what has replaced Usenet groups?

[Gary]

I used to use Usenet groups for info on programming and Linux admin.
It seems those groups are now much harder to access and are filled
with spam. Have the people who used to use those groups moved to some
other mechanism for sharing technical info on software development and
administering Linux?

Gary Whitten

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

I used to use Usenet groups for info on programming and Linux admin.
It seems those groups are now much harder to access and are filled
with spam. Have the people who used to use those groups moved to some
other mechanism for sharing technical info on software development and
administering Linux?

Usage of usenet has declined a bot over the last 10-15 years.

But many groups are still active.

Including cljp.

The usage of various web forums has increased dramatically.

Relevant places for Java would be:
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/category.jspa?categoryID=285
http://www.javaranch.com/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/java
http://www.theserverside.com/discussions
http://www.javaworld.com/community/?q=javaqa

Arne

 

[markspace]

The usage of various web forums has increased dramatically.

Yes, and email lists with web front ends have increased in use
dramatically also. cljp is still used fairly frequently.

Gary: you didn't get an answer on your JavaMail question because it's
almost certainly a configuration problem and has nothing to do with Java
or JavaMail. Also, you gave us almost nothing to go on, so....

 

[Lew]

They're a LOT less spam-filled if you use a server other than Google Groups.
I use albasani via Thunderbird and nine-tenths of the crap on GG just doesn't
even show up on that server, and 99% of the rest is spam-filtered locally.

So the answer to your question of what people use now in lieu of Usenet is:
Usenet!

 

[Donkey Hottie]

They're a LOT less spam-filled if you use a server other than Google
Groups. I use albasani via Thunderbird and nine-tenths of the crap on GG
just doesn't even show up on that server, and 99% of the rest is
spam-filtered locally.

So the answer to your question of what people use now in lieu of Usenet
is: Usenet!

My personal Usenet server (Leafnode on own server) simply drops any post
from GG. I do not see them, but if they are worth anything, I see the
followups.

 

[Roedy Green]

I used to use Usenet groups for info on programming and Linux admin.
It seems those groups are now much harder to access and are filled
with spam. Have the people who used to use those groups moved to some
other mechanism for sharing technical info on software development and
administering Linux?

Websites, forums and blogs. There somebody has the power to remove
spam. The problem is the discussion is split up and watered down.

e.g. http://newbiejava.blogspot.com/
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html

 

[ClassCastException]

My personal Usenet server (Leafnode on own server) simply drops any post
from GG. I do not see them, but if they are worth anything, I see the
followups.

Selfish. If everybody does that, then there won't be any followups. So
you rely on other users wading through the spam to determine what's good
and what's not and then leech off their efforts, in effect.

Better would be to use a newsserver that does a better job of filtering
spam. I use eternal-september, and I see very little GG spam in this
group, while still seeing GG-originated posts that aren't spam.

 

[Lew]

Selfish. If everybody does that, then there won't be any followups. So
you rely on other users wading through the spam to determine what's good
and what's not and then leech off their efforts, in effect.

Generous because then everyone would migrate to real news servers because GG
wouldn't work any more. And he isn't forcing anyone else to read GG and if
they do, they shouldn't mind someone else benefiting from their effort. That
would be what's selfish.

 

[Martin Gregorie]

Generous because then everyone would migrate to real news servers
because GG wouldn't work any more.

+1

....and maybe Google would get a clue and do something about spammers or
even authenticate GG users. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Google
to do anything that doesn't net them buckets-full of cash though.

 

[Martin Gregorie]

Websites, forums and blogs. There somebody has the power to remove
spam. The problem is the discussion is split up and watered down.

....and web-based forums and blogs are agonisingly slow and clunky to use
compared with a good newsreader.

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Generous because then everyone would migrate to real news servers
because GG wouldn't work any more.

Given that some people may only have access to outgoing HTTP
and the general slow changing nature of usenet, then that
is not going to happen. Meaning that there will be valid
posts from GG.

What about you getting a real NNTP server that has
a better spam filter than just drop all from GG?

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

+1

...and maybe Google would get a clue and do something about spammers or
even authenticate GG users. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Google
to do anything that doesn't net them buckets-full of cash though.

If I were a Google stockholder and Google did not
make decisions based on profitability, then I would
be pissed.

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

...and web-based forums and blogs are agonisingly slow and clunky to use
compared with a good newsreader.

Amazing that such a rule applies to hundreds of different
forum software running on tens of thousands of different servers.



Arne

 

[Thufir]

+1

...and maybe Google would get a clue and do something about spammers or
even authenticate GG users. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Google
to do anything that doesn't net them buckets-full of cash though.

It's just looking at the header as to the origin and scoring based on:

X-Complaints-To: (e-mail address removed)

or the message id ending in googlegroups?

If spam really is coming from GG, as many say, then why not report it
to GG abuse? Or, do the spammers just open new accounts? Seems a
poor strategy for the spammers, *if* they're manually opening accounts
all the time and *quasi-manually* posting their spam. Frankly, this
just makes me doubt that so much spam does come from GG (but I could
be wrong).


-Thufir

via GG, of course

 

[Volker Borchert]

Amazing that such a rule applies to hundreds of different
forum software running on tens of thousands of different servers.

It's not necessarily the server software. Slowness and clunkiness
may also be caused by a slow client connection, or by a web browser
struggling to handle bleeding edge webdesign needing on a box that
can easily handle a pure-text news reader like tin. Especially if
the latter is running off a local cache/prefetcher like leafnode.

 

[Martin Gregorie]

Amazing that such a rule applies to hundreds of different forum software
running on tens of thousands of different servers.

I find paging through forums painful no matter how fast the connection
and server may be. Thats because I've yet to see a forum that can deal
adequately with telescoping threads or jumping to a new post, let alone
doing it at a decent speed.

The lack of these facilities is why I think forums are slow and clunky.
IMO web forums are simply not fit for purpose.

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

It's just looking at the header as to the origin and scoring based on:

X-Complaints-To: (e-mail address removed)

or the message id ending in googlegroups?

If spam really is coming from GG, as many say, then why not report it
to GG abuse? Or, do the spammers just open new accounts? Seems a
poor strategy for the spammers, *if* they're manually opening accounts
all the time and *quasi-manually* posting their spam. Frankly, this
just makes me doubt that so much spam does come from GG (but I could
be wrong).

Google does not have a reputation for swift action based
on abuse complaints.

Some would even say that they have a reputation for doing
absolutely nothing about abuse complaints.

Arne

 

[Martin Gregorie]

If spam really is coming from GG, as many say, then why not report it to
GG abuse? Or, do the spammers just open new accounts? Seems a poor
strategy for the spammers, *if* they're manually opening accounts all
the time and *quasi-manually* posting their spam. Frankly, this just
makes me doubt that so much spam does come from GG (but I could be
wrong).

I've seen comments in the past that Google is just like Hotmail, Yahoo
and friends: abuse reports are ignored because thats cheaper than hiring
people to take action.

Besides, what do you mean quasi-manually? Its not hard to write code to
use the Google Groups interface to stuff one piece of spam into every
known newsgroup. Even getting that list is easy: its available as part of
the USENET subscription process. If you make only one message to several
thousand groups its unlikely that Google and friends would notice without
being prompted to look

 

[Lew]

I do that every day that I use GG. "Many" are correct.

No, Google just ignores the reports.

That's not what they're doing. I strongly suspect that they are using a
certain psychotic unemployed Ukrainian sousaphone player's malware to flood GG.

You are.

Google does not have a reputation for swift action based
on abuse complaints.
True.

Some would even say that they have a reputation for doing
absolutely nothing about abuse complaints.

They do.

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Websites, forums and blogs. There somebody has the power to remove
spam. The problem is the discussion is split up and watered down.

e.g. http://newbiejava.blogspot.com/
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html

Depends on which news service you use.
I use News Individual and see almost no spam at all.
Costs me 10 Euros a year