Flutterby™! : Usenet is dead

Next unread comment / Catchup all unread comments User Account Info | Logout | XML/Pilot/etc versions | Long version (with comments) | Weblog archives | Site Map | | Browse Topics

Usenet is dead

2008-12-20 16:33:09.704389+00 by Dan Lyke 5 comments

Hanan Cohen has a graph of postings per month to rec.kites (note that it reads right to left, I guess it's that ".il" suffix on the domain that should have been the clue It's the attack of the dueling cultures, Hanan's turned it around). Usenet is dead, which I guess we've known for quite a while, but...

[ related topics: Net Culture ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2008-12-20 18:31:58.677308+00 by: hananc

Ouch! I have replaced the graph with an LTR one. When you live in both directions, things like this do not look awkward.

What I wander is if rec.kites is dead because USENET is dead because people are writing about kiting in other places or is rec.kites dead because kiting itself is dead.

#Comment Re: made: 2008-12-21 00:44:36.641429+00 by: Dan Lyke

I dunno, if you say "the first things he got after his divorce were a dog and a stunt kite", does it still get a laugh?

I don't have a feel for the ups and downs of a particular interest group, but I'll bet you'd see a similar graph for, say, a woodworking group; all of those have moved to web forums.

#Comment Re: made: 2008-12-22 14:45:11.66807+00 by: Mark A. Hershberger

can I just point out how annoying web forums are? They're notoriously hard to use offline. Every forum software has its own API (if it has one). etc. etc.

Mailing lists and Gmane allow me to continue to make use of my nntp reader.

#Comment Re: made: 2008-12-22 16:07:57.208275+00 by: Dan Lyke

Agreed. And while I'm at it, insert my usual rant about the suckiness of RSS/Atom as a news distribution format, or even a way to distribute status updates.

#Comment Re: made: 2008-12-24 02:06:00.556307+00 by: John Anderson

Loathe web forums. Tolerate RSS/Atom. Miss Use(less)net.