🚀 go-pugleaf

>>>>> "Jeff" == Jeff Billman <jbillma@yahoo.com> writes:

  Jeff> I have created a group of forums for the
  Jeff> discussion of Ohio, with separate forums for politics, media,
  Jeff> sports, etc.  Best of all, it's free!  (And I'm not making a
  Jeff> dime for it, either.)

So what advantage does it have over Usenet?

(I really hate web-based fora...it's a perfect example of using the
wrong tool for the job.  Usenet was built for this stuff; the tools
that support it are mature and highly functional...why not use them?)

-- 
Matt Curtin cmcurtin@interhack.net http://www.interhack.net/people/cmcurtin/

In article <xlxr9co4jyf.fsf@gold.cis.ohio-state.edu>,
Matt Curtin <cmcurtin@interhack.net> wrote:

> (I really hate web-based fora...it's a perfect example of using the
> wrong tool for the job. Usenet was built for this stuff; the tools
> that support it are mature and highly functional...why not use them?)

FWIW, I do... you'll note I'm a frequent poster on cmh.general &
oh.general, and I lurk cle.general.  I intend to continue.

Good point about Usenet vs. web-based, though.  However, there are
advantages to web-based.

Firstly, it tends to introduce people to online discussion.  True
Usenet access (i.e. nntp) is not available on many service providers,
and you'd honestly have to be looking for Usenet to learn about such
websites as deja.com- not something the net newbie is likely to do.
Even those service providers that do carry Usenet access oftentimes
bury it in the service so, once again, you'd have to be looking to find
it.

Secondly, the rigor of registering newsgroups- even within the alt.*
hierarchy- does not spark interest in creating new groups nowadays.
Newly created specialized groups of limited interest often are stunted
due either to outright rejection of the charter, or an unwillingness on
the part of news admins to carry a group with little traffic (a vicious
cycle, as no coverage means no traffic means no coverage).

Finally, the organization of a group of specialized fora (gotta love
Latin!) on one website of general interest will create the necessary
traffic to sustain all forums on the site.  While a newsgroup on Ohio
genealogy might not survive in the Usenet jungle (even under oh.*), it
stands a better chance on a successful Ohio website where it is more
highlighted for newcomers.  Of course, this is assuming the website
itself is successful.
--
Jeff Billman
Columbus, OH


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

On Thu, 06 Apr 2000 23:34:51 -0400, Don Wallace <me@donwallace.com>
wrote:

> I'd recommend registering a domain name and
>putting up on it a home page that redirects people to your ezboard
>site.

NameSecure.Com has just that type of service available for only $25 a
year.  Before I acquired a commercial hosting company for my website I
used the NameSecure redirect service to redirect visitors that entered
my url to one of my "free" webservers like AOL or my ISP at the time.
They have a neat feature called URLGrabber that holds your url in the
users address bar no matter what page they view on your site, so it
can create an illusion of a "real" website rather than a GeoCity or
AOL site using a redirect service.  


Sincerely,
David J. Rosso - www.davidrosso.com
Get Paid To Surf - Free Net Access - Free Email That Pays You!
__________________________________________________________________
Make A Buck Or Two @ TheMail.com - Free Internet Email
Sign-up today at http://www.themail.com/ref.htm?ref=435933 

In article <38ed7367.29856297@nntp.wre.adelphia.net>,
  davidrosso@themail.com (David J. Rosso) wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Apr 2000 23:34:51 -0400, Don Wallace <me@donwallace.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I'd recommend registering a domain name and
> >putting up on it a home page that redirects people to your ezboard
> >site.

Already being considered, Don, but thanks for the suggestion.  As this
is a non-commercial venture (read: hobby), I'm in no real rush to get
high levels of traffic to the site- especially if the cost involved in
doing so would outweigh the benefits of having the board.  (By the way-
your full article did not get posted on deja.com, so if I'm
misrepresenting you, let me know.)

> NameSecure.Com has just that type of service available for only $25 a
> year.  Before I acquired a commercial hosting company for my website I
> used the NameSecure redirect service to redirect visitors that entered
> my url to one of my "free" webservers like AOL or my ISP at the time.
> They have a neat feature called URLGrabber that holds your url in the
> users address bar no matter what page they view on your site, so it
> can create an illusion of a "real" website rather than a GeoCity or
> AOL site using a redirect service.

Great idea!  This might just be the solution I'm looking for, as it's a
bit of overkill to use a full domain hosting service.
--
Jeff Billman
Columbus, OH


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

>>>>> "Don" == Don Wallace <me@donwallace.com> writes:

  Don> I agree with your analysis of usenet (arcane and buried) versus
  Don> web based discussions (open.)

This is amazing -- it's exactly *backward*.

Usenet is everywhere.  No ISP with a clue would dare offer Internet
access without including Usenet.  Web-based discussions are exactly
wrong, because:
 o Clients aren't available to present what's there in any sort of
   useful way.
 o Everything is server-side, thus effectively killing any control
   that the client has over presentation beyond basics like colors and
   fonts.
 o There is only _one_ server, a single point of failure for the
   entire system.  If the server goes down, if the network gets
   flooded, if the upstream cable gets cut, or any one of a huge list
   of other things happen, you're finished.  Usenet works on the model
   that each site has its own server; large sites have different
   servers for different groups.  Thus, it's always there.  If one
   site has a blowout, only those folks are affected, and everything
   will spool for them in the meantime.
 o It's extremely inconvenient to go through the rigamarole of moving
   your web browser over to some site, navigating through whatever
   nonsense is there that stands in the way of the discussion.
 o There is no good way to compose what you're writing.  Formatting is
   almost completely lost beyond basic paragraph breaks.  How does one
   invoke a spellchecker?
 o There is no useful way to control what you see.  How do you prevent
   seeing articles from people whom you find annoying?  How do you
   kill threads that you don't want to see anymore?  There are NO
   mechanisms for this sort of thing beyond what the moderator or the
   host of the site will and will not allow.  That means if the signal
   to noise ratio gets bad, you have no hope of being able to find the
   signal among the noise.  You just have to leave.  One man's signal
   is another's noise.  Thus, on another level, web-based discussions
   do not scale.

I agree with your other observations about the utility of Usenet, but
I think that the primary advantages are technical: stability and
utility.  That it is better established is irrelevant, except to point
out that the Web offers no advantage in terms of accessibility.

-- 
Matt Curtin cmcurtin@interhack.net http://www.interhack.net/people/cmcurtin/

>>>>> "Jeff" == Jeff Billman <jbillma@yahoo.com> writes:

  Jeff> Firstly, it tends to introduce people to online discussion.

Perhaps.  But the result is that you end up with a lot people who are
"new to online discussion", which tends to make for comparatively poor
dynamics of a newsgroup.  The Old Guard of Usenet tend to be more
interesting, and make for much more lively discussion.  Having a bunch
of new folks around can be nice for a while, but there's only so much
tolerance that one has for articles that are essentially unedited
streams of consciousness.

Take a random sample of 100 articles from various Web-based
discussions and compare that to 100 articles from various newsgroups.
(I was originally going to suggest looking at comp.lang.lisp or
something else "well established", but I think that would be unfairly
skewing the results to prove my point.)

  Jeff> Secondly, the rigor of registering newsgroups- even within the
  Jeff> alt.* hierarchy- does not spark interest in creating new
  Jeff> groups nowadays.

Well, that's because in order to justify having the traffic sanctioned
by news admins, there has to be some traffic there to show that
there's an interest.  Generally, the best way to do this is to start a
mailing list.  Once there's a mailing list with sufficient traffic,
starting a Usenet group isn't too difficult.

  Jeff> While a newsgroup on Ohio genealogy might not survive in the
  Jeff> Usenet jungle (even under oh.*), it stands a better chance on
  Jeff> a successful Ohio website where it is more highlighted for
  Jeff> newcomers.  Of course, this is assuming the website itself is
  Jeff> successful.

Interesting thoughts.  I'd like to learn how it actually goes in
practice.  I'm inclined to disagree, but neither do I hide the fact
that I'm really biased in favor of Usenet, especially at the expense
of "inferior" alternatives for exactly the same thing.

Of course, if you want to have local discussions, you can get some of
the "wins" of having everything work via NNRP without having the
overhead of being a part of Usenet Proper by running your own
hierarchy off of your own servers.  There are standardized ways of
doing this, and any client worth anything at all should grok this
without any problems.  (You'll still suffer some of the scalability
issues, but presumably for a comparatively small target audience like
this, that is a perfectly reasonable tradeoff.)

-- 
Matt Curtin cmcurtin@interhack.net http://www.interhack.net/people/cmcurtin/

In article <xlxd7o2ue1q.fsf@gold.cis.ohio-state.edu>,
  Matt Curtin <cmcurtin@interhack.net> wrote:
> >>>>> "Don" == Don Wallace <me@donwallace.com> writes:
>
>   Don> I agree with your analysis of usenet (arcane and buried) versus
>   Don> web based discussions (open.)
>
> This is amazing -- it's exactly *backward*.
>
> Usenet is everywhere.  No ISP with a clue would dare offer Internet
> access without including Usenet.

That's like saying no ISP with a clue would dare offer Internet access
without including the World Wide Web.  Completely accurate- and
completely irrelevant.  As you know, not all newsgroups are carried by
all ISP's.  Whether or not an ISP carries *any* newsgroup is really
none of my concern.  As someone who would like to start a discussion
forum (or a few), however, the promulgation of new newsgroups does
concern me.  As I explained, it's also rather daunting.

> Web-based discussions are exactly
> wrong, because:
>  o Clients aren't available to present what's there in any sort of
>    useful way.

Which does not matter to 95% of readers, so long as the server software
is intuitive.

>  o Everything is server-side, thus effectively killing any control
>    that the client has over presentation beyond basics like colors and
>    fonts.

See above.

>  o There is only _one_ server, a single point of failure for the
>    entire system.  If the server goes down, if the network gets
>    flooded, if the upstream cable gets cut, or any one of a huge list
>    of other things happen, you're finished.  Usenet works on the model
>    that each site has its own server; large sites have different
>    servers for different groups.  Thus, it's always there.  If one
>    site has a blowout, only those folks are affected, and everything
>    will spool for them in the meantime.

All well and good, but not terribly important for a simple discussion
forum.

>  o It's extremely inconvenient to go through the rigamarole of moving
>    your web browser over to some site, navigating through whatever
>    nonsense is there that stands in the way of the discussion.

Which goes to say that you won't be participating, I assume.
Regrettable, but then many others on web-based fora don't think it's
all that inconvenient.  Good server design (not claiming I have it) and
use of the browser's "favorite" option should overcome much of this.

>  o There is no good way to compose what you're writing.  Formatting is
>    almost completely lost beyond basic paragraph breaks.  How does one
>    invoke a spellchecker?

Get it right the first time. ;-)  Actually, spellchecking is available
on several discussion sites.  Other than that, any composition software
is chiefly a creature of habit anyway.  If you're not terribly picky
(or if you're new to Internet discussion), this isn't a great issue.

>  o There is no useful way to control what you see.  How do you prevent
>    seeing articles from people whom you find annoying?  How do you
>    kill threads that you don't want to see anymore?  There are NO
>    mechanisms for this sort of thing beyond what the moderator or the
>    host of the site will and will not allow.  That means if the signal
>    to noise ratio gets bad, you have no hope of being able to find the
>    signal among the noise.  You just have to leave.  One man's signal
>    is another's noise.  Thus, on another level, web-based discussions
>    do not scale.

This is perhaps the best argument, but it also demonstrates the
advantages of newsgroups over mailing lists.  As no new newsgroup is
going to be created nowadays without first being a mailing list, I
think we only need demonstrate the superiority of web-based discussions
to mailing lists.  Ironically, I just unsubscribed from a mailing list
this evening because of low signal to noise.  I would not perceive this
to be as great a problem on a web site, where messages do not clog my
mailbox and I can easily take some time away from discussion if I
choose.

> I agree with your other observations about the utility of Usenet, but
> I think that the primary advantages are technical: stability and
> utility.  That it is better established is irrelevant, except to point
> out that the Web offers no advantage in terms of accessibility.

When comparing media for established discussions, you are absolutely
correct- there is no advantage offered by the Web in terms of
accessibility.  However, there is a slight advantage when dealing with
nascient discussions to using Web-based.  This has everything to do
with how Usenet is promulgated.  You are at the mercy of your ISP's
news admin and every admin "upstream" before a particular newsgroup
reaches your hands.  Once accepted, there is little to prevent you from
enjoying that newsgroup in the future.  The trick, however, is getting
it to you in the first place.

As I mentioned, technical advantages are not terribly important to new
users.  Even experienced users will sacrifice these advantages if the
website provides a level of discussion not found elsewhere.
--
Jeff Billman
Columbus, OH


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

In article <xlxaej5vr9i.fsf@gold.cis.ohio-state.edu>,
  Matt Curtin <cmcurtin@interhack.net> wrote:
> >>>>> "Jeff" == Jeff Billman <jbillma@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>   Jeff> Firstly, it tends to introduce people to online discussion.
>
> Perhaps.  But the result is that you end up with a lot people who are
> "new to online discussion", which tends to make for comparatively poor
> dynamics of a newsgroup.  The Old Guard of Usenet tend to be more
> interesting, and make for much more lively discussion.  Having a bunch
> of new folks around can be nice for a while, but there's only so much
> tolerance that one has for articles that are essentially unedited
> streams of consciousness.

Bearing in mind that the "Old Guard" consists almost entirely of
computer geeks like us, I'd say there are some instances where fresh
perspective might be welcomed from someone who hasn't been rehashing
the same net arguments for five years or more.

>   Jeff> Secondly, the rigor of registering newsgroups- even within the
>   Jeff> alt.* hierarchy- does not spark interest in creating new
>   Jeff> groups nowadays.
>
> Well, that's because in order to justify having the traffic sanctioned
> by news admins, there has to be some traffic there to show that
> there's an interest.  Generally, the best way to do this is to start a
> mailing list.  Once there's a mailing list with sufficient traffic,
> starting a Usenet group isn't too difficult.

Yes, Matt, you are correct in that this is the traditional way to start
a newsgroup, but e-mail involves an entirely different dynamic than
does either web-based or Usenet discussion.  I've found that the end-
game scenario on mailing lists tends either to result in close-knit
groups of people who continue on the list indefinitely and are
decreasingly welcome to new subscribers, or else an unwieldly large
group which might get its charter before it reaches critical mass and
implodes as subscribers are unable or unwilling to take the large
volume.  Even in digest form, a large mailing list is cumbersome to
navigate; and when a significant number of subscribers are digest-only,
discussion on the list suffers.

This says nothing of the fact that mailing lists are often less diverse
than web-based or Usenet, and therefore discussion takes on a different
hue.  Web-based discussions can operate quite well on the same traffic
that sustains a mailing list, yet have the flavor of a Usenet
newsgroup.  It's also possible (though, as far as I know, yet to be
proven) that a web-based forum could demonstrate its utility
sufficiently to obtain a Usenet charter at some point in the future,
much as mailing lists have in the past.

> Interesting thoughts.  I'd like to learn how it actually goes in
> practice.  I'm inclined to disagree, but neither do I hide the fact
> that I'm really biased in favor of Usenet, especially at the expense
> of "inferior" alternatives for exactly the same thing.

In my opinion, mailing lists are of even lesser quality.  Perhaps the
best comparison would not be of web-based discussions to newsgroups,
but to mailing lists instead.

> Of course, if you want to have local discussions, you can get some of
> the "wins" of having everything work via NNRP without having the
> overhead of being a part of Usenet Proper by running your own
> hierarchy off of your own servers.  There are standardized ways of
> doing this, and any client worth anything at all should grok this
> without any problems.  (You'll still suffer some of the scalability
> issues, but presumably for a comparatively small target audience like
> this, that is a perfectly reasonable tradeoff.)

I see precious little advantage to this solution, interesting though it
may be.  IMHO, this would be of use only if users were already on my
server for some other purpose, and then only as part of some kind of e-
campus (in other words, all users are members of the same company,
university, organization, etc.) where discussion could center around
topics of interest to the campus.
--
Jeff Billman
Columbus, OH


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

"David J. Rosso" wrote:

> On Thu, 06 Apr 2000 23:34:51 -0400, Don Wallace <me@donwallace.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I'd recommend registering a domain name and
> >putting up on it a home page that redirects people to your ezboard
> >site.
>
> NameSecure.Com has just that type of service available for only $25 a
> year.  ...

Might want to check out http://www.yournamefree.com/.  They offer this
kind of website and e-mail forwarding for a one time fee of $49.
--
Paul M. Dubuc
http://home.earthlink.net/~dubuc

Some of you may be interested in the threads of the
"Home and Away" section of Salon's Table Talk forum
at http://tabletalk.salon.com/ .

There's a very active Cleveland thread, a much quieter
Dayton thread, and an embryonic Youngstown thread.  

There used to be a Columbus thread, but it was deleted because
not enough people were posting to it regularly.  Feel free to
start a new one.

-- 
Ron Newman        rnewman@thecia.net
http://www2.thecia.net/users/rnewman/