Is USENET dead?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

Is it being replaced by web based forums?

Have you DUers seen USENET group after group die out due to relentless spambots and shrill obnoxious trolling, and migration of posters to web forums?

Or am I all wrong and it's alive and well? :shrug:

[Elidor]

1. "relentless spambots and shrill obnoxious trolling"

I thought that was what USENET *was* in the first place. It's always been this way. Palmjob–whatever his name is–is the perfect symbol of everything that's wrong with USENET.

[mr_hat]

2. Not dead. Rotting alive, but not dead.

[Syrinx]

3. it's still good for binaries

And for the technical groups. But most of the political groups are just crapfests. In my recent experience anyway.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

4. The trick is to treat that nonsense as the background noise it is.

For the initiated, usenet is by far the content-richest part of the net. It ain't goin' anywhere for a long time.

[RoyGBiv]

5. Interesting that you ask ...

I'm part of a moderation team for a Usenet group. We've recently been tackling the question of whether we're relevant any longer. We have a sister un-moderated (immoderate) group, and the participants tend to be the same between the groups, only with the immoderate group having a much lower signal to noise ratio. The problem, or one of the problems, is that when someone gives up on the immoderate group, they tend to give up on Usenet in general rather than migrating to the moderated group because the person or persons that finally led them to being fed up tend to post there as well. They don't get away with the same nonsense, but the animosity is still there and leads to issues that, in the end, make everyone mad at the moderators themselves.

It's difficult to know what to do. If we quit, the group becomes abandoned for all intents and purposes and submissions to it that don't have forged approvals (SPAM for the most part) end up in dev > nul. So, if we quit, the group dies period. If we don't quit, we live with a group that on some days has fewer than half a dozen posts, none of which are the kind of the thing that will lead to a discussion. People get bored, find a web forum or e-mail list, and the cycle continues. Then there are other periods, like recently, when participation is way up, the posts interesting, and the level of interest high. So, who knows ...

In any case, Usenet is what it is. If the Internet is the Wild West, Usenet is the wildest part of it. I prefer it as a method of exchanging information and engaging in discussions precisely because of its open nature, but that comes with a price. Unfettered communication draws idiots looking for a place to practice and marketers looking for free advertising. It's a street corner for which no permits are required.

I don't really like web based forums even though I participate here, but they'll probably take over to an extent, which actually might be a good thing for Usenet. One of its problems is how populated it is. This draws SPAMbots and idiots, the latter for reasons I don't fully understand. AOL is dropping Usenet access, which, with all due respect to AOLers, will help. SPAMbots and idiots without a clue have been using AOL as their entry-point for years. Some of them will find another. Others will think AOL not carrying it any more means it no longer exists.

I'm rambling I know. I've been working on re-writing the charter for our group and a detailed proposal for some changes we're making, so my thoughts are a bit jumbled. I just saw this and felt like yammering for a few minutes.

[FM Arouet666]

6. Binaries and info groups only, oh and don't........

forget the porn, lots of porn. But seriously, the political discussion groups are dead. I use USENET for computer information and binaries. Web based forums have killed the other groups.

[Lexingtonian]

7. sinking but not under the waves yet

All the political and such groups have been useless for a long time.

The few groups I do still follow are losing rather more informed participants than they're gaining, and the result is ever more clique behavior as they sink toward the level where the group breaks down. Once things go below 15-20 regular knowledgeable posters there might be a year or a year and a half of life left in it- things get repetitious, personalities and politics become too divisive, the cheer declines. Once things are down to three or four or five regulars showing up daily, the smell of death is in the air.

I'm down from reading and posting in 5-6 groups to 3 in four years and soon to lose one more. It's an older crowd there, the first Internet 'generation'. I think everyone still there hangs out there out of nostalgia, really.

[Thor_MN]

8. If you consider MSN and AOL taking their toll on real ISPs

and their not offering a newsserver or POP mail or anything they can't put their name on.......