative of the users.
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

"Sacha" wrote a message ...

Sacha - just because not many here falls for your "thinking gardens" bait,
then it does not follow that we as urglers are dying !
I am one of those who is quite happy with the status here as it stands.

Pete

On 06/11/13 17:50, Sacha wrote:

I'm concerned for the future of this group which I've enjoyed hugely for
16 years. Some have been here longer than that. But given the number
of those who used to post and who lurk (I know of a few, not many now)
the response to the suggestion that we widen our horizons, look at a
blog and consider looking at others and discussing their content, were -
forgive the pun - seeds on stony ground. I don't know if this is
because of disinterest, complacence or a belief that urg will continue
into the mists of time. It won't.

I'm guilty of being a lurker on here, largely because the group's
experiences are far wider than mine, but I'm not a youngster either. In
those regards I bring nothing to the group. Yet, why do I lurk here? The
answer is simple: it's because I find useful information on topics I'm
interested in! For example, there were a number of posts a few weeks ago
that talked about black spot, the sort that grows on patio paving, and I
realised that that is what I have. So, despite the gloomy nature of the
postings, I set about about finding a way to deal with it. It's very
early days yet, but I might have had some success. However, it will be
quite some time, possibly a year or two, before long-term success could
be claimed. My next step is to take some 'before and after' photos, to
show what could be done, but that's several weeks ahead. So, if this is
a success, I could report back to the group and thus contribute to the
knowledge-base. I suppose I'm saying here that there is more to this
group than might appear on the surface, and from my ~20 years on Usenet
that appears to be pretty much universal.

Another widespread concern is exactly what you say here, about what you
see as the decline of Usenet - it has occurred in nearly every group I
read. Yet, are things that bad? The Usenet server Eternal-September was
so named for a specific reason: up to 1993, Usenet was largely
restricted to Universities, and in that year it was discovered by the
wider internet community and as a result usage grew enormously - some
might say that quality fell as a result. Nowadays we have the
blogosphere, Facebook, Twitter, Ask FM, in fact any number of 'social
media' sites - none of which have Usenet's advantages and none of which
existed back then. It's inevitable that new things will come along to
replace the old, or at least compete with it. But that doesn't make them
better, even if it does make them more popular. If it came to a contest
between quantity and quality, I know which I'd choose. Here's some
uk-hierarchy usage figures:

http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/spoolstats/

You'll see what might be the first signs of stability after some years
of steady decline, and it has been speculated that Usenet is getting
back the pre-1993 levels of usage. If this is in fact the case, then
perhaps your fears are largely unfounded, in that those left on Usenet
are the ones who want to be here, who see blogs, forums, FB and Twitter
as poor substitutes for the text-based, decentralised, advert-free
system we currently enjoy. But are FB and Twitter themselves set to be
dominant forever? I doubt it. I feel you may have over-egged the
doom-and-gloom, but of course only time will tell.

--
John Milner

On 06/11/2013 23:43, Sacha wrote:
On 2013-11-06 21:14:26 +0000, Jake said:

On Wed, 6 Nov 2013 17:50:07 +0000, Sacha
wrote:

I'm concerned for the future of this group

Come on Sacha, we know this topic is just a plant to get something moving.

I'm not going to quote from anyone's message but to just give a few
thoughts of my own. This will be quite long and if you get bored just
scroll down to the last couple of paragraphs where I have made a
positive suggestion.

URG is a child of its time. It's like the Fidonet which was the first
worldwide general means of electronic communication. The Fidonet died
because a better means of communication grew up, i.e. the Internet. The
Fidonet is still there, and people, mainly Russians, are still writing
software for it, but it is peopled now solely by those who want to keep
a museum piece going.

There were many reasons why people thought the Fidonet was dying, not
least some of the reasons which could be applied to URG.

So how is URG perceived by, say, the newcomer? Some of our biggest
mistakes are, for example, to criticise them for (a) coming to us via
Gardenbanter, or (b) calling URG a forum. Why is it necessary to do
this? By satisfying our own little perception of what URG is, the
newcomer will immediately feel that they are entering a place where they
must mind their P's and Q's. These things may irritate us but is it
necessary to say anything? What good does it do apart from making us
feel that we are "keeping up the standards"? Goodness, how petty!

Why can't we refer to URG as a forum because that's what it is, a place
where discussions can take place. Why shouldn't people use Gardenbanter
to post? Why do we refer to Gardenbanter as "stealing" our messages
where we should be grateful that it is making our messages available to
a wider public. What actual harm is Gardenbanter doing? None! So why
mention it?

Another thing which people say caused the demise of the Fidonet are the
flame wars. There are those who perceive that they are being insulted
and immediately respond, sometimes quite rudely. Most of us haven't a
clue what it was originally about but, by responding publicly, they have
made sure that a lot more people know that there is bad feeling. Here
again, the newcomer will be put off.

I can see why blogs and web sites are becoming more popular. It's
because they are "prettier", with formatting and illustrations. (That's
another reason why the Fidonet died.) In the right hands these can be a
revelation, in the wrong hands they can be even more tedious than a
straight text vehicle. Take the web blog that we had trouble with
recently. I can't help agreeing with a lot of what David Roberts said,
certainly in the context of setting the page out. You'll notice that,
even here, I can try to make my messages more readable by giving some
white space between paragraphs and not making those paragraphs too long.
I'm afraid that Sara simply wrote long blogs with no white space and,
frankly, I lost interest after a time.

But I was a casual reader. An avid reader wouldn't allow such things to
distract them, but how many casual readers have been put off by poor
formatting? It *is* important.

I've been reading URG for around eighteen years, I think. Even when I
started at least one of the stalwarts, Chunky, who helped create URG had
already left - I never saw any messages by him. And Cormaic last only
another five years or so before he found that his business left him too
little time to contribute. But Cormaic was a great encourager. It was he
that persuaded me to post a regular welcome message and he still hosts
the URG web site.

Ok, so we have a URG web site. Why don't we use it? Not much has changed
for years apart from keeping some of the FAQs up-to-date. In fact, it
probably suffers from a lot of the formatting and colour problems that
others have mentioned. It needs a good overhaul. We could keep a blog
going on that. There could be several blogs. Has anyone the vision to
make use of http://www.u-r-g.co.uk ? URG doesn't *have* to stay as a
Usenet group.

As I said, URG is a child of its time. It's twenty years old (that's an
age in Internet terms!) and it's now time to move on. It needs to
metamorphose into something more up-to-date. Well, how about it, folks?

David

--
David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK

bert wrote:

Here I can look at a subject line click down the OP and decide if
it's of interest and if not on to the next thread in a couple of
ticks. Newsnet delivers all the posts from all the groups I
subscribe to in nicely organised threads and I read them at my
leisure.

this ^

URG isn't the only newsgroup I use, and they're all slowly withering
away, but Usenet is still by far the best way of following a
"conversation", imo.

--
Chris

John Milner wrote:

It's inevitable that
new things will come along to replace the old, or at least compete
with it. But that doesn't make them better, even if it does make them
more popular. If it came to a contest between quantity and quality, I
know which I'd choose.

The Sun is Britain's best selling newspaper, by some margin.

'Nuff said.

--
Chris

On Thu, 07 Nov 2013 09:21:39 +0000, John Milner
wrote:

I'm guilty of being a lurker on here, largely because the group's
experiences are far wider than mine, but I'm not a youngster either. In
those regards I bring nothing to the group. Yet, why do I lurk here?

We want more lurkers. Lurkers are keeping Usenet groups going. Lurkers
become questioners and contributors.

Steve

--
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. http://www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. http://www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. http://www.justnn.com

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.

On 07/11/2013 00:43, Sacha wrote:


And there ARE good gardening blogs/web sites. Start with somewhere
like http://www.thinkingardens.co.uk where the discussion,
surprisingly about gardening topics, is active and interesting. Though
probably you won't like the layout or something.


I just took a look at that site but it doesn't appear to actually be
open to posts from the general public; unless there is some hidden
submission process followed by editorial review prior to publishing.
Such a site, while interesting, does not appear to be a place for having
an easy dialogue between gardeners.

--
David in Normandy.

On 07/11/2013 10:47, David Rance wrote:

Ok, so we have a URG web site. Why don't we use it? Not much has changed
for years apart from keeping some of the FAQs up-to-date. In fact, it
probably suffers from a lot of the formatting and colour problems that
others have mentioned. It needs a good overhaul. We could keep a blog
going on that. There could be several blogs. Has anyone the vision to
make use of http://www.u-r-g.co.uk ? URG doesn't *have* to stay as a
Usenet group.


URG would be a good base to start from. As it stands the site is
read-only and has no features to support any dialogue. I've just looked
at Sacha's suggested site and that appears to have the same limitation
too - neither is designed for discussion. The u-r-g website would need
completely redesigning, perhaps with a phpbb forum being set up on it so
people could create threads and hold discussions.

Somewhat ironically, the site that does offer a means for people to
participate and post is the Garden Banter site! Much bemoaned by some of
the URG regulars for "stealing" posts made on URG. Those of us who
remain in URG could simply move and relocate there?!

--
David in Normandy.

On Thu, 7 Nov 2013 Nick Maclaren wrote:

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.

I said that it was the first *general* means of electronic
communication. By that I mean available/affordable to all. UUCP may well
have predated it but UUCP was not available to all because of the high
cost of getting connected to the Internet, certainly in the UK, until
1992 when Demon first made it affordable here. You were in a privileged
position in academia that few of us could enjoy. Tom Jennings' Fidonet
was a do-it-yourself solution, springing off the back of bulletin
boards.

David

--
David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK

On 07/11/2013 10:07, CT wrote:
John Milner wrote:

It's inevitable that
new things will come along to replace the old, or at least compete
with it. But that doesn't make them better, even if it does make them
more popular. If it came to a contest between quantity and quality, I
know which I'd choose.

The Sun is Britain's best selling newspaper, by some margin.

'Nuff said.


In that case could it be that we need more of these?
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps47995488.jpg

David Hill wrote:

On 07/11/2013 10:07, CT wrote:

The Sun is Britain's best selling newspaper, by some margin.

'Nuff said.


In that case could it be that we need more of these?

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps47995488.jpg

Oh, what a lovely pair!

--
Chris