Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new Usenet content

[Wally J]

Bad news for people who search before they post to Usenet:
<Loading Image...>

Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new content
from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of historical data
will still be supported as it is done today.
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>

The bad news is that this search engine "may" stop working soon.
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.software.nntp>
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>
etc.

Is it something we said?
*Please complain to Google about their spamming of Usenet*
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android/c/hO4JNke1bNc>

[The Doctor]

Post by Wally J
<https://i.postimg.cc/tgQHDyjK/dejagoogle01.jpg>
Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new content
from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of historical data
will still be supported as it is done today.
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>
The bad news is that this search engine "may" stop working soon.
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.software.nntp>
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>
etc.
Is it something we said?
*Please complain to Google about their spamming of Usenet*
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android/c/hO4JNke1bNc>

Good news for anti-abusers!

Post by Wally J
--
Usenet is a team of intelligent old men working together for common good.

[Julieta Shem]

Post by Wally J
<https://i.postimg.cc/tgQHDyjK/dejagoogle01.jpg>
Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new content
from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of historical data
will still be supported as it is done today.
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>
The bad news is that this search engine "may" stop working soon.
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.software.nntp>
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>
etc.

We got to provide solutions our ourselves. This is the USENET spirit
--- by the people for the people (with a sufficient sense of capacity).

Post by Wally J
Is it something we said?
*Please complain to Google about their spamming of Usenet*
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android/c/hO4JNke1bNc>

Lol!

[Tom Furie]

Post by Julieta Shem

Post by Wally J
The bad news is that this search engine "may" stop working soon.
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.software.nntp>
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>
etc.

We got to provide solutions our ourselves. This is the USENET spirit
--- by the people for the people (with a sufficient sense of capacity).

There might be enough fragmentary archives around to form a "mostly
complete" set, but it'll take a lot of time and effort to unearth them
and coordinate their collation. For some reason I don't get the feeling
that Google will have much interest in releasing theirs.

[Wally J]

Post by Tom Furie
There might be enough fragmentary archives around to form a "mostly
complete" set, but it'll take a lot of time and effort to unearth them
and coordinate their collation. For some reason I don't get the feeling
that Google will have much interest in releasing theirs.

There is the narkive which, if it actually worked, would fit the bill.
a. It has to be web searchable w/o need for a newsreader or account
b. Results must be readable by your mother or grandmother using a browser
c. It has to result in a URI to the thread and to the article

The "only" one I know of (which sucks, by the way), is this one:
<https://news.software.nntp.narkive.com>
<https://news.admin.peering.narkive.com>
<https://news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.narkive.com>

But, I repeat. It sucks. It's unreliable. Search doesn't work.
Last I had checked anyway...

Is there another current Usenet archive that meets the requirements?

[Marco Moock]

Post by Wally J
There is the narkive which, if it actually worked, would fit the bill.

Although that doesn't include stuff from the 80s/90s.

[The Doctor]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Wally J
There is the narkive which, if it actually worked, would fit the bill.

Although that doesn't include stuff from the 80s/90s.

So can Google give the archive over?

[Marco Moock]

Post by The Doctor

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Wally J
There is the narkive which, if it actually worked, would fit the bill.

Although that doesn't include stuff from the 80s/90s.

So can Google give the archive over?

I don't think they will do that.
I also don't know if peers maybe can access it via NNTP to suck all
the articles.

[Grant Taylor]

Post by The Doctor
So can Google give the archive over?

They probably could if they were so inclined.

But I wouldn't hold my breath that they will.

Or if they did, it would probably only be the archive that they received
from DeJa News and nothing since then.

Post by The Doctor
I don't think they will do that.

Agreed.

Post by The Doctor
I also don't know if peers maybe can access it via NNTP to suck all
the articles.

Almost certainly not.

This is where the vagaries and technicalities of NNTP vs NNRP come into
play.

NNTP is server to server feeding articles.

NNRP is client to server fetching and posting articles.

Often the protocols are mutually exclusive, partially out of security
(clients can't feed) and partially out of daemon simplicity (why have
NNRP stack in a pure NNTP server).

What's more is that in my experience, the ability to be a peer and use
NNTP to feed articles is often controlled by IP. As such, any
connections from said IP is automatically doesn't have access to NNRP,
and vice versa.

[noel]

Post by Grant Taylor
This is where the vagaries and technicalities of NNTP vs NNRP come into
play.
NNTP is server to server feeding articles.
NNRP is client to server fetching and posting articles.
Often the protocols are mutually exclusive, partially out of security
(clients can't feed) and partially out of daemon simplicity (why have
NNRP stack in a pure NNTP server).
What's more is that in my experience, the ability to be a peer and use
NNTP to feed articles is often controlled by IP. As such, any
connections from said IP is automatically doesn't have access to NNRP,
and vice versa.

Network News Transport Protocol doesnt infer server to server.

Those around >30 years ago know that because all clients asked for NNTP
Server Details, even in, ohh what was that windowsy thing... Trumpet or
Trombone... to todays clients, because of its popularity waining in
recent years, the dumbed down muppets might have have changed to calling
it a more dumb arse term in some clients...I dunno, its not in ones I
use... like half of the kids today think google /is/ the WWW.

Also, I'm sure Russ can chime in here but the term NNRP was introduced by
INN in later years, but i'm on holidays so CBF doing exact fact checking
on its origins, but it certainly was not around 30 years ago, I forget
its exact number, but check rfc 97? ... one of them just cant put my
finger on it, 971 is coming to mind for some reason but maybe one of the
others...

[noel]

Post by noel
Server Details, even in, ohh what was that windowsy thing... Trumpet or
Trombone... to todays clients, because of its popularity waining in

LOL I think I was thinking of free-agent hahahaha, holiday mode has
made my brain mushy I think trumpet was tcp for win 3... or I might still
have screew that up - never been a windows fan so my care factor is
pretty much zero anyway :)

[Tom Furie]

Post by noel
Server Details, even in, ohh what was that windowsy thing... Trumpet or
Trombone...

Well, you need *something* to push air down the windsock...

[Retro Guy]

Post by Tom Furie

Post by noel
Server Details, even in, ohh what was that windowsy thing... Trumpet or
Trombone...

Well, you need *something* to push air down the windsock...

Exactly! Trumpet Winsock :) I remember it well.

[Julieta Shem]

Post by Wally J

Post by Tom Furie
There might be enough fragmentary archives around to form a "mostly
complete" set, but it'll take a lot of time and effort to unearth them
and coordinate their collation. For some reason I don't get the feeling
that Google will have much interest in releasing theirs.

There is the narkive which, if it actually worked, would fit the bill.
a. It has to be web searchable w/o need for a newsreader or account
b. Results must be readable by your mother or grandmother using a browser
c. It has to result in a URI to the thread and to the article
<https://news.software.nntp.narkive.com>
<https://news.admin.peering.narkive.com>
<https://news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.narkive.com>
But, I repeat. It sucks. It's unreliable. Search doesn't work.
Last I had checked anyway...

The address

https://news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.narkive.com

loads with updated threads, but trying to read messages results in HTTP
505, meaning we have no idea what we're doing.

[...]

[Sn!pe]

Post by Julieta Shem

Post by Wally J

Post by Tom Furie
There might be enough fragmentary archives around to form a "mostly
complete" set, but it'll take a lot of time and effort to unearth them
and coordinate their collation. For some reason I don't get the feeling
that Google will have much interest in releasing theirs.

There is the narkive which, if it actually worked, would fit the bill.
a. It has to be web searchable w/o need for a newsreader or account
b. Results must be readable by your mother or grandmother using a browser
c. It has to result in a URI to the thread and to the article
<https://news.software.nntp.narkive.com>
<https://news.admin.peering.narkive.com>
<https://news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.narkive.com>
But, I repeat. It sucks. It's unreliable. Search doesn't work.
Last I had checked anyway...

The address
<https://news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.narkive.com>
loads with updated threads, but trying to read messages results in HTTP
505, meaning we have no idea what we're doing.
[...]

That URL works just fine for me, Julieta.

[Marco Moock]

Post by Julieta Shem
loads with updated threads, but trying to read messages results in
HTTP 505, meaning we have no idea what we're doing.

Works for me:
https://news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.narkive.com/3iYQhKhL/effective-february-15-2024-google-groups-will-no-longer-support-new-usenet-content

If it doesn't for you, contact the operator:

***@narkive.com

[Julieta Shem]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Julieta Shem
loads with updated threads, but trying to read messages results in
HTTP 505, meaning we have no idea what we're doing.

https://news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.narkive.com/3iYQhKhL/effective-february-15-2024-google-groups-will-no-longer-support-new-usenet-content

I found a thread that opens, but the first ones displaying today do not.

For instance, the address

https://news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.narkive.com/XQDMkfhu/please-complain-to-google-about-their-spamming-of-usenet

loads fine. But

https://news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.narkive.com/utLAtZzn/effective-february-15-2024-google-groups-will-no-longer-support-new-usenet-content#

does not. (The one you mentioned doesn't either.)

[Marco Moock]

Post by Julieta Shem
But
https://news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.narkive.com/utLAtZzn/effective-february-15-2024-google-groups-will-no-longer-support-new-usenet-content#
does not. (The one you mentioned doesn't either.)

Works for me after solving the captcha.

[Wally J]

Post by Marco Moock
Works for me after solving the captcha.

Thanks for teaming up to help everyone & to find the narkive admin.

Please, can one or two of you test out the search feature of the narkive?

For me, with my privacy-based setup, I wish it worked better than it does.
But maybe that's only me - which - if that's the case - then it's fine.
(My browsers are generally set to be locked up for privacy reasons.)

But it doesn't matter if I can't search - it matters if you can search.
What matters is a search results in a reference URL to a thread or post.

To be perfectly clear, I don't know much about the narkive as I usually
defaulted to dejagoogle, except when there wasn't a Google archive, e.g.,
<https://alt.comp.software.firefox.narkive.com>
<https://alt.comp.software.thunderbird.narkive.com>

Unfortunately, only for "some" ngs are there any other archives, e.g.,
<https://tinyurl.com/alt-comp-os-windows-10>

But for most newsgroups, the only archive I know of left is narkive.

As always to help the team with every action I take, I wrote a letter to
David (***@narkive.com) asking him to look at this thread and to perhaps
work with the experts here like Dave, Marco & Grant (et al.) to come up
with a solution that helps everyone search & reference old Usenet articles.

You guys are the ones who can get things done. I can only disseminate info.

[Spiros Bousbouras]

On Fri, 15 Dec 2023 02:11:42 +0000

Post by Tom Furie

Post by Julieta Shem

Post by Wally J
The bad news is that this search engine "may" stop working soon.
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.software.nntp>
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>
etc.

We got to provide solutions our ourselves. This is the USENET spirit
--- by the people for the people (with a sufficient sense of capacity).

There might be enough fragmentary archives around to form a "mostly
complete" set, but it'll take a lot of time and effort to unearth them
and coordinate their collation. For some reason I don't get the feeling
that Google will have much interest in releasing theirs.

All this talk about archives has been about old stuff but what about
archiving the current discussion on usenet ? Is anyone committed to this ? I
only use free servers (only for text groups) and their retention is generally
a few weeks. Is there any newsserver , even if it is read only , which has an
unlimited retention policy at least for some text newsgroups ?

[Jesse Rehmer]

Post by Spiros Bousbouras
On Fri, 15 Dec 2023 02:11:42 +0000

Post by Tom Furie

Post by Julieta Shem

Post by Wally J
The bad news is that this search engine "may" stop working soon.
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.software.nntp>
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>
etc.

We got to provide solutions our ourselves. This is the USENET spirit
--- by the people for the people (with a sufficient sense of capacity).

There might be enough fragmentary archives around to form a "mostly
complete" set, but it'll take a lot of time and effort to unearth them
and coordinate their collation. For some reason I don't get the feeling
that Google will have much interest in releasing theirs.

All this talk about archives has been about old stuff but what about
archiving the current discussion on usenet ? Is anyone committed to this ? I
only use free servers (only for text groups) and their retention is generally
a few weeks. Is there any newsserver , even if it is read only , which has an
unlimited retention policy at least for some text newsgroups ?

Working on it: https://usenet.blueworldhosting.com/

[The Doctor]

Post by Julieta Shem

Post by Wally J
<https://i.postimg.cc/tgQHDyjK/dejagoogle01.jpg>
Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new content
from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of historical data
will still be supported as it is done today.
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>
The bad news is that this search engine "may" stop working soon.
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.software.nntp>
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>
etc.

We got to provide solutions our ourselves. This is the USENET spirit
--- by the people for the people (with a sufficient sense of capacity).

Post by Wally J
Is it something we said?
*Please complain to Google about their spamming of Usenet*
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android/c/hO4JNke1bNc>

Lol!

Google Plus was much better ran!

[Marco Moock]

Post by Julieta Shem
We got to provide solutions our ourselves.

Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

[noel]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Julieta Shem
We got to provide solutions our ourselves.

Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

If you want web interfaces go run a forum.

dnews has a web interface - I shut it down in the late 90's because the
more who found it abused it.

[Marco Moock]

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Julieta Shem
We got to provide solutions our ourselves.

Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

If you want web interfaces go run a forum.
dnews has a web interface - I shut it down in the late 90's because
the more who found it abused it.

There is no need to have a posting opportunity there.
But those web interfaces make it possible to find content via regular
search engines.
Or do you know a Usenet search engine that can query NNTP servers?

[noel]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Julieta Shem
We got to provide solutions our ourselves.

Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

If you want web interfaces go run a forum.
dnews has a web interface - I shut it down in the late 90's because the
more who found it abused it.

There is no need to have a posting opportunity there.
But those web interfaces make it possible to find content via regular
search engines.
Or do you know a Usenet search engine that can query NNTP servers?

Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
just fine back in the say before search engines

[Marco Moock]

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Julieta Shem
We got to provide solutions our ourselves.

Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

If you want web interfaces go run a forum.
dnews has a web interface - I shut it down in the late 90's
because the more who found it abused it.

There is no need to have a posting opportunity there.
But those web interfaces make it possible to find content via
regular search engines.
Or do you know a Usenet search engine that can query NNTP servers?

Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it
survived just fine back in the say before search engines

Because there is a need to find information that has been posted months
or years ago.

That means that a search engine needs to be able to index it.
I don't know any search engine that queries NNTP.

[The Doctor]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Julieta Shem
We got to provide solutions our ourselves.

Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

If you want web interfaces go run a forum.
dnews has a web interface - I shut it down in the late 90's
because the more who found it abused it.

There is no need to have a posting opportunity there.
But those web interfaces make it possible to find content via
regular search engines.
Or do you know a Usenet search engine that can query NNTP servers?

Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it
survived just fine back in the say before search engines

Because there is a need to find information that has been posted months
or years ago.
That means that a search engine needs to be able to index it.
I don't know any search engine that queries NNTP.

WEll what about pre-GG web interfaces to USenet?

[Don]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Julieta Shem
We got to provide solutions our ourselves.

Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

If you want web interfaces go run a forum.
dnews has a web interface - I shut it down in the late 90's
because the more who found it abused it.

There is no need to have a posting opportunity there.
But those web interfaces make it possible to find content via
regular search engines.
Or do you know a Usenet search engine that can query NNTP servers?

Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it
survived just fine back in the say before search engines

Because there is a need to find information that has been posted months
or years ago.
That means that a search engine needs to be able to index it.
I don't know any search engine that queries NNTP.

My server's private (for the time being). Article's aren't expired,
(except for ephemeral admin information). So my spool goes back
decades. And it turns out something along the lines of:

find . | xargs grep -l '@crcomp.net' | xargs grep 'braid'

reliably returns articles apparently lost by google along the way.

Danke,

[Marco Moock]

Post by Don
My server's private (for the time being). Article's aren't expired,
(except for ephemeral admin information). So my spool goes back

Would you like to make that archive public?

[Don]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Don
My server's private (for the time being). Article's aren't expired,
(except for ephemeral admin information). So my spool goes back

Would you like to make that archive public?

It's tempting. Although it's probably not doable - given google's
failure, despite the enormous resources available at its disposal.
Nonetheless, there's a silver lining. archive hosts a ton of
articles available to the public:

https://archive.org/details/usenet

Danke,

[The Doctor]

Post by Don

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Don
My server's private (for the time being). Article's aren't expired,
(except for ephemeral admin information). So my spool goes back

Would you like to make that archive public?

It's tempting. Although it's probably not doable - given google's
failure, despite the enormous resources available at its disposal.
Nonetheless, there's a silver lining. archive hosts a ton of
https://archive.org/details/usenet
Danke,
--
Don, KB7RPU, https://www.qsl.net/kb7rpu
There was a young lady named Bright Whose speed was far faster than light;
She set out one day In a relative way And returned on the previous night.

Ya!!

[Grant Taylor]

Post by Marco Moock
Would you like to make that archive public?

I won't make my private server public.

But I will provide point-in-time copies of it's spool to people
generating an archive if they want it.

I should have a snapshot or another copy of my spool from within the
last year that still has messages posted from Google Groups. -- I've
gone through and removed them from my private server for ${REASONS}.

If you want a copy, email me directly and we can work something out.

I doubt that my ~5 years is worth uploading to archive.org. I fully
expect that someone else's archive supersedes mine.

[Grant Taylor]

Post by Don
My server's private (for the time being). Article's aren't expired,
(except for ephemeral admin information). So my spool goes back

I occasionally do similar with my private news server.

Though, on spinning rust, it takes quite a while to walk the 20 or so
million articles that my server has.

Post by Don
reliably returns articles apparently lost by google along the way.

Yep.

[Don]

Post by Grant Taylor

Post by Don
My server's private (for the time being). Article's aren't expired,
(except for ephemeral admin information). So my spool goes back

I occasionally do similar with my private news server.
Though, on spinning rust, it takes quite a while to walk the 20 or so
million articles that my server has.

Retrieval speed's proportional to pipeline protractedness - the more
unix pipes, the slower it goes. Nonetheless, it does return results in a
reasonably short period.
A proto-aphorism's been floating around in my mind for a while now.
Something along the lines of "information quality is proportional
to the length of time spent waiting for it."
For instance, an answer to a question posted on a maillist may take
a day or two to arrive. And the quality of the answer more than makes
the wait worthwhile.
OTOH the Western world loves, and pays for, instant gratification,
regardless of quality.

Danke,

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by Don
My server's private (for the time being). Article's aren't expired,
(except for ephemeral admin information). So my spool goes back

How many decades? Does it predate the Renaming? If it goes back before
1990, would it be possible for me to get access to parts of it?
--scott

[Don]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Don
My server's private (for the time being). Article's aren't expired,
(except for ephemeral admin information). So my spool goes back

How many decades? Does it predate the Renaming? If it goes back before
1990, would it be possible for me to get access to parts of it?

AFAIK, articles only date back to approximately the year 2000. Other
people's spool archives available at <https://archive.org/details/usenet>,
as well as commercial content, was haphazardly imported many years
ago.
Since then, archive.org added a lot of new backups of old content.
It makes me want to re-build from scratch. Unfortunately, it takes months
to process tens/hundreds of millions of text files, one group at a time.
The hardest importation task is to sort things by Date: to ensure
the Xref: article number increases monotonically with Date:
Long story short, you probably won't get much mileage out of my spool
"as is." Any re-built spool is a different story.

Danke,

[Jesse Rehmer]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Don
My server's private (for the time being). Article's aren't expired,
(except for ephemeral admin information). So my spool goes back

How many decades? Does it predate the Renaming? If it goes back before
1990, would it be possible for me to get access to parts of it?
--scott

Thanks to another news admin who did the hard work, I was able to bring in the
net.* archives that predate the Great Renaming. I'm still working on archives
from the 90s.

Anyone is welcome to check out what I have on news.blueworldhosting.com
(https://usenet.blueworldhosting.com for more details).

[Julieta Shem]

noel <***@invalid.lan> writes:

[...]

Post by noel
Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
just fine back in the say before search engines

That's an interesting point. It is perhaps a good idea not to display
anything on the web precisely so that we do not attract people with an
interest in seeing information displayed to a world such as the web.
For instance, if we display something on the web, the system might be of
interest to spammers.

Maybe we should keep the USENET as hidden from the world as possible.
This closedness might actually work as an invitation. The value of the
USENET is the value of the people in it. If we only invite technical
people, for instance, the USENET becomes attractive to whose interested
in such properties.

[Richard Kettlewell]

Post by Julieta Shem

Post by noel
Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
just fine back in the say before search engines

That's an interesting point. It is perhaps a good idea not to display
anything on the web precisely so that we do not attract people with an
interest in seeing information displayed to a world such as the web.
For instance, if we display something on the web, the system might be
of interest to spammers.

Usenet had spam before it had a web presence. Spam will appear anywhere
that has an audience and lacks sufficient controls to prevent it.

[The Doctor]

Post by Richard Kettlewell

Post by Julieta Shem

Post by noel
Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
just fine back in the say before search engines

That's an interesting point. It is perhaps a good idea not to display
anything on the web precisely so that we do not attract people with an
interest in seeing information displayed to a world such as the web.
For instance, if we display something on the web, the system might be
of interest to spammers.

Usenet had spam before it had a web presence. Spam will appear anywhere
that has an audience and lacks sufficient controls to prevent it.

And now I have freeaks signing up thinking they have an aoutsystem.

Post by Richard Kettlewell
--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[Wally J]

Post by Richard Kettlewell
Usenet had spam before it had a web presence. Spam will appear anywhere
that has an audience and lacks sufficient controls to prevent it.

Aurgh... :)

Some of you know too much such that you miss the real problem of the spam.
You have to look at this as a BIG PICTURE thing. Not as an expert thing.

For each and every one of us, we can implement filters (much as I did with
email in the procmail days) where, in decades of reading Usenet, even I
only had a half dozen people plonked (e.g., Snit, Sn!pe, Dustin, et al.).

Their garbage could be found on the dejagoogle archives if I ever wanted to
see it - but more importantly the *amount of spam* on the dejagoogle
archives recently multiplied from a few a day to 99.5% of the newsgroup.
e.g., <http://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android>

That 200 to 1 ratio is _easily_ filtered out by you who know how.
And it's even easier to filter out by Google (if they cared to filter it).

But "something happened" recently at Google.
Such that the amount is tremendous.

What does that mean to you?
Nothing.

You can filter it out.

But what does that mean to a dejagoogle web site that isn't filtering it?

HINT: *It makes the dejagoogle web search almost unusable*.

[noel]

Post by Richard Kettlewell
Usenet had spam before it had a web presence. Spam will appear anywhere
that has an audience and lacks sufficient controls to prevent it.

true, but google introduced an exponential increase

[The Doctor]

Post by noel

Post by Richard Kettlewell
Usenet had spam before it had a web presence. Spam will appear anywhere
that has an audience and lacks sufficient controls to prevent it.

true, but google introduced an exponential increase

And that is abuse to no end!

[Grant Taylor]

Post by Julieta Shem
Maybe we should keep the USENET as hidden from the world as possible.

No. That is antithetical to the intentions of Usenet.

[Wally J]

Post by Grant Taylor

Post by Julieta Shem
Maybe we should keep the USENET as hidden from the world as possible.

No. That is antithetical to the intentions of Usenet.

I'm pretty sure she was being cleverly facetious, which I had appreciated.

What we _want_ is for Usenet content to be available to everyone.
And that was her point I believe.

We need to find an archive to pick up where dejagoogle left off.
If people can petition David at narkive, that may help us out.

[The Doctor]

Post by Julieta Shem
[...]

Post by noel
Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
just fine back in the say before search engines

That's an interesting point. It is perhaps a good idea not to display
anything on the web precisely so that we do not attract people with an
interest in seeing information displayed to a world such as the web.
For instance, if we display something on the web, the system might be of
interest to spammers.
Maybe we should keep the USENET as hidden from the world as possible.
This closedness might actually work as an invitation. The value of the
USENET is the value of the people in it. If we only invite technical
people, for instance, the USENET becomes attractive to whose interested
in such properties.

What about non-tech hobbyists?

[D]

Post by The Doctor

Post by Julieta Shem
[...]

Post by noel
Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
just fine back in the say before search engines

That's an interesting point. It is perhaps a good idea not to display
anything on the web precisely so that we do not attract people with an
interest in seeing information displayed to a world such as the web.
For instance, if we display something on the web, the system might be of
interest to spammers.
Maybe we should keep the USENET as hidden from the world as possible.
This closedness might actually work as an invitation. The value of the
USENET is the value of the people in it. If we only invite technical
people, for instance, the USENET becomes attractive to whose interested
in such properties.

What about non-tech hobbyists?

count me in . . . non-tech hobbyist has been my life-long profession

[noel]

Post by Julieta Shem
[...]

Post by noel
Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
just fine back in the say before search engines

That's an interesting point. It is perhaps a good idea not to display
anything on the web precisely so that we do not attract people with an
interest in seeing information displayed to a world such as the web. For
instance, if we display something on the web, the system might be of
interest to spammers.
Maybe we should keep the USENET as hidden from the world as possible.
This closedness might actually work as an invitation. The value of the
USENET is the value of the people in it. If we only invite technical
people, for instance, the USENET becomes attractive to whose interested
in such properties.

If people want to find stuff on usenet (what stuff god not even knows
since its 90% trolls these days) of an interested topic they look for
that group and search that group (just like mailing lists, you find the
outlet that feeds your need), we don't need search engines, what are they
going to archive... trolls, warez pups, spam? Google might finally be
pissing off but the 'ol certain wrist attire spam was doing the rounds
for years, I think deja even gave up trying to exclude them back in the
day.


Ohhh and for Marco, if your next excuse is short retention, then find a
better server ;)

[Marco Moock]

Post by noel
Ohhh and for Marco, if your next excuse is short retention, then find
a better server ;)

No, my next excuse is that my newsreader only supports downloading
10000 articles from the server. It doesn't download more and so I can't
find older stuff even when available there.

[yeti]

Post by Marco Moock
No, my next excuse is that my newsreader only supports downloading
10000 articles from the server. It doesn't download more and so I can't
find older stuff even when available there.

Then it is a toy. Get a tool instead.

[De ongekruisigde]

Post by yeti

Post by Marco Moock
No, my next excuse is that my newsreader only supports downloading
10000 articles from the server. It doesn't download more and so I can't
find older stuff even when available there.

Then it is a toy. Get a tool instead.

I've just downloaded all article (headers) for the nl.politiek
group in slrn. Took a minute or so, for over a million articles.

[Ray Banana]

Thus spake De ongekruisigde <***@news.eternal-september.org>

Please fix your From: header. You have no permission to use this
domain for your mail address.

[Marco Moock]

Post by yeti

Post by Marco Moock
No, my next excuse is that my newsreader only supports downloading
10000 articles from the server. It doesn't download more and so I
can't find older stuff even when available there.

Then it is a toy. Get a tool instead.

Do you know one?

I tried suck, but that is intended to speak to a local news server or
at least its spool.

[Ray Banana]

Post by Marco Moock
Do you know one?
I tried suck, but that is intended to speak to a local news server or
at least its spool.

suck news.eternal-september.org -U /user/ -P /password/ -bf suckSpool
will download all articles to a local directory.

man suck.

[yeti]

Post by Marco Moock
I tried suck, but that is intended to speak to a local news server or
at least its spool.

GNUS (and probably many other newsreaders) can do it.

[Frank Slootweg]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by yeti

Post by Marco Moock
No, my next excuse is that my newsreader only supports downloading
10000 articles from the server. It doesn't download more and so I
can't find older stuff even when available there.

Then it is a toy. Get a tool instead.

Do you know one?
I tried suck, but that is intended to speak to a local news server or
at least its spool.

Another poster already mentioned slrn. Ray explained how you can use
suck.

As you mention suck, I assume your platform is Linux/Unix-like (I
didn't see a User-Agent: or similar header).

If so, the tin newsreader (which I use) can be a solution.

And for a local 'cache'/'proxy'/news-server/etc. you can use things
like slrnpull, Leafnode-2, etc..

I use Hamster, but that's a Windows program (might run on WINE, but
using Leafnode-2 is probably better/'cleaner').

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by yeti

Post by Marco Moock
No, my next excuse is that my newsreader only supports downloading
10000 articles from the server. It doesn't download more and so I
can't find older stuff even when available there.

Then it is a toy. Get a tool instead.

Do you know one?
I tried suck, but that is intended to speak to a local news server or
at least its spool.

What operating system, and what kind of UI do you prefer?
--scott

[The Doctor]

Post by yeti

Post by Marco Moock
No, my next excuse is that my newsreader only supports downloading
10000 articles from the server. It doesn't download more and so I can't
find older stuff even when available there.

Then it is a toy. Get a tool instead.

GG is blocked from here!

Post by yeti
--
I do not bite, I just want to play.

[The Doctor]

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Julieta Shem
We got to provide solutions our ourselves.

Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

If you want web interfaces go run a forum.
dnews has a web interface - I shut it down in the late 90's because the
more who found it abused it.

There is no need to have a posting opportunity there.
But those web interfaces make it possible to find content via regular
search engines.
Or do you know a Usenet search engine that can query NNTP servers?

Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
just fine back in the say before search engines

Hear! Hear!!

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by noel
Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
just fine back in the say before search engines

But it did not. Most of the early Usenet archives that were turned over
to dejanews were a combination of files people had personally saved and
fragments of Henry Spencer's backup tapes from utzoo. A lot of it was
lost meaning that although there are many postings from before dejanews
was created, the selection is not random and they cannot be used for any
statistical analysis.
--scott

[noel]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by noel
Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
just fine back in the say before search engines

But it did not. Most of the early Usenet archives that were turned over
to dejanews were a combination of files people had personally saved and
fragments of Henry Spencer's backup tapes from utzoo. A lot of it was
lost meaning that although there are many postings from before dejanews
was created, the selection is not random and they cannot be used for any
statistical analysis.
--scott

Fair comment Scott, some providers never expired posts, sadly most of
them are now gone, I was small then and usenet was (still is) only a
secondary service I offered since my dialup ISP days and the cost of disk
space back then was scary, but luckily so was the low speeds and cost of
data so users didnt want binaries tying up their phone line all day :)

wasn't until later 90's when disks were bigger and cheaper and this
faster thing called ADSL appeared, but I then had a retention of 10 days
for binaries, sadly in mid 2000's the controller had a catostrophic
failure roytally roting teh raid disks too, and all was lost, so had to
start again, that time I decided no more binaries so backing up the
spools were easier with our no expire policy - I'm not alone in long term
storage, granted maybe none of us go back 30 years, and I'll admit back
then usenet was light on spam and trolls, it was technical and
informative, unlike today :)

[Sn!pe]

noel <***@invalid.lan> wrote:

[...]

the controller had a catostrophic failure roytally roting
teh raid disks too, and all was lost, so had to start again

[...]

That's lyrical, that is.
You could write an epic saga around those words.

[noel]

Post by Sn!pe
[...]

the controller had a catostrophic failure roytally roting teh raid
disks too, and all was lost, so had to start again

[...]
That's lyrical, that is.
You could write an epic saga around those words.

my band days ended a loooooooooong time ago, even then I was only a
drummer and backing vocals, although apparently I did a good vocal cover
of Pink Floyd's turning away and comfortably numb :)

[Wally J]

Post by noel
Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
just fine back in the say before search engines

Aurgh.

:)

Hi Noel,
You have to think differently. Big picture. Think of others. Not yourself.
Think of those others not being technical. They don't know what you know.

I can sense that you're likely a good person so I'm trying to be gentle
when I say there is tremendous utility to _others_ to be able to search
Usenet from today to its infancy on any platform using any web browser.

It's odd that people don't see the *utility* instantly, probably because
you know too much (not because you know too little); but let me tell you
Usenet *futility* instead, which everyone here (I'm sure) knows all about.

The futility of Usenet is it requires an account.
The futility of Usenet is it requires a newsreader of some type.
The futility of Usenet is it is (almost) never archived for long.
The futility of Usenet is that it requires knowledge to read for free.
The futility of Usenet is the search is only as good as your newsreader.
The futility of Usenet is you can't easily reference an article by URL.
(Sure, you can reference a message-id but you have to find it first)

Anyway, it's pretty irksome people don't get it that it's nice to be able
to search before posting and it's even nicer to be able to reference a
thread or article for a mother who doesn't even know how to spell Usenet.

Sigh.

In summary, there's utility for a web searchable read-only archive that
goes back to the olden days (if possible) which requires only a browser.

[Blueshirt]

Post by Wally J
In summary, there's utility for a web searchable read-only archive
that goes back to the olden days (if possible) which requires only
a browser.

https://narkive.com/

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by Blueshirt

Post by Wally J
In summary, there's utility for a web searchable read-only archive
that goes back to the olden days (if possible) which requires only
a browser.

https://narkive.com/

Again, it doesn't go back very far, that's the problem. This is great
for the future, but large chunks of the past have been lost for a while
due to google groups search brokenness, and they are going to be lost
even more completely.
--scott

[candycanearter07]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Blueshirt

Post by Wally J
In summary, there's utility for a web searchable read-only archive
that goes back to the olden days (if possible) which requires only
a browser.

https://narkive.com/

Again, it doesn't go back very far, that's the problem. This is great
for the future, but large chunks of the past have been lost for a while
due to google groups search brokenness, and they are going to be lost
even more completely.
--scott

At the very least, a couple newsgroups (like rec.arts.comics.creative)
have their own archives that go back pretty far:
https://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/racc/

[Sn!pe]

Post by candycanearter07

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Blueshirt

Post by Wally J
In summary, there's utility for a web searchable read-only archive
that goes back to the olden days (if possible) which requires only
a browser.

https://narkive.com/

Again, it doesn't go back very far, that's the problem. This is great
for the future, but large chunks of the past have been lost for a while
due to google groups search brokenness, and they are going to be lost
even more completely.
--scott

At the very least, a couple newsgroups (like rec.arts.comics.creative)
https://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/racc/

Some of the commercial binary servers (I have Astraweb) carry text
groups with 10+ years retention and good completeness (Giganews claims
20 years). Astraweb and others offer inexpensive non-expiring block
accounts; even a small block will last a very long time if used for text
only. Being binary servers they're not quite as "snappy" as a dedicated
text server but I find that acceptable. I don't know how searchable
they are.

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by candycanearter07

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Blueshirt

Post by Wally J
In summary, there's utility for a web searchable read-only archive
that goes back to the olden days (if possible) which requires only
a browser.

https://narkive.com/

Again, it doesn't go back very far, that's the problem. This is great
for the future, but large chunks of the past have been lost for a while
due to google groups search brokenness, and they are going to be lost
even more completely.

At the very least, a couple newsgroups (like rec.arts.comics.creative)
https://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/racc/

Yes. talk.bizarre used to have one of those, but we packed the hard drive
up and shipped it to Dejanews. It was 1G of material so I am not sure
anyone was ever able to keep a backup of it.
--scott

[candycanearter07]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by candycanearter07

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Blueshirt

Post by Wally J
In summary, there's utility for a web searchable read-only archive
that goes back to the olden days (if possible) which requires only
a browser.

https://narkive.com/

Again, it doesn't go back very far, that's the problem. This is great
for the future, but large chunks of the past have been lost for a while
due to google groups search brokenness, and they are going to be lost
even more completely.

At the very least, a couple newsgroups (like rec.arts.comics.creative)
https://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/racc/

Yes. talk.bizarre used to have one of those, but we packed the hard drive
up and shipped it to Dejanews. It was 1G of material so I am not sure
anyone was ever able to keep a backup of it.
--scott

Shipped it? Like, the entire HDD?

[Tom Furie]

Post by candycanearter07

Post by Scott Dorsey
Yes. talk.bizarre used to have one of those, but we packed the hard
drive up and shipped it to Dejanews. It was 1G of material so I am
not sure anyone was ever able to keep a backup of it.

Shipped it? Like, the entire HDD?

Back then, a gig was a *lot* to transfer over the wire - especially to a
remote site. Sending the physical drive was probably quicker, cheaper,
and more efficient.

[candycanearter07]

Post by Tom Furie

Post by candycanearter07

Post by Scott Dorsey
Yes. talk.bizarre used to have one of those, but we packed the hard
drive up and shipped it to Dejanews. It was 1G of material so I am
not sure anyone was ever able to keep a backup of it.

Shipped it? Like, the entire HDD?

Back then, a gig was a *lot* to transfer over the wire - especially to a
remote site. Sending the physical drive was probably quicker, cheaper,
and more efficient.

Neat.

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by candycanearter07

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by candycanearter07

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Blueshirt

Post by Wally J
In summary, there's utility for a web searchable read-only archive
that goes back to the olden days (if possible) which requires only
a browser.

https://narkive.com/

Again, it doesn't go back very far, that's the problem. This is great
for the future, but large chunks of the past have been lost for a while
due to google groups search brokenness, and they are going to be lost
even more completely.

At the very least, a couple newsgroups (like rec.arts.comics.creative)
https://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/racc/

Yes. talk.bizarre used to have one of those, but we packed the hard drive
up and shipped it to Dejanews. It was 1G of material so I am not sure
anyone was ever able to keep a backup of it.

Shipped it? Like, the entire HDD?

Yes. We didn't have any tape drive capable of tarring a whole 1GB up,
and it would have taken months to ftp it. So it was put in a box and
shipped to Deja and they had everything in their database within a few
weeks.
--scott

[noel]

Post by Wally J

Post by noel
Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
just fine back in the say before search engines

Aurgh.
:)
Hi Noel,
You have to think differently. Big picture. Think of others. Not yourself.
Think of those others not being technical. They don't know what you know.

Absolutely, no disagreement there.

Post by Wally J
I can sense that you're likely a good person

SSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH don't say that too loudly :P

Post by Wally J
The futility of Usenet is it requires an account.

Not here (but I'm country limited so abusers can be dealt with)

Post by Wally J
The futility of Usenet is it requires a newsreader of some type.

Yes, but so does your Email, wether it's a pop3/imap client - or like
forums and websites, a web browser, so that's really moot, doesnt
thunderbird still support nntp? I've not looked in years.

Post by Wally J
The futility of Usenet is it is (almost) never archived for long.

That's service provider dependant, but since at least half of them do
have short periods I'll grant you this one :)

Post by Wally J
The futility of Usenet is that it requires knowledge to read for free.

Yep

Post by Wally J
The futility of Usenet is the search is only as good as your newsreader.

Yep

Post by Wally J
The futility of Usenet is you can't easily reference an article by URL.
(Sure, you can reference a message-id but you have to find it first)

Yep

Post by Wally J
Anyway, it's pretty irksome people don't get it that it's nice to be
able to search before posting and it's even nicer to be able to
reference a thread or article for a mother who doesn't even know how to
spell Usenet.

The problem is, ask yourself, do you really expect to find anything of
substantial value, I can go into any group, including my technical based
subscriptions like programming, electrical, telecoms, scientific, and ham
radio groups, and even THEY are full of trolls (trolls - not spammers) -
do you really want them archived?

[The Doctor]

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Julieta Shem
We got to provide solutions our ourselves.

Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

If you want web interfaces go run a forum.
dnews has a web interface - I shut it down in the late 90's because the
more who found it abused it.

Now username/password protection?

[noel]

Post by The Doctor

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Julieta Shem
We got to provide solutions our ourselves.

Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

If you want web interfaces go run a forum.
dnews has a web interface - I shut it down in the late 90's because the
more who found it abused it.

Now username/password protection?

yes it had that, but the spam bots kept trying to get in at a monumental
rate, captchas didnt exist back then, or not sane ones that someone as
blind as Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder could even pass :)

[The Doctor]

Post by noel

Post by The Doctor

Post by noel

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Julieta Shem
We got to provide solutions our ourselves.

Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

If you want web interfaces go run a forum.
dnews has a web interface - I shut it down in the late 90's because the
more who found it abused it.

Now username/password protection?

yes it had that, but the spam bots kept trying to get in at a monumental
rate, captchas didnt exist back then, or not sane ones that someone as
blind as Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder could even pass :)

No security all right!

[The Doctor]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Julieta Shem
We got to provide solutions our ourselves.

Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

URL?

[Andy Burns]

Post by Marco Moock
Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

URL?

<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>

[The Doctor]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Marco Moock
Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

URL?

<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>

Got you!

[Sn!pe]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Marco Moock
Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

URL?

<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>

That looks pretty good to me, kudos to the operator.

[Wally J]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Marco Moock
Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

URL?

<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>

Ah. Nice. Thanks Andy. So that makes two that we know of now.

<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.software.nntp>
<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.admin.peering>
<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>
and
<https://news.software.nntp.narkive.com>
<https://news.admin.peering.narkive.com>
<https://news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.narkive.com>

Are there others?

[D]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Marco Moock
Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?

URL?

<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>

probably a work in progress ...
https://www.usenetarchives.com/

(no substitute for news servers)

[Marco Moock]

Post by Wally J
<https://i.postimg.cc/tgQHDyjK/dejagoogle01.jpg>
Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new
content from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of
historical data will still be supported as it is done today.
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>
The bad news is that this search engine "may" stop working soon.

Didn't it stop working long time ago?

Post by Wally J
Is it something we said?

No, but Google doesn't care about what people say.
Be happy that they decided to keep the old content instead of
completely vanishing it and destroying millions of messages with
knowledge from the past.

[The Doctor]

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Wally J
<https://i.postimg.cc/tgQHDyjK/dejagoogle01.jpg>
Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new
content from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of
historical data will still be supported as it is done today.
<https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>
The bad news is that this search engine "may" stop working soon.

Didn't it stop working long time ago?

Post by Wally J
Is it something we said?

No, but Google doesn't care about what people say.
Be happy that they decided to keep the old content instead of
completely vanishing it and destroying millions of messages with
knowledge from the past.

Google neds to pay $1 000 000 000 000 000 to every active
newserver on the planet for thier sheer incompetence!

[Wally J]

Hey! I'm the guy behind Narkive.

Thanks for returning my email, where the naysayers can note I only provided
you a URL - which is the only thing needed - which is the beauty of search.

I agree with OP, my service kinda sucks.

Oh man. I am truly sorry for having said that. I apologize. The problem is
I don't know what you know. So, for example, I don't know how hard it is.

I will STOP saying it, as my way of atoning for having done that to you.

My only excuse is that I spent
most of 2022 rewriting the backend and was about a couple of months out
from releasing something completely new when I had to drop everything
to focus on a hardware startup (I tend to do this, but now my hands are
tied and I can't just go the other way around).

Understood. I worked for startups in the Silicon Valley for decades.
Many here (e.g., Grant) know a lot more than I do I'll let them respond.

Not sure what I'm trying to achieve in sending this message, but I hope
this explain what the situation is with narkive.

To me, the priority, as I see it, for the most good, is the search engine.

[Wally J]

Post by Wally J
Many here (e.g., Grant) know a lot more than I do I'll let them respond.
To me, the priority, as I see it, for the most good, is the search engine.

I belatedly realized I responded to the three groups (I don't use a
newsreader, my scripts are telnet hacks) so I am re-posting Davide's
original so that the other two groups can respond to what he said.

I'll step out of this subthread as a proper response should come from those
who are experts and I'm pretty much a putz at dealing with Usenet at this
high level.

From: Davide Cavion <***@narkive.com>
Newsgroups: news.admin.peering
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2023 23:45:22 +0100
Message-ID: <2023121523452261422-***@narkive.com>
References: <ulg14i$3o4hi$***@paganini.bofh.team>
Subject: Re: Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new Usenet content

Hey! I'm the guy behind Narkive.

I agree with OP, my service kinda sucks. My only excuse is that I spent
most of 2022 rewriting the backend and was about a couple of months out
from releasing something completely new when I had to drop everything
to focus on a hardware startup (I tend to do this, but now my hands are
tied and I can't just go the other way around).

- Narkive should have most posts from 2003 onwards, and the ones before
then should be integrated at some point (I think the bulk of them might
be available from archive.org).

- I removed the search functionality because it was broken more often
than not and would lead to a bad user experience. I did almost finish a
search redesign based around a cluster of servers running Vespa (which
means ANN vector search + BM25, and would have been pretty much state
of the art), but again, other stuff got in the way and those servers I
bought for the job are currently sitting idle.

- The posting functionality is something that exists and should be
fairly stable and user friendly, but that I disabled because I gave up
on limiting spam coming from it. People were abusing it and doing so
manually, slowly circumventing the measures I had in place to avoid it
from happening.

Now I'm stuck between two choices: (1) is to do nothing (as I'm just
that busy) and (2) is to apply the minimum level of changes narkive
needs to maybe be ugly, still, but somewhat usable.

I could re-enable signups, posting, and maybe look into re-idexing the
content for search once, rather than in real time (using the old,
unstable search system rather than one I was rewriting). The only issue
being that if I'm successfully, I will have won even more work to do.

Not sure what I'm trying to achieve in sending this message, but I hope
this explain what the situation is with narkive.

Davide

[Julien ÉLIE]

Hi all,

Post by Wally J
Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new content
from Usenet peers will not appear.

One could create gatewayed genuine Google groups (using dashes instead
of dots in the name of the group), and the show would go on, but I doubt
it would really be good for Usenet.
Let's encourage people to use better news clients and news servers :)

Post by Wally J
Viewing and searching of historical data
will still be supported as it is done today.

... until Google announces they discontinue this service (and justifies
it in a few years because of broken searches and the fact that the
archives are not complete as they have stopped in 2024).

We should then ensure to keep several copies of historical data, as some
people here have already begun to do.
FWIW, https://olduse.net/ also has interesting historical data.

[Frank Slootweg]

Post by Julien ÉLIE
Hi all,

Post by Wally J
Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new content
from Usenet peers will not appear.

One could create gatewayed genuine Google groups (using dashes instead
of dots in the name of the group), and the show would go on, but I doubt
it would really be good for Usenet.
Let's encourage people to use better news clients and news servers :)

Post by Wally J
Viewing and searching of historical data
will still be supported as it is done today.

... until Google announces they discontinue this service (and justifies
it in a few years because of broken searches and the fact that the
archives are not complete as they have stopped in 2024).
We should then ensure to keep several copies of historical data, as some
people here have already begun to do.
FWIW, https://olduse.net/ also has interesting historical data.

Thanks for that! I've seen references to olduse.net before, but never
had a reason to look at it. Google's stunt of course changed that.

The <https://olduse.net/> page points to <https://article.olduse.net/>
which offers to "Look up old usenet articles by Message-ID".

And lo and behold I can lookup my February 24, 1989 article which I've
used as and example in these recent threads (No, to preserve my privacy
and those of others, I still won't give the URL.)

I like the CRT terminal like, low resolution, shades of yellow,
display in 'source' format! :-) Well done!

[The Doctor]

Post by Wally J

Post by Julien ÉLIE
Hi all,

Post by Wally J
Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and

new content

Post by Julien ÉLIE

Post by Wally J
from Usenet peers will not appear.

One could create gatewayed genuine Google groups (using dashes instead
of dots in the name of the group), and the show would go on, but I doubt
it would really be good for Usenet.
Let's encourage people to use better news clients and news servers :)

Post by Wally J
Viewing and searching of historical data
will still be supported as it is done today.

... until Google announces they discontinue this service (and justifies
it in a few years because of broken searches and the fact that the
archives are not complete as they have stopped in 2024).
We should then ensure to keep several copies of historical data, as some
people here have already begun to do.
FWIW, https://olduse.net/ also has interesting historical data.

Thanks for that! I've seen references to olduse.net before, but never
had a reason to look at it. Google's stunt of course changed that.
The <https://olduse.net/> page points to <https://article.olduse.net/>
which offers to "Look up old usenet articles by Message-ID".
And lo and behold I can lookup my February 24, 1989 article which I've
used as and example in these recent threads (No, to preserve my privacy
and those of others, I still won't give the URL.)
I like the CRT terminal like, low resolution, shades of yellow,
display in 'source' format! :-) Well done!

Google+ was better managed than Google Groups!

[D]

Post by Frank Slootweg

Post by Julien ÉLIE
Hi all,

Post by Wally J
Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new content
from Usenet peers will not appear.

One could create gatewayed genuine Google groups (using dashes instead
of dots in the name of the group), and the show would go on, but I doubt
it would really be good for Usenet.
Let's encourage people to use better news clients and news servers :)

Post by Wally J
Viewing and searching of historical data
will still be supported as it is done today.

... until Google announces they discontinue this service (and justifies
it in a few years because of broken searches and the fact that the
archives are not complete as they have stopped in 2024).
We should then ensure to keep several copies of historical data, as some
people here have already begun to do.
FWIW, https://olduse.net/ also has interesting historical data.

Thanks for that! I've seen references to olduse.net before, but never
had a reason to look at it. Google's stunt of course changed that.
The <https://olduse.net/> page points to <https://article.olduse.net/>
which offers to "Look up old usenet articles by Message-ID".
And lo and behold I can lookup my February 24, 1989 article which I've
used as and example in these recent threads (No, to preserve my privacy
and those of others, I still won't give the URL.)
I like the CRT terminal like, low resolution, shades of yellow,
display in 'source' format! :-) Well done!

uber cool! (font, style, everything { font-family: GlassTTYVT220 })
https://github.com/svofski/glasstty . . .
https://github.com/svofski/glasstty/raw/master/Glass_TTY_VT220.ttf

https://olduse.net/

Post by Frank Slootweg
olduse.net
Extended replay
olduse.net was mentioned in a thread on the fediverse recently. I couldn't
help but reply with information about the current status. To my surprise
restarting the replay was mentioned.
I hadn't thought about that. But why not? I have all the articles in a
database, I could extract the Date: into a column, index it, and do some
SQL to find every article more than 40 years old. From there the road isn't
long to implementing a custom nntp daemon to serve it.
During the implementation I realized that I could easily expose a 40 year
delayed archive on one port, a 41 year delayed archive on another port, and
so on, until the start of the archive (currently 42 years delayed).
Delay (years) Connect to (port) #groups #articles
40 olduse.net 11940 265 28640
41 olduse.net 11941 91 3933
42 olduse.net 11942 3 15
Point your Gnus, slrn, tin, Pan, Thunderbird, or even Lynx or ELinks at any
of those ports and enjoy another round of olduse.net!
Adam Sjogren
2022-12-09
Keeping olduse.net around
olduse.net was an interactive art installation conceived and implemented by
Joey Hess that ran from 2011 to 2021.
olduse.net was posting the first 10 years of archived usenet articles to a
news server, replaying usenet as it happened 30 years earlier. It also had
a web interface with an interactive news reader, allowing you to access the
news server via the web instead of using nntp.
When the project was announced I wanted a way to link to those old articles
on the web, so I borrowed some of Joey Hess' code and implemented
article.olduse.net, by shoveling the archive into a database.
My service hasn't seen that much use, but it did get its own version of
"FSF-dotting", when the 30th anniversary of the GNU project announcement
was celebrated, and many sites linked to the original article on
article.olduse.net.
When the art project was over I still wanted article.olduse.net to continue
working, and Joey Hess was nice enough to transfer the domain to me.
So here we are. Enjoy.
Adam Sjogren
2022-07-22

[end quote]

[The Doctor]

Post by Julien ÉLIE
Hi all,

Post by Wally J
Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new content
from Usenet peers will not appear.

One could create gatewayed genuine Google groups (using dashes instead
of dots in the name of the group), and the show would go on, but I doubt
it would really be good for Usenet.
Let's encourage people to use better news clients and news servers :)

Yes!!

Post by Julien ÉLIE

Post by Wally J
Viewing and searching of historical data
will still be supported as it is done today.

... until Google announces they discontinue this service (and justifies
it in a few years because of broken searches and the fact that the
archives are not complete as they have stopped in 2024).
We should then ensure to keep several copies of historical data, as some
people here have already begun to do.
FWIW, https://olduse.net/ also has interesting historical data.

Merci!

Post by Julien ÉLIE
--
Julien ÉLIE
« Affirmanti incumbit probatio. »

[Wally J]

To further add value so that everyone benefits from every action...

Here's a table for netizens to put into their Usenet notes file:
(as always, please improve as we all know more together than alone).

WEB ARCHIVES (require no account, no software, all platforms, URL output)
a. DejaGoogle archives (no longer updated after February 2024)
<http://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>
b. Davide Cavion's Narkive (WIP)
<https://news.admin.peering.narkive.com>
c. Retro Guy's NovaBBS/RockSolid archive (3years/100K articles)
<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.admin.peering>

These are useful for those conscientious netizens who run a search before
they post a question or they reference an existing answer - and it will be
useful to forward (e.g., by email) a reference the non-Usenet citizen (like
your mom) to a useful Usenet thread or article (which they can read without
needing a newsreader or an account as it works on every platform browser).

To continue to add useful on-topic value with every post, there's also the
Message-ID archives (which most people know about, but perhaps not all).
<https://article.olduse.net/>
<http://al.howardknight.net>

For example, one can look up an article if they have the message id, e.g.,
Message-ID: <ulg14i$3o4hi$***@paganini.bofh.team>
Message-ID: <2023121523452261422-***@narkive.com>
Message-ID: <***@news.novabbs.com>
etc.

Bear in mind that the dejagoogle archives removed the message-id from the
header information years ago - but many of the other archives did not.

There are also other options for those who have an account on a server:
suck news.eternal-september.org -U /user/ -P /password/ -bf suckSpool

[v***@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com]

Goon Ghule and NecroSmurf destroyed the usenet.

From ***@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com Wed Aug 17 21:40:24 2016
Path: reader2.panix.com!panix!not-for-mail
From: ***@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com
Newsgroups: news.software.readers
Subject: sugg: a soc net style newsreader
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 01:40:08 +0000 (UTC)
Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC
Lines: 39
Message-ID: <np33lo$81b$***@reader2.panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix2.panix.com
X-Trace: reader2.panix.com 1471484408 8235 166.84.1.2 (18 Aug 2016 01:40:08 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: ***@panix.com
NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 01:40:08 +0000 (UTC)
User-Agent: tin/2.2.1-20140504 ("Tober an Righ") (UNIX) (NetBSD/6.1.5 (i386))
Xref: panix news.software.readers:307819

I feel social networks and blogs risk monopolisation and censorship, force
conformity, use unnecessary resources, require too fancy software, and
fragment users. Usenet in the 1990s united the world. I was at an event
discussing crowdsourcing for science and folks lamented the demise of usenet.

I'd like to see a reader both online (accessible by lynx browser) and as
an app that looks and feels like a social network. It should most of all
notify you when somone replies to your posts and when your friends post. It
should let you rank (1-10) how important posts are and so decide what to show
you first. I had a celfon in 1990-2009. Dumped it. I really get annoyed when
they ask me for a celfon or to update my browser.

I think MS Outlook's downloading a use list of groups crippled usenet, and
Google has not maintained the deja news franchise (some stuff seems to have
disappeared). Also they did not maintain the hierarchy, which would have
better followed academic departments.

I also think the moderator fanaticism was crippling. You can use kill
files instead of depend on the whim of others. We should allow individuals to
control what they view, not others.

One special peeve is, since I work in fields where brainstorming is
important, I would crosspost to groups I wanted to bring together. But the
narrow minded would complain they didn't want to hear it. I've actually seen
a strong enough current of support for crossposting (now disabled by google
groups, BTW) on the grounds it was more efficient than multiple posts to
multiple groups.

I really do think the internet of the 1990s was freer. Too many search
engines try to control what you see. They even disable booleans. Maybe they
do it to try to be helpful, maybe they are doing it to protect paying
customers, I can't tell. I have an analogy in Otmar Mergenthaler's linotype
leading ot an explosion of press freedom and hence democracies (in places
like Iran, Russia, Germany) in the late 1800s. Of course we know what
happened, govt learned to control the press. Well, look around, same with
internet - maybe not here, but most places.

Remember the orig net was peer-to-peer. Now everyone seems to be logged
in from a server farm in Texas. So where's the "inter" in internet?

[D]

Post by v***@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com
I would crosspost to groups

not exceeding "xpost %>3" seems to be the usual limit, but posting
on-topic to only one newsgroup at a time is the best usenetiquette;
at this writing, ~57 days left until google finally cuts the chord

[Andy Burns]

Post by D
~57 days left until google finally cuts the chord

I'll be the one to say it ... "cord" not "chord" :-)

[D]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by D
~57 days left until google finally cuts the chord

I'll be the one to say it ... "cord" not "chord" :-)

mea culpa . . . decommissioned seems more befitting

[Adam H. Kerman]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by D
~57 days left until google finally cuts the chord

I'll be the one to say it ... "cord" not "chord" :-)

Sing it! In harmony!

[Sn!pe]

On Wed, 27 Dec 2023 01:36:28 -0000 (UTC),

Post by v***@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com
I would crosspost to groups

not exceeding "xpost %>3" seems to be the usual limit, but posting
on-topic to only one newsgroup at a time is the best usenetiquette;
at this writing, ~57 days left until google finally cuts the chord

Back in the day it was thought that crossposts, where essential, should
have followups set to the one most relevant group selected from those
crossposted groups. Both crossposting and followups being set should
be announced in the crossposted article. Failure to set a single group
followup risks fragmenting the discussion.

Generally speaking, crossposting was somewhat frowned upon;
multi-posting even more so.