I wonder how many people are using Usenet to interface with this list?
I am. I don't know how many others there are.
If it is few, I wonder if they might be encouraged to use another
service to do so. I know of at least three other interfaces besides
the standard email method, namely Google Groups, Gmane and Ruby Forum.
No offense intended to anyone, but I don't consider email, Google
Groups or web fora to be a good interface for discussions like this.
Usenet, for all of its flaws, has a number of advantages. I'd be very
disappointed to have to use one of the others.
Is there some advantage to using Usenet over these other methods?
Quite a number, actually.
1. Since Usenet is distributed, it is not dependent on a single server
or organization, unlike web fora.
2. One can download only headers for browsing, then download bodies of
interesting messages or threads.
3. The standards of Usenet were designed for public discussions.
Threading, for example, is part of the standard and has a high level
of standard compliance among clients. Email support for threading is
far more haphazard; even if I use a client with good support, someone
who doesn't can break threading unintentionally.
4. One has a choice of clients, unlike most web fora.
5. Any decent client supports killfiles, watch lists, and the like.
Some, but not all, of this functionality can be replicated with email
filters, but with a lot more effort.
I manage the Google Group and I try to delete all the SPAM I come
across, so anything that can reduce it is helpful to me.
On Usenet, there are some options:
1. Complain to the ISP of the offender.
2. Use killfiles to weed out identifiable spam.
3. Newsmasters can implement filtering for their servers.
4. Use a moderated group.
