A major problem is that Verizon has or is planning to soon stop
carrying alt. groups, because on 10 or 20 of them out of thousands,
there was something very bad.

Maybe they'll change their minds, especially if Verizon subscribers
complain.

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:36:40 -0500, metspitzer
wrote:
It would be more productive to just use Google and search "groups" for
topics that interest you.

One of the bad things about Usenet is 8 out of 10 groups are dead.

Just worry about the ones that interest you.

How much worrying do the groups I don't read take?

Every year or so I download an updated list of groups. I think it
takes only a couple minutes but when it took longer, I read my email
while it dl'd.

After that, I continue reading the ones I like and pay no attention to
the others.

Reading Usenet on google is nowhere near as satisfying or as versatile
as reading it off my own computer. Plus I have a copy on my computer
even if my internet connection is down, and I still have use of
Google.

alt.engineering.electrical can be useful, but unless you are an
electrical engineer, they usually tell you more than you want to know
over there.

I wish Google had a separate search for Usenet and for Google groups.
I would almost never include Google groups in my searches as they are
pretty much useless. Not all of them are, but because the crap groups
outnumber the good ones by about 10000 fold, I would gladly have them
excluded from the searches.