Re: Is the party over?

On Apr 3, 11:49 am, Roy Hann <specia..._at_processed.almost.meat> wrote:
> I know Usenet has been pretty effectively hobbled if not completely
> killed off, but the conversations/squabbles that used to get
> aired here on c.d.t. must still go on somewhere.
>
> Where?
> --
> Roy

I see two directions, technology-wise. Either we go to the old tech, which is some combination of IRC and mailing lists. Or we go with the newer tech, which is a group or some simulacrum of it, using either Facebook or Google Plus.

Personally I'd advocate for a traditional mailing list, perhaps with a simultaneous IRC group, both of which are logged/retained. Because no other medium besides a mailing group admits such long posts and analytic interaction as Usenet/Netnews does. At the same time, we're already used to a level of interactivity, which is hard to come by unless we utilize something like IRC on the side; the modern web-based social media aren't conducive to rational discussion.

Google Groups hosted mailing lists might just provide a middle ground solution. They're fast enough to support dialogue, they support emailonly  interaction like Netnews, but then there's the archival issue: we don't want our discussions to just go down the drain when the group administrator suddenly decides to retire.

I know I'm speaking as somebody who hasn't spoken in a long while. But I'm also speaking as somebody well-versed and highly interested in preservation, and someone who's been using both the older and the newer means of online discussion tech for a while now. From my viewpoint the best thing which could happen would be if we had fullfunction  gateways between Usenet, IRC, a Google backed mailing list, and perhaps even a G+ Circle. But since that has never happened before to my knowledge, even on fora which were already divided between web boards and mailing lists, and in a similar pinch otherwise...

I'd advocate going to a public mailing list, even if it's old tech. Perhaps as an interim measure, but still. Preserving everybody''s (Google's as well) archives of the group, merging them to a single comprehensive archive, distributing that archive back to multiple people (I'd be more than willing to carry one of the copies), then migrating the discussion elsewhere, and finally after a period of time gracefully shutting the Usenet group down altogether. Received on Tue Apr 17 2012 - 01:08:13 CEST