And again Sonic takes note of things that go right past other ISPs.
Thank you for that.
Thank you for that.
GP, I've been an active member of a few Usenet newsgroups since about 1991, and was active on some local BBS's throughout the 80's (Redwood Atari Group anyone?). I agree with most of your sentiment. I do think though that it is still a reflection of the people who choose to stay with Usenet (that's a compliment) versus those who come to the forums and never knew Usenet. Old schoolers are more social on the net than most new users, IMO... sometimes more social than they are in real life! In the early days of the internet (back when it was primarily academic) the newsgroups and IRC channels were novel new havens for (mostly) academics to interact and socialize. As the net became more and more accessible to everyone from all walks of life, the user population got diluted in a way... more people just posting to get a quick answer to a question than "members" who stayed and participated on forums/groups/boards long term (I'm guilty of both). UseNet is like a time capsule in a way. VERY few new(er) users of the internet find USENET at all, let alone as a place for dialog/socializing/discussion. In the last 10 years or so, if they discover it at all, most people discover USENET only as a source for binaries, not as a source for information or discussion. I know many people consider the discussion aspect of USENET secondary to the hosting of binaries (e.g. "hey that last post of yourvideo.avi was corrupt, can you re-post? THNX!")
So, curmudgeons like ourselves stick with our cozy comfy newsgroups and bah-humbug the web-based forums. While I definitely straddle this fence, I do hypothesize that the only way to get a similar "feeling" in the web forums is for all us old-schoolers to migrate to the web forums.
There is one group I have been on/off active with for about 14 years, that struggled with this because of the cost of the forum software and web-hosting costs. They are not associated with an ISP or institution that could float the cost. Once the newsgroup is established, USENET is largely free, save for the individual's cost for a USENET provider.
There's also the ease-of-use factor. Some find USENET convenient (e.g. Virtualmike's points - completely valid). But to your average WWW user, understanding USENET and how to access it is a big leap. Whereas most web forums are easy to stumble upon with a simple Google topic search.
Ironically, Google groups both helped and hindered in this regard. Newbies would discover newsgroups, not understand their "open" nature, assume they were owned/operated/hosted by Google, and then get shunned by us the curmudgeons for their ignorance! ;^) Of course now, newsgroups are so far down the food chain, that even a topic search on Google won't show the newsgroup (or "Google group" version) on the first page of results.
