Newsreaders

[Kaz Kylheku]

In what way is a newsreader interface for reading better
than Google groups ?

My best explanation for this is the following snippet from my ~/.slrn-scores
file (the killfile of the newsreader slrn):

[*]
Score: =-9999
Message-ID: <.*\.googlegroups\.com>

This assigns the most negative score to anything with a Google Groups message
ID, thus making it disappear.

By connecting to a proper NNTP server with a proper NNTP program, I can make
all garbage from Google groups disappear in one fell swoop.

So how am I responding to your post, which came from Google Groups? I saw it
quoted in a follow-up by Mark Wooding, and used slrn's ``ESC-p'' command to
reveal and navigate to the parent article.

Such a blanket rule still has lots of false positives. Not everything from
Google Groups is spam, and not every GG user is a drooling moron. If a
legitimate thread forms around a posting from Google Groups, then I can still
access that article in this manner.

So in summary, not only is the Google Groups web interface an unuseable piece
of shit compared to a real news client, the content of Google Groups is full of
garbage, most of which originates in Google Groups itself.

Google Groups is useful for exactly one purpose: accessing archives.

 

[Default User]

Some of them are decent, but I would agree that the vast majority
border on unusable, including GG.

Had they put a moderately competent team, familiar with usenet, on the
GG "Beta", they probably could have created a reasonable product.

The best attempt at a web-based newsreader I've seen is:

<http://www.recgroups.com>



Brian

 

[Spiros Bousbouras]

In what way is a newsreader interface for reading better
than Google groups ?

My best explanation for this is the following snippet from my ~/.slrn-scores
file (the killfile of the newsreader slrn):

[*]
Score: =-9999
Message-ID: <.*\.googlegroups\.com>

This assigns the most negative score to anything with a Google Groups message
ID, thus making it disappear.

This gives a reason why it may be bad for posting but not why
it's bad for reading.

So in summary, not only is the Google Groups web interface an unuseable piece
of shit compared to a real news client, the content of Google Groups is full of
garbage, most of which originates in Google Groups itself.

Apart from spam/troll filters what do you consider the main
feature that a newsreader has but the Google interface
doesn't ?

 

[Default User]

I don't understand what you mean by fetch few articles at a
time. You have at your fingertips the whole collection of
articles for as far back as the archive goes.

No, you don't. The server does. When you read via GG, it fetches clumps
of messages at a time.

Most newsreaders can download to local storage all the new messages
(less filtering). This makes reading easier for some people (including
me).

If you turn on tree view you have on the left of the screen the
whole clickable collection of articles in a thread but you have
to scroll the list up and down if the thread is long. So I don't
understand what you mean by "fewer articles". I prefer the
"normal" view where I can see a whole collection of articles as
a continuous stream. In the ordering of the articles the
responses almost always appear after the "responded to" article.

The biggest difference is that dedicated newsreaders can indicate which
messages have been read. With mine, I have to set to display only
unread messages in the message tree. I can switch to the view that
shows the read ones as well, they will be displayed in slightly
different fashion to differentiate.




Brian

 

[Richard]

No, you don't. The server does. When you read via GG, it fetches clumps
of messages at a time.

The neither do you with your newsreader. Your server does. Whether thats
in your client or not.

Must you be so pedantic?

Spiros was correct : he does have FAR more access to articles than you
do since GG archives the lot usually. Most ISPs don't. As you should
know.

Most newsreaders can download to local storage all the new messages
(less filtering). This makes reading easier for some people (including
me).

No. They download SOME messages. It may or may not be ALL. And most
people do not keep ALL messages in history locally.

The biggest difference is that dedicated newsreaders can indicate which
messages have been read. With mine, I have to set to display only
unread messages in the message tree. I can switch to the view that
shows the read ones as well, they will be displayed in slightly
different fashion to differentiate.

Well, thats one not so major difference.

And your signature is still not properly set up. Please prefix it with
"-- " so our properly configured newsreaders can snip it on read or
reply.

 

[Doug Miller]

Apart from spam/troll filters what do you consider the main
feature that a newsreader has but the Google interface
doesn't ?

That alone is more than sufficient reason to use a newsreader instead of
Google's broken interface.

 

[Kaz Kylheku]

Tony wrote:
IMO, web interfaces to threaded discussion is horrendous.

Some of them are decent, but I would agree that the vast majority border
on unusable, including GG.

In what way is a newsreader interface for reading better
than Google groups ?

My best explanation for this is the following snippet from my ~/.slrn-scores
file (the killfile of the newsreader slrn):

[*]
Score: =-9999
Message-ID: <.*\.googlegroups\.com>

This assigns the most negative score to anything with a Google Groups message
ID, thus making it disappear.

This gives a reason why it may be bad for posting but not why
it's bad for reading.

It gives both. How do you implement a rule like the above in Google Groups?

Apart from spam/troll filters what do you consider the main
feature that a newsreader has but the Google interface
doesn't ?

Is there any reason why you can't ask these questions in a newsgroup
about newsreaders, like news.software.readers? Or do you only care about
answers from C programmers?

I will give you a quick point form:

- Indefinite session persistence: take as long as you want to edit a response;
if the NNTP socket is closed, software can reconnect.
- Maintaining unfinished articles in a draft container, indefinitely.
- Local storage of article in the draft stage---in the event of a failure,
you can recover it (e.g. ~/.article or ~/.followup file in your home
directory). On Google if the browser dies, there goes your draft.
- Integrated use of your favorite text editor like Vim.
- The sofware will not munge your text. What you edit is what goes into the
server.
- Etiquette warnings to help safeguard against gaffes: warning that you're
crossposting without followup-to, warning against long lines, warning against
excessive quoted text, warning that your followup is being redirected to
newsgroups other than what you're reading.
- Far superior thread navigation.
- Entire thread displayed all in one view regardless of its size;
no fragmentation into ``newer'' and ``older''.
- Correct article is displayed when its condensed representation
is selected in the tree view; no need to match numbers
in thread pane and body pane.
- No bullshit bugs like articles from five years ago with the
same subject line being treaded in the same view as the
current thread!
- Scriptability. For instance my Message-ID: is generated by a custom script.
- Ability to specify arbitrary headers.
- Decoding binaries from multi-part posts.
- Using MIME (in newsgroups that allow it, of course).
- Cancelation and supersede support (may be limited by servers, but that's
no rationale for not providing it in the UI).

 

[Default User]

That alone is more than sufficient reason to use a newsreader instead
of Google's broken interface.

It should be noted that there are some browser add-ons that purport to
give some filtering capability. I have not used any of them.




Brian

 

[Spiros Bousbouras]

Is there any reason why you can't ask these questions in a newsgroup
about newsreaders, like news.software.readers? Or do you only care about
answers from C programmers?

I consider this a small talk thread. I prefer to do small
talk with people I "know". If I wanted to be all serious
about it I would go to news.software.readers But I do
appreciate your detailed reply.

I will give you a quick point form:

- Indefinite session persistence: take as long as you want to edit a response;
if the NNTP socket is closed, software can reconnect.
- Maintaining unfinished articles in a draft container, indefinitely.
- Local storage of article in the draft stage---in the event of a failure,
you can recover it (e.g. ~/.article or ~/.followup file in your home
directory). On Google if the browser dies, there goes your draft.

Actually with Firefox, stuff you have started typing in a
form survives a crash. When you restart it you get a
message whether you want to resume your previous
session and if you answer yes you get the form with
everything you have already typed. I wouldn't depend
on it too much because I can't remember if it always
happens but it's interesting to know.

- Integrated use of your favorite text editor like Vim.
- The sofware will not munge your text. What you edit is what goes into the
server.
- Etiquette warnings to help safeguard against gaffes: warning that you're
crossposting without followup-to, warning against long lines, warning against
excessive quoted text, warning that your followup is being redirected to
newsgroups other than what you're reading.
- Far superior thread navigation.
- Entire thread displayed all in one view regardless of its size;

Ahhh yes , I was wondering about this. So you don't have
to select each post individually but you can view the whole
thread as a continuous text stream , yes ?

<SNIP>

 

[JosephKK]

Hi,

Why do many of you use newsreaders other than the one provided by
Google Groups?

What newsreader do you recommend, solely for comp.lang.c and why?

Thanks
Albert

I do not recommend any newsreader solely for any newsgroup, c.l.c
included.

I use Agent for all newsgroups. I also use Knode, Seamonkey,
Thunderbird, rn, pan, tin and slrn from time to time. There are many
others as well.

Not that the webheads care, google groups in not and never has been a
newsreader.

I have been reading (small parts of) USENET since 1983.

 

[JosephKK]

Tony wrote:
IMO, web interfaces to threaded discussion is horrendous.

Some of them are decent, but I would agree that the vast majority border
on unusable, including GG.

In what way is a newsreader interface for reading better
than Google groups ?

My best explanation for this is the following snippet from my ~/.slrn-scores
file (the killfile of the newsreader slrn):

[*]
Score: =-9999
Message-ID: <.*\.googlegroups\.com>

This assigns the most negative score to anything with a Google Groups message
ID, thus making it disappear.

This gives a reason why it may be bad for posting but not why
it's bad for reading.

So in summary, not only is the Google Groups web interface an unuseable piece
of shit compared to a real news client, the content of Google Groups is full of
garbage, most of which originates in Google Groups itself.

Apart from spam/troll filters what do you consider the main
feature that a newsreader has but the Google interface
doesn't ?

Just for grins, try something like Thunderbird (free on most
paltforms) for navigation in a real newsfeed. You may have to go to
something like aioe.org to experience real NNTP type feeds if your ISP
does not provide USENET (NNTP) access. I think the really big NNTP
providers also provide trial accounts (yes, that old marketing ploy)
so that you can experience the difference.

 

[JosephKK]

Because the Google Groups client *sucks*. No killfile or other
filtering capability, no ability to sort or flag articles by author or
keywords, a broken threading algorithm, spam spam spam spam spam spam
spam, etc.


The two I've used most recently were Pan for Linux-based systems and
Unison for Mac OS X. Both work reasonably well, and provide most of
the capabilities I mentioned above. Just about any newsreader works
for clc, since the content is exclusively text-based.

I use GG to surf from my work box, simply because I have no other
option.

And that is the reason that i do not bother with news in the
workplace.

 

[JosephKK]

What is an OpSys? Please don't use slang as we do not know what you
mean. Do you mean Operating System? In that case why do you think your
OS, Windows, is better than mine which is Linux?

I think, that maybe, he is saying that Thundebird provides a fairly
consitent user interface when the user may have to change between
various OSs.

 

[JosephKK]

I don't understand what you mean by fetch few articles at a
time. You have at your fingertips the whole collection of
articles for as far back as the archive goes.


If you turn on tree view you have on the left of the screen the
whole clickable collection of articles in a thread but you have
to scroll the list up and down if the thread is long. So I don't
understand what you mean by "fewer articles". I prefer the
"normal" view where I can see a whole collection of articles as
a continuous stream. In the ordering of the articles the
responses almost always appear after the "responded to" article.


It only does that if you have searched for a string ; if you
just click on an old thread it shows you the whole thread. I
don't see how this is comparable with a newsreader.


Ok , that makes sense. Better spam filtering in a newsreader
too.


Well , I did ask for reading rather than posting. But for any
but the shortest responses I use vim rather than the Google
interface so the difference is just 2 cut and pastes.

Here at the end is a point to discuss. The entire newsreading
experience between a real(tm) newsreader and the GG inteface is very
like the difference between using GG interface to edit posts and using
vim to edit posts. In this case, and many other cases, generic net
based resources are never as able and flexible as local based
resources. Search engines are an example of the converse.

 

[JosephKK]

Wrong. The newsreaders that i currently use fetch all headers from
all servers at the same time. Agent can be told to fetch all bodies
for all newsgroups from all servers all at the same time. There are
other means to do this in various non-MSWin OSs. GG mostly rereads
archives, and not all usenet posts appear in GG.

The neither do you with your newsreader. Your server does. Whether thats
in your client or not.

Must you be so pedantic?

Spiros was correct : he does have FAR more access to articles than you
do since GG archives the lot usually. Most ISPs don't. As you should
know.


No. They download SOME messages. It may or may not be ALL. And most
people do not keep ALL messages in history locally.


Well, thats one not so major difference.

And your signature is still not properly set up. Please prefix it with
"-- " so our properly configured newsreaders can snip it on read or
reply.

see above

 

[Default User]

Wrong. The newsreaders that i currently use fetch all headers from
all servers at the same time. Agent can be told to fetch all bodies
for all newsgroups from all servers all at the same time. There are
other means to do this in various non-MSWin OSs. GG mostly rereads
archives, and not all usenet posts appear in GG.

I'm not sure why you said "wrong", when your subsequent words didn't
contradict what I wrote. My statement was regarding how Google Groups
works. You don't at any time have all messages at your fingertips.

see above

I have Richard killfiled, and so I don't pay any attention to what he
says even in quotes.



Brian

 

[CBFalconer]

I consider this a small talk thread. I prefer to do small talk
with people I "know". If I wanted to be all serious about it I
would go to news.software.readers But I do appreciate your
detailed reply.

There is no such thing as a 'small talk thread'. c.l.c deals with
the C language, and other things are off-topic.

 

[CBFalconer]

I think, that maybe, he is saying that Thundebird provides a
fairly consitent user interface when the user may have to change
between various OSs.

FYI Richard the nameless is a troll, and should be ignored.

 

[Richard]

There is no such thing as a 'small talk thread'. c.l.c deals with
the C language, and other things are off-topic.

So you waffling on about a dead language like Pascal is, err, Off Topic?

Thanks for that.

 

[JosephKK]

I'm not sure why you said "wrong", when your subsequent words didn't
contradict what I wrote. My statement was regarding how Google Groups
works. You don't at any time have all messages at your fingertips.

While some could consider it strongly worded, i believe i used
language appropriately. There was the possible reading that R
expected all newsreaders work under the hood like google groups
behaves. In the meantime i have all bodies of all the messsages that
have not expired that i have read (the body of) stored locally and
they are instantly at my fingertips.

I have Richard killfiled, and so I don't pay any attention to what he
says even in quotes.

Brian

That is your choice.