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Posted by FarmI on March 29, 2008, 5:56 pm
> On Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:26:15 +1100, FarmI wrote:
>
>
>> I'm sure there are any number of things I could do, but I still don't
>> know
>> what the problem is with using a 'web portal' to post.
> My whinge differs from that of Beverly. It's about the possible death of
> usenet, and that would be a calamity IMHO. There's certainly a school of
> thought that suggests usenet's days are numbered in favour of web-based
> forums. The thought makes me shudder.
Yes, I see your point. From the time I first found usenet, I thought it was
one of the great all time inventions. Like you I have also thought that
perhaps its days are numbered as it appears to being attacked on all sides.
I've tried on a number of occasions to explain to people about usenet and
even people who are reasonably computer savvy and who also use a MickeySox
mail prog like I do can't seem to get their head around even the basic bit
of info that they can access usenet by way of their e-mail program.
My husband, who worked got into computing in the late 60s and stayed there
till he moved late in his career into a management role can't seem to get
his head around it. (Mind you, being involved in computing in a huge
organisation means he also can't do many of the home computer things such as
searches for obscure subjects as well as I can either - he is useful for
technical things, but less so since DOS seems to have bitten the dust).
> I don't have too much of a problem with spam posts; equally in some news
> groups I follow there are some real nutters. I'm not a great believer in
> plonking other posters, my news reader has a window that just lists the
> subject lines and date posted. I've long-since developed the ability to
> skim through the headers to pick out the posts that I think will interest
> me. By definition that means I don't read all posts in most of my groups,
> probably somewhere up to 5% only.
>
> As it happens this is just about the only group where I do want to read
> all
> posts; there are some very knowledgeable and entertaining people here. I
> may not respond in many threads but I do follow what is being said.
Snap! Although I'm a recent arrival here, I too read all sewing (and
followup thread drift) posts here.
My news
> reader has the ability that I can apply rules to individual groups, and I
> have quite a few plonked in this NG, including those who use Google.
:-)) I actually plonked you (and by accident, Mary Fisher) at some stage
when I was plonking some of the spammers. You replied to one of their posts
when I was doing a bulk plonk. I had to go offf to google groups archives
to get your details to unplonk you after I figured out that you weren't a
bozo. Sorry about that.
> Now you come to what is my beef about web portal users, consideration
> towards others. Usenet ain't a one on one real time conversation. Threads
> develop over days or weeks. Posters dip in and out of threads over a
> period
> of days. There are no rules on usenet, there are no usenet police to
> enforce those rules, only conventions, and those conventions have evolved
> since the infancy of usenet to make life easier for its users.
>
> The obvious one is snipping and interleaving, you do it, I do it, but how
> many web portal users do it? How often do you see a bald reply without any
> contextual matter from previous messages? Why bless my soul, just about
> every post from Sew Girls!
Yes. That makes sense. I had wondered why some posts showed up in such a
strange way but hadn't done a properties check on them to see where they
originated.
> Web portals tend to make their users indifferent towards the conventions
> that exist here, because the designers of the portals resolutely fail to
> observe usenet protocols.
>
> Do you belong to any Yahoo groups?
No. I've seen some recommended that I thought sounded interesting but when
I've investigated, I thought they were more trouble than they were worth.
I've joined and left quite a few over
> the years. The most recent has been only over the last 7-10 days. I joined
> what looked like an interesting group for sewing for dolls. It was so
> disorderly and jumbled, answers for one thread appearing in another and so
> on, I just gace up. The structure of most of them is chaotic and confused,
> with posts popping up more or less in chronological order with little or
> no
> regard for the original subject. I fear web portals will tend to have the
> same cumulative effect here over time.
>
> I could go on...... :-)
Thank you for your post. The info you and others have given makes sense to
me.
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