new Google groups

What's wrong with usenet?

Why don't the people dissatisfied with Yahoo! create a newsgroup?

Of course they can. And it can then appear in the google groups service and appear as regular emails. The point of the google service, as I understand it is to make existing newsgroups more like yahoo groups. Which would be one way to increase active participation in here.

In message , MartinS writes

Because Usenet is public, whereas a group is (or can be) private.

"John Ruddy" wrote

I use both Usenet and Yahoo and think there's room for both, but don't see the point in duplicating what appears here in the form of additional email inbox clutter.

With Usenet I can choose which subjects interest me, whereas with Yahoo (or Google Groups for that matter) I seem to spend a lot of time deleting emails which are of minimal interest.

There's also something to be said for a forum such as this which anyone with a newserver can access and which doesn't require you to be a member.

John.

But I suspect those who would use this Google service would not also be accessing a NNTP server, either by choice or being away etc. (many people can retrieve their email even when away from there own computer), I doubt duplication would be an issue for most.

It doesn't seem to stop people posting spam and viruses.

You can read them on the web, rather than receive them as e-mails.

I don't see that as an advantage. Duplication of established usenet groups seems pointless to me.

"MartinS" wrote

I can read them on here so what's the point Martin?

John.

Its not duplication. Its allowing people to access them in a new way (by email). Presumably anyone here are already accessing newsgroups by one of the existing ways (news reader or web at google) - but it may attract new people who dont currently use the news groups.

Depends on the level of moderation, if any. I belong to an American based group, high traffic, fully moderated - absolutely no spam or viruses. The moderators of such groups do a wonderful job. Goodness knows where they find the time.

I agree; it still doesn't stop people _attempting_ to post spam and viruses. It is possible to set up a moderated group on usenet, but I believe it's quite an involved process.

You may be right, but I can't see it, for now anyway.

I was referring to Yahoo! groups in particular. You mentioned having to delete a lot of emails of minimal interest.

I used to subscribe to a newsgroup to which someone had set up a web-based front end similar to a forum. Because the people using that interface were more used to forums than newsgroups there was no quoting of relevant material and every post started it's own thread (probably a fault of the interface) so threading disappeared and following things in the newsgroup became almost impossible... reading on the website was find but the newsgroup was ruined.

Justin.

If you can read your mail away from your own computer you can read newsgroups. Yahoo groups were for people who couldn't cope with usenet, do you really want to read what they have to say?

Ken.

One problem is that many (possibly most) internet users think the web is the net and a great many have not heard of (or understood) the usenet service. I would for a charity supporting disabled people with IT and regularly run up against 'IT Professionals' who don't know what Usenet is.

I have the impression from talking to people working for ISPs that the ISPs would rather usenet died off and all groups were routed to web based services - The only 'plus' I can see is that access to groups can be controlled - I dont use Yahoo because of the lengthy sign up and I wasn't sure if it would bring spam raining down on my inbox Also time is an issue, just keeping up with the limited number of groups I subscribe to can be difficult.

Mike

With Yahoo! Groups it's possible to 'hide' your email address from the group, meaning it can't be harvested by spam-bots. I've been a member of many Y! Groups for a couple of years now, and I've never had any noticeable increase in spam since.

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Only if you either access them via Google or the 'loaned' computer has a newsreader and your ISP allows you to access the server away from your normal phone line.- many companies don't allow Usenet access on their machines, many public libraries / internet cafés don't either AIUI. Allowing people to have selected threads sent to their email account allows them to follow / contribute to those threads (ones that they might have already been a part of).

Not really, but we are not talking about those using Yahoo and as such it's not the issue really.