On 4/3/13 9:51 AM, Wayne B wrote:
On Tue, 02 Apr 2013 23:47:02 -0400, wrote:
These days usenet is really the only wild west left.
The alt.binary groups are still virtually unregulated again, for
better or worse.
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It's not clear to me how Usenet manages to survive. It has certainly
become a rather small niche. The MP3 binaries were mostly garbage the
last time I looked, helped along by the RIAA and MPAA no doubt. P2P
sharing seems to be the wave of the future.
As a conversational medium, usenet is dead, dead, dead. Perfect example:
rec.boats.cruising. Other than Skip's continuing saga of the rebuilding
of his sailboat, the only other commentaries in there come from a bunch
of anonymous posters whining about another poster, and a guy selling
books or something like it.
I'm still in rec.boats because I actually want to be here on the day it
finally dies.
For "conversation" and exchanging of information, moderated groups are
the way to go. Hell, even Facebook is better than usenet. And with
moderated groups and Facebook, you can include photos, maps, directions,
whatever, along with your posts. I go up to Connecticut shoreline towns
twice a year now to attend gatherings, parties, et cetera, with old
classmates and other friends from the area, and these social events are
a result of our finding each other on Facebook.