On Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:20:07 -0400, phorbin
wrote:

It was a failed attempt to migrate the Dejanews database to Google. I
don't know how much they lost, but every thing I'd written was erased
from the record and I'd been a participant all over the place for a long
time.

There was a sorta oops, we broke it permanently message when it
happened. --I'll admit to wondering if they meant to break it.

(Are there typos or words missing from that sentence. I confess to a
failure to decipher any meaning from it.)

The information is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deja_News

According to the cited article, the "oops" occurred in 1999-2000 prior
to the DejaNews/eBay transaction in 2000. I offer no comment as to the
validity of the information on Wikipedia.

Quote
In 1999 the site (now known as Deja.com) sharply changed direction and
made its primary feature a shopping comparison service. During this
transition, which involved relocation of the servers, many older
messages in the Usenet archive became unavailable.

By late 2000 the company, in financial distress, sold the shopping
service to eBay, who incorporated the technology into their half.com
service.

By 2001 the search service was shut down. The archives were acquired
by Google[3] and reintroduced as Google Groups.
/Quote



Tom Veatch
Wichita, KS
USA