Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

....

On 3 December, we're stopping the Usenet service that comes with your
broadband because our partnership with Giganews is coming to an end.
(Giganews provide the Usenet service, which you see as
news.btinternet.com in your email programme.)

But don't worry. If you want to carry on using the service after then,
they've got a great offer for all BT Broadband customers.
Get better features at a special discount

If you sign up for a subscription with them, you won't just get to keep
the service you know and love, you'll also get some extra features -
like 24/7 support and better security.

And that's not all. They'll give you 10% off their standard monthly
price, and on top of that:

50% off the Diamond plan for the first two months, or
50% off any other Giganews plan for the first month.

Don't miss out €“ offer ends 31 March 2015

To find out more about Giganews subscriptions, the extra features and
how to claim your special discount, go to bt.com/giganews. (You can only
access this link using your BT Broadband.)

Thanks for choosing BT.

Libby Barr
Managing Director, Customer Care

On Mon, 27 Oct 2014 18:05:48 +0000, rick wrote:

Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

http://news.individual.net/

--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £30a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On 27/10/2014 18:05, rick wrote:
Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

...

On 3 December, we're stopping the Usenet service that comes with your
broadband because our partnership with Giganews is coming to an end.
(Giganews provide the Usenet service, which you see as
news.btinternet.com in your email programme.)

But don't worry. If you want to carry on using the service after then,
they've got a great offer for all BT Broadband customers.
Get better features at a special discount

If you sign up for a subscription with them, you won't just get to keep
the service you know and love, you'll also get some extra features -
like 24/7 support and better security.

And that's not all. They'll give you 10% off their standard monthly
price, and on top of that:

50% off the Diamond plan for the first two months, or
50% off any other Giganews plan for the first month.

Don't miss out €“ offer ends 31 March 2015

To find out more about Giganews subscriptions, the extra features and
how to claim your special discount, go to bt.com/giganews. (You can only
access this link using your BT Broadband.)

Thanks for choosing BT.

Libby Barr
Managing Director, Customer Care

http://www.eternal-september.org/

aioe.org

On 27/10/2014 18:05, rick wrote:
Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

...


..
On advice here I switched to AIOE news servers some weeks ago.
Also about 10x faster that BT's services

In article , rick
writes
Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

...

On 3 December, we're stopping the Usenet service that comes with your
broadband because our partnership with Giganews is coming to an end.
(Giganews provide the Usenet service, which you see as
news.btinternet.com in your email programme.)

A bit like a Skoda dealer telling their customers that they're changing
the way they are servicing your car, "we'll be crushing it so you never
have to worry about servicing it ever again . . . . "

Mind you I suppose it's difficult to put a spin on, "your service is
ending because we are a bunch of penny pinching cnuts . . . . "

--
fred
it's a ba-na-na . . . .

In message , fred writes
In article , rick
writes
Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

...

On 3 December, we're stopping the Usenet service that comes with your
broadband because our partnership with Giganews is coming to an end.
(Giganews provide the Usenet service, which you see as
news.btinternet.com in your email programme.)

A bit like a Skoda dealer telling their customers that they're changing
the way they are servicing your car, "we'll be crushing it so you never
have to worry about servicing it ever again . . . . "

Mind you I suppose it's difficult to put a spin on, "your service is
ending because we are a bunch of penny pinching cnuts . . . . "


Tat's the nature of consumer broadband, where price is a (possibly the
most) significant consideration on the whole.

Anyway, I imagine 95% of the BT broadband customers had no idea what it
was on about anyway :-)
--
Chris French

In article ,
Chris French wrote:
Tat's the nature of consumer broadband, where price is a (possibly the
most) significant consideration on the whole.

Anyway, I imagine 95% of the BT broadband customers had no idea what it
was on about anyway :-)

It's a reason I left my last ISP, though. Or one of them. And went to BT
fibre. ;-) However, I'd already set up alternative (free) News servers,
and since those still worked when I changed to BT, didn't even try the BT
feed.

--
*A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Bob Eager wrote:
On Mon, 27 Oct 2014 18:05:48 +0000, rick wrote:

Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

http://news.individual.net/

+1

And more reliable than the 'free' ones IMHO.

Or in this case , Cant be bothered to negotiate another dial department.


Not surprised as nobody makes any money out of Usenet from tracking or
adverts.
When I started there was no web, We used mail directly via smtp, andnews
via large servers at universities which were free as the outside users were
but a small percentage of the whole. Gradually more and more people came in
and then isps got their own servers as there was not a lot of content
otherwise.. Then some idiot invented html and the web and the commercial
companies all saw a golden goose on the horizon and the rest is history.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"rick" wrote in message
...
Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

...

On 3 December, we're stopping the Usenet service that comes with your
broadband because our partnership with Giganews is coming to an end.
(Giganews provide the Usenet service, which you see as news.btinternet.com
in your email programme.)

But don't worry. If you want to carry on using the service after then,
they've got a great offer for all BT Broadband customers.
Get better features at a special discount

If you sign up for a subscription with them, you won't just get to keep
the service you know and love, you'll also get some extra features - like
24/7 support and better security.

And that's not all. They'll give you 10% off their standard monthly price,
and on top of that:

50% off the Diamond plan for the first two months, or
50% off any other Giganews plan for the first month.

Don't miss out - offer ends 31 March 2015

To find out more about Giganews subscriptions, the extra features and how
to claim your special discount, go to bt.com/giganews. (You can only
access this link using your BT Broadband.)

Thanks for choosing BT.

Libby Barr
Managing Director, Customer Care

Yes but is it sustainable at their low cost. Indeed where do eternal
september get the money to keep their servers running form. I think the main
casualties will be binary groups or thir retention times. I wonder how long
google will support the archive and keep offering web access to it? I do
notice they are removing, indeed have removed the apis for feedburner,
turning it into a basic podcast list again, though I strongly suspect they
themselves will be using it to track stuff using it but not let anyone else
do it!
But news groups really do need to be plugged more in my opinion.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 27 Oct 2014 18:05:48 +0000, rick wrote:

Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

http://news.individual.net/

--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £30a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

Brian Gaff wrote

Yes but is it sustainable at their low cost.

Yes, its been around for a long time now and was in fact free originally.

Indeed where do eternal september get the money to keep their servers
running form.

Doesn’t need any real money.

I think the main casualties will be binary groups

Yes, nin has never done binarys.

or thir retention times.

nin has very decent retention times.

I wonder how long google will support the archive and keep offering web
access to it?

Likely forever. It’s a tiny part of their total costs.

I do notice they are removing, indeed have removed the apis for
feedburner, turning it into a basic podcast list again, though I strongly
suspect they themselves will be using it to track stuff using it but not
let anyone else do it!

Unlikely.

But news groups really do need to be plugged more in my opinion.

Doing that wouldn’t make any difference.

If groups.google didn’t help, nothing will now.


"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 27 Oct 2014 18:05:48 +0000, rick wrote:

Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

http://news.individual.net/

--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £30a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Yes but is it sustainable at their low cost. Indeed where do eternal
september get the money to keep their servers running form. I think the main
casualties will be binary groups or thir retention times.


Binary groups are only normally available via paid for servers
(Giganews, Usenet News, Astranews) - at a cost rather more than NIN

It's actually also a cheap way of getting text groups, a GB of news is a
lot of text groups (as long as the sub isn'y time limited, and you want
to risk the company/service disappearing
But news groups really do need to be plugged more in my opinion.
Brian

I think that boat has sailed :-(
--
Chris French

In article ,
says...

Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

...

On 3 December, we're stopping the Usenet service that comes with your
broadband because our partnership with Giganews is coming to an end.
snip.

I do like the nice phrasing "Our partnership with Giganews is coming to
an end."

This translates as

"We're cheapskates, so we've decided to stop paying the bill.
If you still want it, go buy your own (but do use the link provided so
we can get a kick-back for the introduction)"



--
Sam

On Mon, 27 Oct 2014 18:05:48 -0000, rick wrote:

Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

...

On 3 December, we're stopping the Usenet service that comes with your
broadband because our partnership with Giganews is coming to an end.
(Giganews provide the Usenet service, which you see as
news.btinternet.com in your email programme.)

But don't worry. If you want to carry on using the service after then,
they've got a great offer for all BT Broadband customers.
Get better features at a special discount

If you sign up for a subscription with them, you won't just get to keep
the service you know and love, you'll also get some extra features -
like 24/7 support and better security.

And that's not all. They'll give you 10% off their standard monthly
price, and on top of that:

50% off the Diamond plan for the first two months, or
50% off any other Giganews plan for the first month.

Don't miss out €“ offer ends 31 March 2015

To find out more about Giganews subscriptions, the extra features and
how to claim your special discount, go to bt.com/giganews. (You can only
access this link using your BT Broadband.)

Thanks for choosing BT.

Libby Barr
Managing Director, Customer Care

https://www.altopia.com/ - no missing groups, no censorship, huge retention.

--
Excuse me, are you reading that paper you're sitting on?

"Sam Plusnet" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

...

On 3 December, we're stopping the Usenet service that comes with your
broadband because our partnership with Giganews is coming to an end.
snip.

I do like the nice phrasing "Our partnership with Giganews is coming to
an end."

This translates as

"We're cheapskates, so we've decided to stop paying the bill.
If you still want it, go buy your own (but do use the link provided so
we can get a kick-back for the introduction)"



--
Sam


There are several groups that I 'subscribe' to including
uk.rec.cars.maintenance, this one, sci.electronics.repair and a few
others. Until fairly recently, all were very active groups. If you left it a
day before going back, there would always be a whole bunch of new posts on
each of them. But over the last six months or so, contributions seem to have
dropped to an all time low. A couple of weeks ago, there was no new activity
in terms of new threads, on any of them for several days. It got to the
point that I was beginning to wonder if my ISP's usenet server was not doing
regular updates, but it was. It was simply that no one was posting. If this
is becoming the general situation, then I guess you can understand ISP's not
wanting to keep paying third party usenet server providers for a service
that very few of their customers are making use of. Although postings have
now picked up a bit, they are still well down on six months ago. This group
is currently about the busiest of the ones that I am involved with, but even
on here, sometimes there is only one or two new threads a day ... :-(

Arfa

On 27/10/2014 19:22, Chris French wrote:
nsideration on the whole.

Anyway, I imagine 95% of the BT broadband customers had no idea what it
was on about anyway :-)


I started on Newsgroups using TRN newsreader back in early 90's
(no browsers then) .... I suppose any use of usenet is now a bit niche
.....and I suppose 'old hat'

With so many forums on a web platform, with benefits of categories,
ability to add attachments etc.
Maybe usenet will ultimately just die out.

In article ,
Huge wrote:
Web forums are technically inferior to Usenet in just about every
respect.

True.

The main reason that service providers prefer web forums is that they
can be monetised, whereas Usenet cannot.

However, it would also seem that the average punter prefers them.

--
*No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver,purple

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Web forums are technically inferior to Usenet in just about every
respect.

True.

The main reason that service providers prefer web forums is that they
can be monetised, whereas Usenet cannot.

However, it would also seem that the average punter prefers them.

How do you know?
Has somebody done a survey?

--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

However, it would also seem that the average punter prefers them.

That may well be true, but consider newspapers. Would you equate
popularity with quality?

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK


Plant amazing Acers.

On Fri, 31 Oct 2014 11:02:28 +0000 (GMT), Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

The main reason that service providers prefer web forums is that
they
can be monetised, whereas Usenet cannot.

However, it would also seem that the average punter prefers them.

Beacuse they don't know any better? To most "the internet" is just
the world wide web, not everything else that it is used for and
without which our society would immediatly come to a crashing halt.

Another who was on the internet when the pages on the WWW could be
indexed in a small paper book and search was via WAIS or Gopher.

--
Cheers
Dave.

In article ,
Timothy Murphy wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Web forums are technically inferior to Usenet in just about every
respect.

True.

The main reason that service providers prefer web forums is that they
can be monetised, whereas Usenet cannot.

However, it would also seem that the average punter prefers them.

How do you know?
Has somebody done a survey?

Just my experience. Several email lists I've used in the past have died to
be replaced by forums. Covering exactly the same things. And the same
seems to have happened to News.

--
*Being healthy is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Chris J Dixon wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

However, it would also seem that the average punter prefers them.

That may well be true, but consider newspapers. Would you equate
popularity with quality?

I didn't mention quality.

I'm perfectly happy with a plain text medium, but many, it seems, must
have pictures with it. Only real reason I can see to prefer a forum to
News.

--
*Why is it that to stop Windows 95, you have to click on "Start"?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article o.uk,
Dave Liquorice wrote:
However, it would also seem that the average punter prefers them.

Beacuse they don't know any better? To most "the internet" is just
the world wide web, not everything else that it is used for and
without which our society would immediatly come to a crashing halt.

I think there's more to it than that. I've been subscribed to a few email
groups which were healthy, but superseded by forums. With exactly the same
people subscribing. Both methods need approx the same (lack of) effort to
set up and download. Both can be secure and moderated - or not.

--
*No I haven't stolen it , I'm just a **** driver*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote
Huge wrote

Web forums are technically inferior to Usenet in just about every
respect.

True.

The main reason that service providers prefer web forums
is that they can be monetised, whereas Usenet cannot.

Plenty of the web forums arent monetised at all.

However, it would also seem that the average punter prefers them.

The average punter has never even heard of usenet.

In article ,
Rod Speed wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote
Huge wrote

Web forums are technically inferior to Usenet in just about every
respect.

True.

The main reason that service providers prefer web forums
is that they can be monetised, whereas Usenet cannot.

Plenty of the web forums arent monetised at all.

However, it would also seem that the average punter prefers them.

The average punter has never even heard of usenet.

In the early days of the internet, many had. Now, why would they bother?

--
*Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 31/10/2014 01:26, Arfa Daily wrote:


"Sam Plusnet" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

...

On 3 December, we're stopping the Usenet service that comes with your
broadband because our partnership with Giganews is coming to an end.
snip.

I do like the nice phrasing "Our partnership with Giganews is coming to
an end."

This translates as

"We're cheapskates, so we've decided to stop paying the bill.
If you still want it, go buy your own (but do use the link provided so
we can get a kick-back for the introduction)"



--
Sam


There are several groups that I 'subscribe' to including
uk.rec.cars.maintenance, this one, sci.electronics.repair and a few
others. Until fairly recently, all were very active groups. If you left
it a day before going back, there would always be a whole bunch of new
posts on each of them. But over the last six months or so, contributions
seem to have dropped to an all time low. A couple of weeks ago, there
was no new activity in terms of new threads, on any of them for several
days. It got to the point that I was beginning to wonder if my ISP's
usenet server was not doing regular updates, but it was. It was simply
that no one was posting. If this is becoming the general situation, then
I guess you can understand ISP's not wanting to keep paying third party
usenet server providers for a service that very few of their customers
are making use of. Although postings have now picked up a bit, they are
still well down on six months ago. This group is currently about the
busiest of the ones that I am involved with, but even on here, sometimes
there is only one or two new threads a day ... :-(

Arfa

If the demand has dropped that much, couldn't the ISP have renegotiated
their contract with the third party? A few subs to the Berlin server
would have been enough if the demand has fallen as far as you fear. :-(

One formerly busy group died quite a few years ago (still there
technically but more or less totally unused) due very largely to a
considerable number of foul-mouthed, nasty posts and volume of spam. The
group dispersed while those posts were appearing and found other places.
Very sad. (Berlin server always managed to reduce the spam considerably
but others saw far, far more.)

--
Rod

In message , polygonum
writes
On 31/10/2014 01:26, Arfa Daily wrote:


"Sam Plusnet" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

Received this email form BT today:

Your Usenet service is changing

...

On 3 December, we're stopping the Usenet service that comes with your
broadband because our partnership with Giganews is coming to an end.
snip.

I do like the nice phrasing "Our partnership with Giganews is coming to
an end."

This translates as

"We're cheapskates, so we've decided to stop paying the bill.
If you still want it, go buy your own (but do use the link provided so
we can get a kick-back for the introduction)"



There are several groups that I 'subscribe' to including
uk.rec.cars.maintenance, this one, sci.electronics.repair and a few
others. Until fairly recently, all were very active groups.

If the demand has dropped that much, couldn't the ISP have renegotiated
their contract with the third party? A few subs to the Berlin server
would have been enough if the demand has fallen as far as you fear. :-(


snip

Well, they could, but they are buisness.

There comes a point where you decide that something's just aren't worth
bothering with
--
Chris French

In article ,
Huge wrote:
The main reason that service providers prefer web forums is that they
can be monetised, whereas Usenet cannot.

However, it would also seem that the average punter prefers them.

A fact which baffles me, given how hideous they are.

Only real difference in practice is you can post pics etc, which may be a
plus with certain groups.

--
*Why is the word abbreviation so long?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 01/11/2014 16:57, Huge wrote:
On 2014-11-01, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Huge wrote:
The main reason that service providers prefer web forums is that they
can be monetised, whereas Usenet cannot.

However, it would also seem that the average punter prefers them.

A fact which baffles me, given how hideous they are.

Only real difference in practice is ...

You have to download 400kB of avatars, advertising, animated gifs and
assorted **** to get what you want to read, most don't have killfiles,
nearly all of them have fascist posting policies, they don't scale, there's
a single point of failure. They're ****.


And...

I spend quite some time on a specific forum which is horrible to use. I
am only there because of who else is there! There is a torrent of
complaints from users.

No point in carrying on with my dissatisfaction! Broadly I agree that
most forums are considerably less pleasant to use than Usenet.

--
Rod

In message , Huge
writes
On 2014-11-01, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Huge wrote:
The main reason that service providers prefer web forums is that they
can be monetised, whereas Usenet cannot.

However, it would also seem that the average punter prefers them.

A fact which baffles me, given how hideous they are.

Only real difference in practice is ...

You have to download 400kB of avatars, advertising, animated gifs and
assorted **** to get what you want to read, most don't have killfiles,
nearly all of them have fascist posting policies, they don't scale, there's
a single point of failure. They're ****.


+1
--
bert

On 01/11/2014 19:55, bert wrote:
In message , Huge
writes
On 2014-11-01, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Huge wrote:
The main reason that service providers prefer web forums is that
they
can be monetised, whereas Usenet cannot.

However, it would also seem that the average punter prefers them.

A fact which baffles me, given how hideous they are.

Only real difference in practice is ...

You have to download 400kB of avatars, advertising, animated gifs and
assorted **** to get what you want to read, most don't have killfiles,
nearly all of them have fascist posting policies, they don't scale,
there's
a single point of failure. They're ****.


+1

With some notable exceptions, such as Gardenweb.com

Dave Plowman (News) wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Dave Plowman (News) wrote
Huge wrote

Web forums are technically inferior
to Usenet in just about every respect.

True.

The main reason that service providers prefer web forums
is that they can be monetised, whereas Usenet cannot.

Plenty of the web forums arent monetised at all.

However, it would also seem that the average punter prefers them.

The average punter has never even heard of usenet.

In the early days of the internet, many had.

Yes, but that was a very different subset of the general public.

Now, why would they bother?

Particularly now that the devices they use do
stuff like facebook much better than usenet.

Plenty only have a phablet now.