In article , phorbin wrote:
In article ,
says...
phorbin wrote:
In article ,
says...

A news readar and news server is not a substitute for the dejanews
archive that Google maintains, containing posts going back into the
late '80s.

Google is not a substitute for the dejanews archive, which Google
lost.

When did this loss occur?


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.

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

No mention there at all of Google losing any data, just the statement that
"during this transition, many older messages ... became unavailable." In the
first place, the wording of this sentence implies temporary unavailability,
not permanent loss. Second, the "transition" referred to was (as the article
makes clear) a change in *Deja's* operations which occurred two years *before*
the sale to Google.