On Thursday, March 16, 2017 at 11:38:58 AM UTC-4, Muggles wrote:
On 3/16/2017 10:10 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Thursday, March 16, 2017 at 10:59:48 AM UTC-4, Muggles wrote:
On 3/16/2017 9:46 AM, HerHusband wrote:
Hi Art,

This was a really sad morning. I have been reading alt.home.repair and
a few other groups for many years and this morning signaled the end.
There was nothing but garbage.

I can relate. After years of reading usenet groups, all that seems to be
left are political and religious arguments and name calling.

I can't remember the last time there were more than one or two serious
discussions related to home repair in this group.

Several other groups I watch have been in similar decline.

It's sad, usenet was a convenient way to discuss a variety of topics
without having to visit individual web forums. It takes too much time and
hassle to visit and log in to each forum, so I tend not to visit most of
the ones that do interest me.

It was good while it lasted...

Anthony Watson
www.watsondiy.com
www.mountainsoftware.com


Many interesting topics still are discussed here.


"interesting topic" "interesting home repair topic"

Someone else said that this group was like people meeting up at the
hardware store. At first they talk about the project they're working
on, and then they start talking about other things that are on their
minds.

Except of course, as Art pointed out, that isn't what's happening anymore.
The overwhelming number of new threads are totally off topic, mostly
from a couple of Trumpets. It's 25 or 50 to one.



They're still at the hardware store and surrounded by a number
of hardware store type topics, but they're also human and may want to
talk about something else "interesting to them" while they're in the
hardware store.

At least most
newsgroup readers allow for undesirable type postings/topics/spammers to
be blocked and filtered. You can even block cross-posted threads, too,
and delete all of that stuff before it ever shows up.


That's OK to a limited extent for existing people who are here.

It's not just OK - it works just fine.

But it doesn't prevent the death of the newsgroup.

If I turn off my filters, the group is so plummeted with spam and
undesirable posts I would probably just mark everything "read", but with
the filters on I see the trees instead of the forest.


And what do you think a new poster, someone looking for help
regarding to home repair sees? They don't have your filters,
they see a bunch of garbage and move on, forget about posting.





Why do people talk about 'death of a newsgroup' when we still have
hundreds of posts here where people are participating because they WANT
to, and that doesn't even count all the filtered out posts I block that
other people still read and respond to?


Why is it that if someone said oceans cover most of the earth's
surface or the moon orbits the earth, you'd start an argument
disagreeing?




When someone
new looks at this and sees 50 totally OT political threads and
only one home repair one, they just move on.

The last week all I've seen are people talking about their projects with
one or two side political posts, but that's because I FILTER out the
stuff I'm not interested in.



And what does someone new who shows up see? Follow it to it's
logical conclusion. You have a dwindling number.




AHR is slowly dying

No it isn't. It may be changing, but it isn't dying.

Well, there you have it. It's not dying, it's just changing
into a cesspool for Trumpet posts.




and it's just a few new jerks here that are starting one new
OT thread after another. It's their aim to destroy the group.

There's nothing wrong with OT threads here. If you don't want to read
them, either block them, or ignore them.

--
Maggie

Again, you just love to bitch, post the opposite of what everyone
else here, except the trolls of course, sees happening.