Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a
single server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that to
work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist whitelisting
anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...
Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a single
server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that to work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist whitelisting
anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

where is the fun in that? ......

On 21/06/2017 18:56, Tim Watts wrote:
Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a
single server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that to
work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist whitelisting
anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

Nah, leave things as they are.

"Ash Burton" wrote in message
news
On 21/06/2017 18:56, Tim Watts wrote:
Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a
single server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that to
work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist whitelisting
anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

Nah, leave things as they are.


yes best larf going ...tee hee

In message , Tim Watts
writes
Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a
single server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that
to work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist
whitelisting anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

Might as well make it a forum and take money for advertising?

--
Tim Lamb

If it is going to be a forum you would lose me. there are a bewildering
number of different user interfaces now out there and the main reason I use
usenet is because its the same for all. No faffing about with inaccessible
weeird controls.
If you want a private list set up a mailing list instead on groups.io and
then ignore the usenet group completely. tTotal control over who is on it
and lots of cool extras and a web portal as well. No I'm not invoved
financially with them.
Brian

--
----- -
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Tim Lamb" wrote in message
...
In message , Tim Watts
writes
Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a single
server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that to work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist whitelisting
anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

Might as well make it a forum and take money for advertising?

--
Tim Lamb

On 21/06/17 20:24, Tim Lamb wrote:
In message , Tim Watts
writes
Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a
single server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that
to work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist
whitelisting anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

Might as well make it a forum and take money for advertising?


Ugh! Forums are horrid.

On 22/06/17 08:38, Tim Watts wrote:
On 21/06/17 20:24, Tim Lamb wrote:
In message , Tim Watts
writes
Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a
single server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that
to work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist
whitelisting anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

Might as well make it a forum and take money for advertising?


Ugh! Forums are horrid.

No, they are very very good actually.

except they dont get to be quite so free speech

--
Labour - a bunch of rich people convincing poor people to vote for rich
people
by telling poor people that "other" rich people are the reason they are
poor.

Peter Thompson

On 22/06/17 09:02, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/06/17 08:38, Tim Watts wrote:

Ugh! Forums are horrid.

No, they are very very good actually.

except they dont get to be quite so free speech


They're horrible - because I have to go to a dozen different websites
with a dozen logins to get a dozen groups.

Almost none (except the Spectator) have anything like a killfill.

Even with more than one NNTP server, I can have a converged view in one
place, one client and one set of killfill etc rules.

Now, if there was a forum aggregator with a choice of client front ends,
that would be my main objection gone.

On Thursday, 22 June 2017 09:02:36 UTC+1, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/06/17 08:38, Tim Watts wrote:
On 21/06/17 20:24, Tim Lamb wrote:

Might as well make it a forum and take money for advertising?


Ugh! Forums are horrid.

No, they are very very good actually.

except they dont get to be quite so free speech

Forums are single points of failure and thus seldom last long term. Any other venue would also mean splitting this group, not a good idea. I'd rule out any separate forum.

Also forums are invariably moderated to varying extents, and the nature of such moderation kills off 99% of them. As someone pointed out moderators just lose the plot 99% of times.


NT

In article ,
wrote:
Forums are single points of failure and thus seldom last long term

I really don't know where you get that idea from.

I read several forums - car related - which started out text only based
before becoming a forum. All are still running and moderately busy. Unlike
the text only side which is moribund.

But all of these sort of forums are moderated in some way - if only to
block spam.

--
*There's no place like www.home.com *

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

On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 08:38:54 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist
whitelisting anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

One mans bacon is anothers taboo...

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if
necessary;

Are the leech sites busy? Only stuff I notice from there are the
responses to ancient posts.

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Who? A bacon lover (or not)?

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular
and
capture new blood?

Getting some new blood would be nice and the younger do seem to like
web based "forums" but does anybody under 30 actually do any DIY more
advanced than a flatpack bookcase?

Might as well make it a forum and take money for advertising?

Ugh! Forums are horrid.

double plus +1

Most have no proper threading, they are slow ('cause of all the eye
candy), searching is frequently fruitless even if you know what you
are looking for 'cause you've seen it before and you have to go
trapesing round each one just in case there is something new of
interest.

A mailing list would be far superiour to a web based forum.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 22/06/2017 09:31, Dave Liquorice wrote:

Getting some new blood would be nice and the younger do seem to like
web based "forums" but does anybody under 30 actually do any DIY more
advanced than a flatpack bookcase?

My poll[1] shows not a single one of those who do is aware of Usenet or
GG, or would dream of using them on their phones.

[1] non-random, non-stratified, sample size = 3 DIY-ers

--
Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid

On Thursday, 22 June 2017 10:48:23 UTC+1, Robin wrote:
On 22/06/2017 09:31, Dave Liquorice wrote:

Getting some new blood would be nice and the younger do seem to like
web based "forums" but does anybody under 30 actually do any DIY more
advanced than a flatpack bookcase?

yes they do. Far less than our generations, but yes.

My poll[1] shows not a single one of those who do is aware of Usenet or
GG, or would dream of using them on their phones.

[1] non-random, non-stratified, sample size = 3 DIY-ers

Yep, no youngster wants anything to do with a text only medium. It's nowhere near loaded with all the distracting crap they require. None are willing to try it to discover that it's only the garbage that's gone.

If we have a portal maybe it could allow posting pics, then a fair number of posts here would direct people to it. FWIW those links might also appear on the home owners hub site, or whatever it's called.


NT

"Robin" wrote in message
...
On 22/06/2017 09:31, Dave Liquorice wrote:

Getting some new blood would be nice and the younger do seem to like
web based "forums" but does anybody under 30 actually do any DIY more
advanced than a flatpack bookcase?

My poll[1] shows not a single one of those who do is aware of Usenet or GG, or would
dream of using them on their phones.


Posting on Usenet, even assuming somebody knows about it at all
involves jumping through two further hoops as compared with posting
on a web portal.

Even explaining to someone the difference between a news server and
a news reader is difficult enough, never mind trying to persuade them
to subscribe to the one, and then install the second.

Basically as with a lot of things when a second best solution is given to
people on a plate, very few people are going to take the trouble to
look for anything better.

And in any case as NT has pointed out, nowadays its very difficult to argue that
a text based medium based on 8 bit ASCII is in any way superior to one providing
hi-res pictures or youtube videos of fluffy kittens at the click of a mouse.


michael adams

....

In article ,
Robin wrote:
On 22/06/2017 09:31, Dave Liquorice wrote:

Getting some new blood would be nice and the younger do seem to like
web based "forums" but does anybody under 30 actually do any DIY more
advanced than a flatpack bookcase?

My poll[1] shows not a single one of those who do is aware of Usenet or
GG, or would dream of using them on their phones.

[1] non-random, non-stratified, sample size = 3 DIY-ers

Usenet was never universally liked either. Or indeed ever used by plenty
early computer types.

--
*Growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional

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

On 22/06/2017 08:38, Tim Watts wrote:
On 21/06/17 20:24, Tim Lamb wrote:
In message , Tim Watts
writes
Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a
single server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that
to work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist
whitelisting anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

Might as well make it a forum and take money for advertising?


Ugh! Forums are horrid.

While in many cases true, its what many people know these days, and
hence having one *in addition* to the the usenet group (which is
mirrored both ways) might not be a bad thing. That way if you want
access in the current way you still have it.

In some ways it seems like a natural extension of the faq / wiki site.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Thursday, 22 June 2017 11:21:44 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:
On 22/06/2017 08:38, Tim Watts wrote:
On 21/06/17 20:24, Tim Lamb wrote:
In message , Tim Watts
writes
Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a
single server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that
to work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist
whitelisting anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

Might as well make it a forum and take money for advertising?


Ugh! Forums are horrid.

While in many cases true, its what many people know these days, and
hence having one *in addition* to the the usenet group (which is
mirrored both ways) might not be a bad thing. That way if you want
access in the current way you still have it.

In some ways it seems like a natural extension of the faq / wiki site.

I don't believe that splitting this group with a forum would be a good move at all. But perhaps one could present a ukdiy portal that's as easy to access as a forum. Easier in fact,by not splitting it into lots of different sub-areas.


NT

On 22/06/2017 14:27, wrote:
On Thursday, 22 June 2017 11:21:44 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:
On 22/06/2017 08:38, Tim Watts wrote:
On 21/06/17 20:24, Tim Lamb wrote:
In message , Tim
Watts writes
Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a
simple single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm
proposing a single server. The traffic and number of users is
low enough for that to work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist
whitelisting anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if
necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it
popular and capture new blood?


Opinions please

Might as well make it a forum and take money for advertising?


Ugh! Forums are horrid.

While in many cases true, its what many people know these days,
and hence having one *in addition* to the the usenet group (which
is mirrored both ways) might not be a bad thing. That way if you
want access in the current way you still have it.

In some ways it seems like a natural extension of the faq / wiki
site.

I don't believe that splitting this group with a forum would be a
good move at all. But perhaps one could present a ukdiy portal that's
as easy to access as a forum. Easier in fact,by not splitting it into
lots of different sub-areas.

I was not suggesting splitting at all - quite the reverse; providing a
more accessible interface to the group that we control and configure.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 08:38:54 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

On 21/06/17 20:24, Tim Lamb wrote:
In message , Tim Watts
writes
Someone mentioned this the other day...

====snip====



Opinions please

Might as well make it a forum and take money for advertising?


Ugh! Forums are horrid.

+1 (AoL, if you prefer). :-(

Many years ago, when Zetnet sold out to that asset stripping company,
Breathe Networks Ltd (Spit!), its dispersed membership tried to sustain
the community of "Zetnutters" that had been created by that ISP's closed
newsgroups with a zetnet forum created during zetnet's death throes as BNL
ineptly buggered up zetnet's USP (slowly on account BNL's technical staff
seemed to be a bunch of ignorant ****wits - I got an extra 12 months use
out of zetnet's news server for free before it was given the final coupé
de grace).

During that final troubled year, I joined the zetnet users' forum to get
help with 'work-around' solutions to accessing the USP of zetnet's news
server. I found it such a pain to log into just this one forum that more
or less as soon as BNL had finally killed off the news server, I gave up
trying to stay in touch with my fellow zetnutters.

Quite frankly, I can't understand how some folk manage to stay
subscribed to more than two or three such fora without 'cheating' by
simplifying/automating their 'secure' login procedures, let alone getting
to grips with the rather klunky and disparate navigation algorithms
employed.

Usenet and the various client news reader software may not be a perfect
solution but at least it scales well, unlike the web browser accessed
fora, each with their own peculiar login and navigation requirements
which don't (scale, that is!).

The idiot posters and trolls aren't really a problem for those of us
with enough common sense to make good use of the kill filter file (and
the 'ignore thread' file if your news reader client has such an option).
Failing all that, it's easy enough to ignore the postings of trolls and
idiots and the urge to make a 'Knee Jerk Response' in a futile attempt to
'educate the idiots and trolls' of 'the truth'. As one of my friends,
decades ago, was so fond of saying, "It's like trying to educate pork.".

This business of dealing with idiots and trolls might seem like a lot of
hard work - it isn't - but trying to participate in more than two or
three web fora is even more 'hard work' imho. And, what's worse is that
many of the discussions of a 'technical nature' have contributors who
would by comparison make the likes of Rod Speed and TNP look like
geniuses!!! Who'd have thought! :-(

When you've been directed to as many such 'technical fora' in my
googling for solutions to various computer related problems as I have
over the past decade or more, you soon learn 'to bite your lip' as you
realise the futility of even trying to contribute a myth busting fact to
any of these fora. It's been good training in how to make best use of
usenet. :-)

Moderation might seem like a solution to the problem of idiots and
trolls but, quite frankly, this 'cure' can often turn out to be worse
than 'the disease'. After all, there's no guarantee that the moderators
will be any less ill informed or opinionated than the idiots and trolls
it's meant to keep at bay. It's far better, imho, to retain the "Valour
is the better part of discretion." principle in the hands of the
individual contributors rather than leave this in the hands of a select
elite.

--
Johnny B Good

On 22/06/2017 13:36, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 08:38:54 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

On 21/06/17 20:24, Tim Lamb wrote:
In message , Tim Watts
writes
Someone mentioned this the other day...

====snip====



Opinions please

Might as well make it a forum and take money for advertising?


Ugh! Forums are horrid.

+1 (AoL, if you prefer). :-(


Quite frankly, I can't understand how some folk manage to stay
subscribed to more than two or three such fora without 'cheating' by
simplifying/automating their 'secure' login procedures, let alone getting
to grips with the rather klunky and disparate navigation algorithms
employed.

Usenet and the various client news reader software may not be a perfect
solution but at least it scales well, unlike the web browser accessed
fora, each with their own peculiar login and navigation requirements
which don't (scale, that is!).

+1

However I also accept that we are missing potential contributors because
we don't have a (good) web based way of accessing the group for those
that are not familiar with usenet etc. If you have the web then you need
to retain the newsgroup to keep all players happy.

The idiot posters and trolls aren't really a problem for those of us
with enough common sense to make good use of the kill filter file (and
the 'ignore thread' file if your news reader client has such an option).
Failing all that, it's easy enough to ignore the postings of trolls and
idiots and the urge to make a 'Knee Jerk Response' in a futile attempt to
'educate the idiots and trolls' of 'the truth'. As one of my friends,
decades ago, was so fond of saying, "It's like trying to educate pork.".

aka "Don't try and teach a pig to sing, it will only upset the pig and
frustrate you!"

Dealing with the spam and common trolls is easy enough (I find simply
have a filter to mark their posts as "read" is adequate most cases, with
the occasional kill sub thread for a few).

However dealing with the general petulance of some posters who
historically were capable of posting interesting content is a slightly
more tricky proposition. ISTM that having a much greater flow of of new
(at least loosely) "on topic" content would go a long way to help. Even
the most die hard "my os/political party/religion/choice of sandpaper is
superior to all yours" type can usually make a decent conversation once
they forget to climb on their personal soap box.

I don't see that we will find many of them by attracting new posters to
usenet.

This business of dealing with idiots and trolls might seem like a lot of
hard work - it isn't - but trying to participate in more than two or
three web fora is even more 'hard work' imho. And, what's worse is that
many of the discussions of a 'technical nature' have contributors who
would by comparison make the likes of Rod Speed and TNP look like
geniuses!!! Who'd have thought! :-(

When you've been directed to as many such 'technical fora' in my
googling for solutions to various computer related problems as I have
over the past decade or more, you soon learn 'to bite your lip' as you
realise the futility of even trying to contribute a myth busting fact to
any of these fora. It's been good training in how to make best use of
usenet. :-)

;-)


Moderation might seem like a solution to the problem of idiots and
trolls but, quite frankly, this 'cure' can often turn out to be worse
than 'the disease'. After all, there's no guarantee that the moderators
will be any less ill informed or opinionated than the idiots and trolls
it's meant to keep at bay. It's far better, imho, to retain the "Valour
is the better part of discretion." principle in the hands of the
individual contributors rather than leave this in the hands of a select
elite.

Indeed, and also in this day and age one takes the risk of no longer
being seen as a "common carrier" if you have moderation in place, and
then someone moans that you did not moderate something (they think) you
should have.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 22/06/2017 08:38, Tim Watts wrote:
Ugh! Forums are horrid.

Mr shouty sold MoneyStupid.com or whatever it was called for
a nice big sum.

En el artículo , Andrew Andrew97d-
escribió:

Mr shouty sold MoneyStupid.com or whatever it was called for
a nice big sum.

We call him Old Smartarse Lewis in our house.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=) "Between two evils, I always pick
(")_(") the one I never tried before." - Mae West

On Wednesday, 21 June 2017 19:31:05 UTC+1, Tim Watts wrote:
Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a
single server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that to
work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist whitelisting
anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

If you just decide on yes/no for individual posters, there's far less moderating work. Let the group vote rather than decide personally. I want 10 no votes for Rodney


NT

Tim Watts wrote:
Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a
single server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that
to work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist
whitelisting anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

No need for that. It will turn into uklm where everybody has watch what they
say and be nicey-nicey.
As for new blood, it's too late for that. More or less the same people post
here all of the time - there is nothing wrong with that as this is quite an
active group.
Leave well alone.

On Wed, 21 Jun 2017 20:48:24 +0100, Mr Pounder Esquire wrote:

As for new blood, it's too late for that. More or less the same people
post here all of the time - there is nothing wrong with that as this is
quite an active group.
Leave well alone.

Tend towards agreeing with you, Mr. P. Groups that go moderated become
rather like pubs after the smoking ban came in: cleaner but noticeably
soul-less and sterile.

On 23/06/17 22:50, Cursitor Doom wrote:
On Wed, 21 Jun 2017 20:48:24 +0100, Mr Pounder Esquire wrote:

As for new blood, it's too late for that. More or less the same people
post here all of the time - there is nothing wrong with that as this is
quite an active group.
Leave well alone.

Tend towards agreeing with you, Mr. P. Groups that go moderated become
rather like pubs after the smoking ban came in: cleaner but noticeably
soul-less and sterile.

I am also reminded of as society I once joined years ago, all were
despondent about the falling membership and wanted 'new blood'..

so I proposed going online and appealing to a much broader marklet. They
accused me of trying to take it over and destroy the 'matey' nature of
it all.

I left in disgust.

People don't really want what they say they want. When socialists got
what they asked for the labour party did not vanish, they found
something else to complain about instead.

Whining fills the empty hours...

--
Any fool can believe in principles - and most of them do!

On 24/06/2017 05:56, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I am also reminded of as society I once joined years ago, all were
despondent about the falling membership and wanted 'new blood'..

I wonder if its the same one as I once belonged to which resisted the
use of email and electronic documentation for many years after it was
common place? It really was a mind set from the top of the organisation
of 'We've always used quill pens so why the need to change'?


so I proposed going online and appealing to a much broader marklet. They
accused me of trying to take it over and destroy the 'matey' nature of
it all.

One of the proposals for this group is a web based solution but if you
want new participation you really need an interface to "social media"
Apps which the younger generation have grown up with.


--
mailto: news {at} admac {dot] myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

On 27/06/17 08:29, alan_m wrote:
On 24/06/2017 05:56, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I am also reminded of as society I once joined years ago, all were
despondent about the falling membership and wanted 'new blood'..

I wonder if its the same one as I once belonged to which resisted the
use of email and electronic documentation for many years after it was
common place? It really was a mind set from the top of the organisation
of 'We've always used quill pens so why the need to change'?


so I proposed going online and appealing to a much broader marklet.
They accused me of trying to take it over and destroy the 'matey'
nature of it all.

One of the proposals for this group is a web based solution but if you
want new participation you really need an interface to "social media"
Apps which the younger generation have grown up with.


My point was that whatever you do to UK d-i-y to change it will er -
change it.

Frankly I cant imagine any of today's smartphone gazing ear plug
ignoring generation even so much as lifting a screwdriver. shrug




--
"Nature does not give up the winter because people dislike the cold."

ۥ Confucius

In message , alan_m
writes
On 24/06/2017 05:56, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I am also reminded of as society I once joined years ago, all were
despondent about the falling membership and wanted 'new blood'..

I wonder if its the same one as I once belonged to which resisted the
use of email and electronic documentation for many years after it was
common place? It really was a mind set from the top of the organisation
of 'We've always used quill pens so why the need to change'?

so I proposed going online and appealing to a much broader marklet.
They accused me of trying to take it over and destroy the 'matey'
nature of it all.

One of the proposals for this group is a web based solution but if you
want new participation you really need an interface to "social media"
Apps which the younger generation have grown up with.

The only forum I read is TFF (the farming forum). Sadly, from my point
of view, threads there move too quickly for someone only reading once
per day. (Office based PC and used to the relaxed timescale of usenet).

I sneered at Facebook when my daughters were signing up as being too
intrusive and potentially dangerous for information mining.

One day I will graduate to an i-phone but not yet:-)
--
Tim Lamb

On 27/06/2017 08:29, alan_m wrote:
On 24/06/2017 05:56, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I am also reminded of as society I once joined years ago, all were
despondent about the falling membership and wanted 'new blood'..

I wonder if its the same one as I once belonged to which resisted the
use of email and electronic documentation for many years after it was
common place? It really was a mind set from the top of the organisation
of 'We've always used quill pens so why the need to change'?


so I proposed going online and appealing to a much broader marklet.
They accused me of trying to take it over and destroy the 'matey'
nature of it all.

One of the proposals for this group is a web based solution but if you
want new participation you really need an interface to "social media"
Apps which the younger generation have grown up with.

Hmmm uk.d-i-y faceache account... spose it has possibilities.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
news
so I proposed going online and appealing to a much broader marklet. They accused me of
trying to take it over and destroy the 'matey' nature of it all.

As if.


michael adams

....

On Wed, 21 Jun 2017 18:56:25 +0100, Tim Watts
wrote:

Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a
single server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that to
work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist whitelisting
anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

I ran a major news server about 25 years ago, using INN on Solaris,
when a lot of people were getting their newsfeeds over UUCP.

Usenet has been dying for years, but it's proved remarkably resilient.
Although I recently had to switch to eternal-september because my
ISP's news server stopped handling some UK moderated groups correctly.

One of the advantages of usenet is the distributed nature, which
allows it to continue when individual servers die. If we set up a
central server, how long will that last?

On 21/06/17 20:57, Caecilius wrote:
On Wed, 21 Jun 2017 18:56:25 +0100, Tim Watts
wrote:

Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a
single server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that to
work.

Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist whitelisting
anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

I ran a major news server about 25 years ago, using INN on Solaris,
when a lot of people were getting their newsfeeds over UUCP.

Usenet has been dying for years, but it's proved remarkably resilient.
Although I recently had to switch to eternal-september because my
ISP's news server stopped handling some UK moderated groups correctly.

One of the advantages of usenet is the distributed nature, which
allows it to continue when individual servers die. If we set up a
central server, how long will that last?


As long as the uk-d-i-y wiki server I expect...

On 21/06/2017 18:56, Tim Watts wrote:
Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a
single server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that to
work.

Getting group stats is not as easy as it once was. But I am guessing we
could be running 10K+ posts a month again.


Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist whitelisting
anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

or have our own leaching web portal ;-)


Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

I seem to recall discussing something similar a decade ago probably -
maybe not a full on moderated version of the group, but just a sanitised
version that drops the obvious crap. Those who want the full unfiltered
feed can can still access it from their existing usenet server, and will
see posts the the new server back propagated.

The nice thing about usenet is the speed of access - moving from post to
post and thread to thread is near enough instant. The threading model is
vastly better than most web portals. The downside obviously is the
obscurity and the lack of capacity to post images etc.

If we are going to add a web "something" to it, then it needs to bring
something new to the party - not sure what though.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Wed, 21 Jun 2017 21:52:02 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

On 21/06/2017 18:56, Tim Watts wrote:
Someone mentioned this the other day...

I've run nntp servers before, admittedly 15 years ago - but a simple
single server "islanded" setup is not hard in itself.

I am not proposing adding to the USENET hierarchy - I'm proposing a
single server. The traffic and number of users is low enough for that to
work.

Getting group stats is not as easy as it once was. But I am guessing we
could be running 10K+ posts a month again.


Pros:

We could moderate and kill OT stuff and obnoxiousness whist whitelisting
anyone who posts reasonable stuff;

Could keep all the leeching web portals off, by force if necessary;

or have our own leaching web portal ;-)


Cons:

I/we have to run a server;

Some people have to be willing to moderate;

Would we need our own properly done web portal to make it popular and
capture new blood?


Opinions please

I seem to recall discussing something similar a decade ago probably -
maybe not a full on moderated version of the group, but just a sanitised
version that drops the obvious crap. Those who want the full unfiltered
feed can can still access it from their existing usenet server, and will
see posts the the new server back propagated.

The nice thing about usenet is the speed of access - moving from post to
post and thread to thread is near enough instant. The threading model is
vastly better than most web portals. The downside obviously is the
obscurity and the lack of capacity to post images etc.

If we are going to add a web "something" to it, then it needs to bring
something new to the party - not sure what though.

You are being far too diplomatic John, things would have to be far
worse (deliberate sabotage like u.r.a) for this to be a good idea.

Also Google indexes and makes searchable the text of our posts almost
instantly, I remember when it took weeks, and even gives the
uninitiated users a means to contribute without knowing what Usenet
is, and without seeing any adverts.

(I never thought I would be singing the praises of GG).


--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

On 21/06/2017 21:52, John Rumm wrote:

The nice thing about usenet is the speed of access - moving from post to
post and thread to thread is near enough instant. The threading model is
vastly better than most web portals. The downside obviously is the
obscurity and the lack of capacity to post images etc.

If we were running a server it could allow images to be posted.
Most modern news readers can cope with images.


If we are going to add a web "something" to it, then it needs to bring
something new to the party - not sure what though.

dennis@home wrote:

If we were running a server it could allow images to be posted.
Most modern news readers can cope with images.
I suppose it could force font color=#0f0 for weatherlawyer's rumblings

On 23/06/2017 07:53, Andy Burns wrote:
dennis@home wrote:

If we were running a server it could allow images to be posted.
Most modern news readers can cope with images.
I suppose it could force font color=#0f0 for weatherlawyer's rumblings

Wouldn't 0xfff for foreground and 0xfff for background be better?

En el artículo , Andy Burns
escribió:

I suppose it could force font color=#0f0 for weatherlawyer's rumblings

Subtle

--
(\_/)
(='.'=) "Between two evils, I always pick
(")_(") the one I never tried before." - Mae West