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Lennvor

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Lennvor OP , to RedditMigration in Anybody remember Usenet?

Did you feel it was a hot mess in terms of the interface, or in terms of the culture?

Lennvor OP , to RedditMigration in Anybody remember Usenet?

I think that would be cool tbh. Although the more I've been thinking about it over the last couple of days the more I'm remembering all the various barriers to entry that make it hard on a web interface, I still feel that 1) I don't know that any are straight-up insurmountable, as opposed to nobody having had much motivation to surmount them since like 2005, and 2) everybody doesn't need to be on it for it to be worth being on. But you do need a minimal supply of new blood.

Do you have specifics or links on what form that mini resurgence is taking?

Lennvor OP , to RedditMigration in Anybody remember Usenet?

Any gaming alt you remember fondly and/or that might still be active?

Lennvor OP , to RedditMigration in Anybody remember Usenet?

They framed him on a murder charge!

Lennvor OP , to RedditMigration in Anybody remember Usenet?

Hi ! I only realized that you'd posted a link after u/btaf45 (@btaf45?) highlighted it. That's a really interesting usenet reader, do you know if there exists a website that highlights groups by activity, or can display the most recent messages from all groups like the main page of a social media aggregator? It seems to me that if reader.usenet.monster can do what it does it should be able to do that too but I don't see that kind of page on that site.

Lennvor OP , to RedditMigration in Anybody remember Usenet?

That's a cute grumpy old man take but I don't think it really holds up, not as a main cause of the desertion from Usenet at least. It's true that Usenet arose during a time when people using computers actually understood how they worked and how to use them, but there were also a lot fewer people on the internet. I won't hazard a guess as to in raw numbers whether the number of people who understand computers rose or decreased, but even if it decreased the fact is that there are tons of people today who were on Usenet in the day and no longer are, even though they presumably know enough about computers to get on it. Insofar as simplicity of access matters (and oh, how it matters) I suspect it's not just about how people back then knew how to do harder things, but also that everything was harder. The differential between getting on Usenet and getting elsewhere on the internet was less large than today, where the internet overall has gotten much more user-friendly and Usenet has not.

Offhand I'd guess a more salient factor is discoverability. In order to get onto a forum you need to 1) learn that it exists, 2) be interested in checking it out, 3) check it out and 4) participate. How do people even hear about Usenet these days, let alone hear something that makes them want to check it out? When I think of it, my path to Usenet was via the TalkOrigins.org website. Even then I bounced off of actually getting onto the newsgroup for what might have been years before I finally succeeded. And that was back when ISPs supported newsgroups! How many other "portals" to Usenet newsgroups are there - I don't mean a web interface, I mean any website that a random person surfing the web might run into that would 1) let them know this newsgroup exists and 2) make them want to check it out/participate badly enough that they'll go through the many, many steps required to do so ?

Discoverability is even an issue once you are on Usenet. Here I am, a person who I think has a little bit of experience with the thing, asking on Kbin for people's recommendations because I don't have a way within Usenet to know which newsgroups are active and which are good. You have to trawl through the list, subscribe and then you find out, and the list is much too large for a layperson to trawl through usefully. I'm working with the advantage of vaguely remembering which newsgroups I liked and were humming back when I was there; I don't know how a total newcomer would manage. Maybe there are actual websites and portals out there that help, dunno if anyone has recommendations.

Lennvor OP , to RedditMigration in Anybody remember Usenet?

I heard that the comp.lang ones were still active ! And while I'm not wildly into computer languages as a subject of conversation I'm not totally not into it either. Are they all mostly about helping each other with coding questions or are there some with conversations that would be interesting to something with a more generic interest in computing?

Then there are also binaries groups which are NOT dead and still living ;)

Yes I gathered that :) I don't know if those tend to have lot of conversation though?

I see rec.arts.sf.written and talk.origins are active, which tracks honestly but is still a nice surprise. sci.bio.evolution seems deceased, I don't know if any other science group survived.

Lennvor , to RedditMigration in Reddit kills awards and coins

A suggestion I've seen is to use them to give platinum coins to people, because that gives them some time of Reddit Premium (platinum gives more than gold), which is the only thing you can do with them that will outlast the awards being phased out and it's the closest thing to using them for something that has monetary value.

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