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

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 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 21/06/2017 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 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

It's a solution to a problem that does not exist.
Not yet anyhow.
0/10. See me.


--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

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

Someone mentioned this the other day...


Pros:

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

Hmm, a bit like a killfile then where I can ignore individual posters or
threads.

But what I choose to ignore may not be the same as what others choose to
ignore.



Opinions please

I can see where you are going with this - there is an increasing amount
of noise on here but even the noisiest posters sometimes post something
of interest (like seeking advice on UPVC doors as an example).

I prefer to stick with a killfile and/or just skip the name calling and
rabble rousing as I see fit.

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.

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.




The trouble is most of them are worthless and humourless.

In article ,
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


Do you know of any other moderated newsgroup still running?

--
*Remember not to forget that which you do not need to know.*

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

On 21/06/2017 22:15, Mark Allread wrote:
On Wed, 21 Jun 2017 18:56:25 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

Someone mentioned this the other day...


Pros:

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

Hmm, a bit like a killfile then where I can ignore individual posters or
threads.

But what I choose to ignore may not be the same as what others choose to
ignore.



Opinions please

I can see where you are going with this - there is an increasing amount
of noise on here but even the noisiest posters sometimes post something
of interest (like seeking advice on UPVC doors as an example).

I prefer to stick with a killfile and/or just skip the name calling and
rabble rousing as I see fit.

I think people might be focussing too much on the avoiding the crap
stuff and less on the how to bring new talent into the group aspect.
There is no getting away from the fact that usenet for all its virtues
is less "visible" to later generations of 'net users.

Some of the web front ends have been slightly less crap than others,
however even there you have a problem that some people like to tar all
users of such system with the same brush and lob insults as a first
response to a genuine questioner just because some other users of the
same portal reply to old posts without understanding what they are doing.

Likewise new readers could equally well be put off before they start
because of the political sniping or the religious loon so courageously
preaching his extremist diatribe from behind anonymous re-mailers.

We have a web based FAQ and wiki, and to be fair articles there do get
100K+ page views, but they rarely then lead onto new participants in the
discussions beyond a few people who email me directly regarding content
there.

Something that could sit alongside the existing web site and enable
discussion there could be good. It could act as a gateway to existing
usenet users, bridging conversation here, while shielding the web
version from the stuff that we are in the habit of kill filing here.


--
Cheers,

John.

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

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
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


Do you know of any other moderated newsgroup still running?

Snow good you joining one, Dave. I doubt that your bigotry would be allowed.

On Thursday, 22 June 2017 00:57:15 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:
On 21/06/2017 22:15, Mark Allread wrote:
On Wed, 21 Jun 2017 18:56:25 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:

Someone mentioned this the other day...


Pros:

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

Hmm, a bit like a killfile then where I can ignore individual posters or
threads.

But what I choose to ignore may not be the same as what others choose to
ignore.



Opinions please

I can see where you are going with this - there is an increasing amount
of noise on here but even the noisiest posters sometimes post something
of interest (like seeking advice on UPVC doors as an example).

I prefer to stick with a killfile and/or just skip the name calling and
rabble rousing as I see fit.

I think people might be focussing too much on the avoiding the crap
stuff and less on the how to bring new talent into the group aspect.
There is no getting away from the fact that usenet for all its virtues
is less "visible" to later generations of 'net users.

Some of the web front ends have been slightly less crap than others,
however even there you have a problem that some people like to tar all
users of such system with the same brush and lob insults as a first
response to a genuine questioner just because some other users of the
same portal reply to old posts without understanding what they are doing.

Likewise new readers could equally well be put off before they start
because of the political sniping or the religious loon so courageously
preaching his extremist diatribe from behind anonymous re-mailers.

We have a web based FAQ and wiki, and to be fair articles there do get
100K+ page views, but they rarely then lead onto new participants in the
discussions beyond a few people who email me directly regarding content
there.

Something that could sit alongside the existing web site and enable
discussion there could be good. It could act as a gateway to existing
usenet users, bridging conversation here, while shielding the web
version from the stuff that we are in the habit of kill filing here.

Sounds good. And it would be uk.d-i-y not uk.d-i-y.moderated, so much more web presence. Uk.d-i-y could use a sane visible web portal with rodney filter.


NT

On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 00:40:02 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
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


Do you know of any other moderated newsgroup still running?

uk.radio amateur moderated
uk.legal moderated

The former was created because its unmoderated sister group was all
but destroyed by infighting between a small number of posters, who yet
still refuse to grow up. By and large there was little alternative to
a moderated group, although I would prefer a much lighter touch to the
moderation.

I'm not really qualified to comment about ulm vs ul, the unmodulated
group seems to work well enough, but it is often said that those with
actual legal experience tend to post in the moderated group.
There's a whole other culture behind these groups, with the moderation
streams publicity visible on the web, and the back chatter on
uk.net.news.moderation which of course is unmoderated.

Life's too short for all that, I just want my post to appear when I
press send.


--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

"Graham." wrote in message
...
On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 00:40:02 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
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


Do you know of any other moderated newsgroup still running?

uk.radio amateur moderated
uk.legal moderated

The former was created because its unmoderated sister group was all
but destroyed by infighting between a small number of posters, who yet
still refuse to grow up. By and large there was little alternative to
a moderated group, although I would prefer a much lighter touch to the
moderation.

I'm not really qualified to comment about ulm vs ul, the unmodulated
group seems to work well enough, but it is often said that those with
actual legal experience tend to post in the moderated group.
There's a whole other culture behind these groups, with the moderation
streams publicity visible on the web, and the back chatter on
uk.net.news.moderation which of course is unmoderated.

Life's too short for all that, I just want my post to appear when I
press send.

LOL, You'll be lucky.
Press send how many times?

"Graham." wrote in message
...
On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 00:40:02 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
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


Do you know of any other moderated newsgroup still running?

uk.radio amateur moderated
uk.legal moderated

The former was created because its unmoderated sister group was all
but destroyed by infighting between a small number of posters, who yet
still refuse to grow up. By and large there was little alternative to
a moderated group, although I would prefer a much lighter touch to the
moderation.

I'm not really qualified to comment about ulm vs ul, the unmodulated
group seems to work well enough, but it is often said that those with
actual legal experience tend to post in the moderated group.
There's a whole other culture behind these groups, with the moderation
streams publicity visible on the web, and the back chatter on
uk.net.news.moderation which of course is unmoderated.

Life's too short for all that, I just want my post to appear when I
press send.

2nd attempt...............
LOL

"bm" wrote in message
eb.com...

"Graham." wrote in message
...
On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 00:40:02 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
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


Do you know of any other moderated newsgroup still running?

uk.radio amateur moderated
uk.legal moderated

The former was created because its unmoderated sister group was all
but destroyed by infighting between a small number of posters, who yet
still refuse to grow up. By and large there was little alternative to
a moderated group, although I would prefer a much lighter touch to the
moderation.

I'm not really qualified to comment about ulm vs ul, the unmodulated
group seems to work well enough, but it is often said that those with
actual legal experience tend to post in the moderated group.
There's a whole other culture behind these groups, with the moderation
streams publicity visible on the web, and the back chatter on
uk.net.news.moderation which of course is unmoderated.

Life's too short for all that, I just want my post to appear when I
press send.

2nd attempt...............
LOL

Dave will have it sorted by the morrow.

En el artículo , Tim Watts
escribió:

Opinions please

I like the idea, but it fragments the DIY audience at a time when usenet
is already contracting fast. You'd have to find people willing to
moderate.

It isn't hard to make uk.d-i-y usable with killfiling and filtering.
Anything posted, and followed up to, by Wodney, Wilkinson, TNP and harry
kills off 90% of the rubbish.

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

En el artículo , Dave Plowman (News)
escribió:

Do you know of any other moderated newsgroup still running?

There's loads. uk.legal.moderated and uk.radio.amateur.moderated to
name but two. Both active.

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

"Mike Tomlinson" wrote in message
...
En el artículo , Dave Plowman (News)
escribió:

Do you know of any other moderated newsgroup still running?

There's loads. uk.legal.moderated and uk.radio.amateur.moderated to
name but two. Both active.

this must be a new meaning of active hitherto unheard of .....

Do you know of any other moderated newsgroup still running?

uk.radio amateur moderated
uk.legal moderated

The former was created because its unmoderated sister group was all
but destroyed by infighting between a small number of posters, who yet
still refuse to grow up.

yes brian reay mike tomlinson and stephen cole ruined a very good group ....

On 22/06/2017 00:40, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:


Do you know of any other moderated newsgroup still running?


I subscribe to two web based groups that are moderated and both have
been free of "crap" for the years. Both require money to maintain the
servers and supply the required bandwidth. One requests user donations
around £150 month and also has sponsor with the proviso that no postings
are allowed that provide links to direct commercial rivals of the
sponsor. By default, one only allows a sign-up and posting from UK IPs
(relaxed at the discretion of the moderator). The other only allows one
sign-up per user, perhaps policed by checking IP. Both require a login
and password to post.

My experience with moderated Usenet groups in the past is not too
positive. The moderator was often some self appointed jobsworth who has
no authority in the real world but had ultimate power over the group.
Usually these groups were the first to die.

Does a moderator become "responsible" for what is published and
therefore useful posts, say, suggesting that certain companies are dodgy
or rip-off merchants would be moderated out of existence?

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

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 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 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 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 22/06/17 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.

In message , Graham.
writes
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

It's a solution to a problem that does not exist.
Not yet anyhow.
0/10. See me.

+1

My newsreader has choices on ignoring unwelcome posts/posters but, apart
from serial offenders, I find it best to simply skip threads where
obnoxious views are offered.

Kipling's Stalky and Co has a bit about *baiting* and *rises* which I
didn't understand when first read (teenager) but see it happening all
the time in here. Basically, if you don't respond, the baiter loses. He
will likely come back with something more outrageous and eventually
appear very silly.

Off Topic posts can be interesting so long as they don't destroy the
informative nature and original purpose of the group.

My daughters introduced me to Usenet when they wanted to read about
Eddie Izzard! Of the half dozen groups still on my list, UK.d-i-y is the
only one still active.



--
Tim Lamb

alan_m posted

My experience with moderated Usenet groups in the past is not too
positive. The moderator was often some self appointed jobsworth who has
no authority in the real world but had ultimate power over the group.

Exactly. ULM is like this. Law is a rather technical subject. You can
spend ages composing a detailed reply to someone on a specialist topic,
and then it is deleted on grounds of 'not adding sufficient new content'
by a moderator who isn't very well up with the subject. Pish.

--
Jack

On 22/06/17 09:59, Handsome Jack wrote:
alan_m posted

My experience with moderated Usenet groups in the past is not too
positive. The moderator was often some self appointed jobsworth who
has no authority in the real world but had ultimate power over the group.

Exactly. ULM is like this. Law is a rather technical subject. You can
spend ages composing a detailed reply to someone on a specialist topic,
and then it is deleted on grounds of 'not adding sufficient new content'
by a moderator who isn't very well up with the subject. Pish.

I found exactly the same when I joined a moderated NG. It was run as a
private shop by a few old farts and if you didn't agree with their
religion your posts simply vanished.


--
€œSome people like to travel by train because it combines the slowness of
a car with the cramped public exposure of €¨an airplane.€�

Dennis Miller

On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 10:03:58 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

snip

I found exactly the same when I joined a moderated NG. It was run as a
private shop by a few old farts and if you didn't agree with their
religion your posts simply vanished.

Yup and some of you do the same thing with killfiles eh. ;-)

The world is populated by a range of 'cold and pricklies' to 'warm and
fuzzies' and whilst we need the lot, it's typically the former who
create most of the tension, inter member issues or wasted bandwidth.

But then I guess you also get fanatics (religious, football, OS,
political) in all walks of life so why not here (other than 'here'
isn't supposed to be about any of those things)?

Cheers, T i m

On 22/06/2017 00:57, John Rumm wrote:

I think people might be focussing too much on the avoiding the crap
stuff and less on the how to bring new talent into the group aspect.
There is no getting away from the fact that usenet for all its virtues
is less "visible" to later generations of 'net users.

Bullseye.

Some of the web front ends have been slightly less crap than others,
however even there you have a problem that some people like to tar all
users of such system with the same brush and lob insults as a first
response to a genuine questioner just because some other users of the
same portal reply to old posts without understanding what they are doing.

Likewise new readers could equally well be put off before they start
because of the political sniping or the religious loon so courageously
preaching his extremist diatribe from behind anonymous re-mailers.

We have a web based FAQ and wiki, and to be fair articles there do get
100K+ page views, but they rarely then lead onto new participants in the
discussions beyond a few people who email me directly regarding content
there.

Something that could sit alongside the existing web site and enable
discussion there could be good. It could act as a gateway to existing
usenet users, bridging conversation here, while shielding the web
version from the stuff that we are in the habit of kill filing here.


That sounds good - especially if "bridging" means posts to the website
would automatically appear in uk.d-i-y and vice versa replies.


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

"Mike Tomlinson" wrote in message
...
En el artículo , Tim Watts
escribió:

Opinions please

I like the idea, but it fragments the DIY audience at a time when usenet
is already contracting fast. You'd have to find people willing to
moderate.

It isn't hard to make uk.d-i-y usable with killfiling and filtering.
Anything posted, and followed up to, by Wodney, Wilkinson, TNP and harry
kills off 90% of the rubbish.

That's a tad harsh, Mike
Wodney? LOL.

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