Quote: "I'm really surprised at how many people don't know about USENET. You guys have no idea of what you are missing out on. It's basically the biggest bulletin board there is. Depending on the provider, you can get access to tens of thousands of groups...."

Newcomer to the Internet and Usenet? What is old for me is news to you?

(Been on the ARPANET since 1989 via VMS at SJSU...)

I'll put it in a nutshell, before I go on:

"I gotta admire those including Google who have kept it alive despite the mess!"

Usenet started out as a pretty good system populated mostly by academics and alumni before the popularization and commericalization of the Internet. Servers were reliable, downloading headers was fast...discussions were relatively free of spam, trolls, and bullies.

Since the mid-90's though the following have plaqued USENET:

1. SPAM and SPAMbots galore!
2. Trolls and bullies...
3. Off-topic flooding of groups...
4. Bullying...
5. Peddlers...
6. ISPs wanting to charge you an additional fee for using their USENET servers - never mind you are already paying for your bandwidth.
7. USENET servers constantly freezing up - or resending you thousands of headers that you already have. (They receive minimal maintenance...I met one guy who had to fix his ISP's USENET server for them!!!)

Think of a bulletin board with moderators who don't have much power - that's USENET today...which I think explains the popularity of bulletins boards like Canies's - it's his - he can mod however he wants - people tend to behave.

Going on, USENET's survival through the late 90s and early 2000s was in large part due to Dejanews webizing it. Helped in terms of avoidng using a USENET client and the related freezes and header resends - little slower to use a web browser though.

Now Google has taken over Dejanews...

I appreciate Google's effort - I still use it on occasion - for example to retrive a hack document to reset an alarm system master password using two jumper wires.

However, each time I go back - I am reminded as to why I left in the first place.

I prefer to use Earthwaves, Alipac, Keepandbeararms, etc., bulltin boards - moderation helps keep them usable and user-friendly.

Wanna use it as a regular? Go ahead...trust me though...after the honeymoon, you'll find yourself sticking with boards like Canie's. I pretty much treat it as an archive - go back only when I have to retrieve something useful.

=8-)