Back in the day (1980, to be exact), before we even had the Internet, there was Usenet. Users read and posted to various “newsgroups,” and the discussions were passed around using the UUCP protocol. It really was pretty cool if you had access to a computer that was able to get a “news feed.”
Oddly enough, Usenet is still with us. I’m not exactly sure why, seeing as how we now have much better ways of discussing amateur radio, including web-based forums, such as Reddit. Heck, I even think eHam.Net forums might be preferable to participating the amateur radio newsgroups.
A lot of the newsgroups now exist as Google Groups. This has expanded access to the groups, but even so, I don’t think that there is a lot of participation.
One of the problems with newsgroups is that they tended to turn into “flame wars.” Another was that the spammers would get hold of them and flood a newsgroup with spam. To combat that, many newsgroups became moderated newsgroups. In a moderated newsgroup, only posts that a moderator approved would appear on the newsgroup.
The reason I bring all this up is that I was asked a couple of months ago if I would allow my blog posts to appear on the newsgroup rec.radio.amateur. I gave my permission, and it’s been appearing there ever since.
Recently, the same fellow asked if I would post about the formation of uk.radio.amateur.moderated, a moderated newsgroup for hams in the U.K. Before the group can actually go live, there has to be some discussion about the purpose of the new group and why it should be formed. You can read the request for discussion (RFD) here.
Frankly, I’m already overloaded. I should be cutting down on what I already subscribe to, so I won’t be joining this group. If you’re in the U.K., though, you might find the group interesting and useful.
Usenet is still around because it has been defended as having common carrier status in the courts. Long story short, you (if you were an Internet provider) can’t be held liable for anything coming across the Usenet pipe. In addition it’s decentralized (imagine the chaos if the qrz admins just Up And Quit one day) somewhat, and there are technical rules for pulling content down. You can’t just DMCA everything and empty it out.
Hope this illuminates! Usenet is a pretty greybeard territory, but it’s still around for very good reasons.
>imagine the chaos if the qrz admins just Up And Quit one day
We can only hope :-)
But seriously, there are several other good callsign database websites out there, and much better, friendly discussion forums.
Regarding Usenet common carrier status, 13 years ago or so here in Eastern PA I informed a major ISP that they were carrying illegal content in Usenet groups dedicated specifically for that content. Their attorney basically told me to go pound sand as it was content originating outside of their network. And he said this despite the fact that you can configure a Usenet server to not carry certain groups from its newsfeed.
I’m not sure that that it follows that the liability protection is really a reason for its continued existence. If users are interested in using it, wouldn’t it just wither away? Yes, there are still users, but I’m wondering if it’s worth the effort to keep it going.
As far as it being “graybeard” territory, I resemble that remark!
There’s one reason there is still interest in Usenet: porn binaries.
Of course USENET remains. It is one SURE place to get valuable information.
Now we have Facebook and a kazillion amateur radio groups there. Do you remember Yahoo groups? Of course, you can find a kazillion amateur radio groups there. You mentioned Google Groups, ditto. Reddit? newsvine? QRZ? Eham? QRZnow? Everyone with an axe to grind can grind it there.
You have a blog. I have a blog. Everyone can have a blog. :)
Thankfully, there’s https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rec.radio.amateur.moderated … a moderated USENET amateur radio group designed to keep spam AND flamewars out. :)
73
Thankfully? For a while now, my blog posts have been re-posted to rec.radio.amateur.moderated. I just did a quick scan of that group, and it looks pretty dead to me. The only content seem to be blog reposts–there’s next to nothing in the way of original content.
I thought blog posts WERE original content. :)
Be safe.
Lloyd
OK. My bad. I mean content produced by the group’s subscribers. I did an even deeper dig this morning, Over the past two months, only seven posts have replies, and only two of them have more than one reply.
It’s dead, Jim.
Usenet has been around long before the (www) web. I have used Usenet servers almost daily, for at least 20 years. In the last days of 2011, I decided to pull the plug, and give Usenet up “cold turkey”.
That’s my point. The only people still using Usenet are the diehards.
A big thing that killed the rec.radio.* hierarchy was the same bozo that thought it needed a moderated newsgroup.
That went nowhere, but he thought it meant it gave him some sort of authority, so he proceeded to spam the full hierarchy with junk posts. Like your blog posts sent to the hierarchy. Yes, traffic slowed down, but it became harder and harder for real posts when they were lost by the constant spam. So now there is no actual content there.
The bozo thought “curated” content would be good, but if nobody’s reading the hierarchy, why wouod content available elsewhere be useful? This isn’t 1995 when people could read usenet but not have access to the web.
It’s a hideous thing. Most of it is just pointers to other things. Initially people would reply to the ones that were full posts, but the spam was one way, people like you weren’t there to listen. And once a site is tagged as “valuable” it no longeer matters what the person is writing, it gets dumped to the hierarchy even if it’s not related to ham radio, or even to the specific subgroup.
The contempt for usenet is incredible. All kinds of people “know” it’s bad, but they generally have never been participants. You have to do a bit of work to use usenet, that’s the initial problem. Pretty much everything came after that, all the “better” things derive from usenet. Google never helped, they make usenet like it only exists at google, which creates problems fir people using usenet as intended. That’s no better tyan tge bozo in the rec.radio.* hierarchy who thinks he has the right to “improve” it by controlling it.