Do (or did) any of you use Usenet?
I recently discovered a free, public news server (aioe.org, for anyone interested) and it's been pretty fun. There are lots of crazy people and spambots though, and most of the groups seem to be dead.
Hey, I also use aioe.org. I mostly visit suicide newsgroups
Any groups you'd recommend in specific?
Ah, alt.slack is nice.
>>2,3
alt.depressed.as.fuck was nice back in the day.
http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=AtjCCet2
Seems to be dead now though.
>>4
I like to browse usenet every once and a while for shits and giggles.
the interntet oracle is also quite nice. I have it set up so that, once I check my email on thunderbird, I can just click on that and read a post. Super convenient.
Besides that, Google Groups is pretty cool, because it's sort of like an archive. If I want to read some discussion on maybe a band at the time their debut was releassed, before the dust settles and everyone's opinion becomes homogenized, I check out Google Groups.
>There are lots of crazy people
You can say that again. To me, alt.slack feels like a predecessor to the shitposting culture that's popular on *chan boards. If it weren't for how heavily influenced by japan most text boards are, I bet most of the content on sites like this would easily be like the neurotic, nonsensical flaming that groups like alt.slack demonstrate.
Does anyone know of a good newsreader? Preferably console-based for Unix. I'm thinking slrn.
>If it weren't for how heavily influenced by japan most text boards are, I bet most of the content on sites like this would easily be like the neurotic, nonsensical flaming that groups like alt.slack demonstrate.
You speak the unadulterated truth partner.
I read/posted on Usenet a lot in the 90's (and even up until around 2005 or so). It was still pretty big those days, and usable despite the spam (which only started becoming a problem in late 90's, I think). There sure were a lot of strange newsgroups though. Some of them I went in and couldn't figure out wtf they were talking about. The technical newsgroups were very useful those days, and it's actually where all the initial Linux development started. And there was cool stuff like alt.sysadmin.recovery. :-)
As far as readers go, I've used Pine (logical first choice on shell account), tin, and slrn. Slrn was more efficient over a slow dialup connection, but frankly I prefer tin's interface the most. Actually I also used Netscape (v3) sometimes, as it had a built-in NNTP client. Very useful for those special "binary" newsgroups...
I really don't like the google groups interface at all. They should have just given direct NNTP access so you can use any client you wish (even if they embed text ads above or below the posts).
You can still read some open-source mailing lists via NNTP, as described here:
http://gmane.org/faq.php
You don't even need a Usenet provider for that. In fact, it would be entirely possible for someone to create a web forum, text board, or whatever that also provides NNTP access to the boards. I'm surprised nobody has done this yet (if they have, I never heard about it). It would be even cooler if they also provided telnet BBS access to the same boards. Generally you only get one of those three, and most often it's the first...
I've checked out Usenet recently (I switched providers to one that has a news server) but all my old hangouts are basically dead. Oddly enough alt.slackware still has some activity, as do some of the roguelike groups.
I feel like I contributed to the shitty state that usenet was in after AOL in a minor way. I used AOL to download some software, but after that, I wanted them to cancel my service, so, while I waited on the phone to speak to a specialist, I had want to what I think was alt.traditional.witchcraft or something and started harassing everyone. I played the persona of a zealous Christian, and I attacked everyone about how what they believed was nonsense. They threatened to report me, but I never got banned or anything. That was a fun way to spend an afternoon, I think.