Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (
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Michael Vondung wrote:
> Sebastian Hungerecker wrote:
>
> > 1) Strict netiquette enforcement (OK, this isn't exactly true for most
> > English newgroups anymore and it could be done in a webforum as well)
>
> Actually, the blessing and curse of usenet is that there is little to no
> enforcement of much of anything. The "rules" of a group are more or less
> established by its users, and people need the maturity to ignore trolls or,
> if someone doesn't get along, each other.
The fact that the rules can no longer be enforced does not
mean the rules do not exist. Real newsreaders did not used
to allow people to un-sub from news.announce.newusers and
the rules where posted regularly there until the early 1990s.
The difference between no-rules and non-enforcible-rules is
real but subtle. The rules require trimming in replies,
and the rules were written before the first top-post ever
happened anywhere on UseNet (really - search the archives
for the oldest rules on NAN and for the oldest top post)
and that's the source to flame wars between top posters
and folks who are not ignorant: The rules are silent about
top or bottom format but the rules mandate trimming. What
top poster ever trims?
The rules also account for differences between UseNet
and bulliten boards. Boards always display context,
most newsreaders do not. Some boards allow binaries,
few newsgroups do.
> In web forums you have
> moderation, which can sometimes be a Good Thing, but usually isn't, as it
> allows for censorship and one person deciding what everyone else may or may
> not view. I for one am willing to pay the price in form of trolls in
> exchange for everyone's right to express their opinions, no matter how off
> they are.
There are moderated newsgroups. Some have been created
because one dedicated lunatic kept at "trolling" for
many years. Such an obbessive is not a troll, just
someone who uses a newbie's natural reaction of ignoring
trolls against them. Very sad. Anyways, moderation has
its advantages.
> > 3) You don't need a webbrowser to read usenet.
>
> But a newsreader.
Either work now.
> > I'm sure there are more.
>
> - Messages are stored for many years in archives like Google Groups, and
> many users keep their own archives locally. ALL previous messages are lost
> if a web forum goes down, their owner loses interest, the hosting company
> closes, etc. Usenet is far more durable.
My oldest surviving post is from 1983. Just show me some
bulliten board that has that much background. It is almost
certain that UseNet posts today will survive decades. It is
extremely likely they will survive centuries. It would be
unsurprising they will survive millenia. Yet here I am
typing as fast as I can knowing people far in the future
will wonder at my spelling, missing words and such.
> - You need very little bandwidth to participate in newsgroups and can
> download headers/articles for offline reading. In many places people still
> pay for online connections by the minute. Participating in web forums can
> take quite a bit of time especially if you have to wade through megabytes
> of flashing ads, scripts, applets and photos of celebrities and models that
> people use as their forum avatars.
>
> - Usenet doesn't belong to anyone, person or organization. It just "is".But
> that's a meta category that some of the other things mentioned fall under.
This is a very important point. Newbies tend to think that
their server is "the" server for UseNet. That is no more
true than your ISP being "the" ISP for the Internet.