Re: usenet's usefulness

Nomen Nescio <[email protected]> Tue, 12 May 2026 10:23:28 +0200 (CEST)
Newsgroups alt.anarchism, alt.censorship, alt.free.newsservers, alt.free.nntp, alt.freespeech
Organization dizum.com - The Internet Problem Provider
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On 05 May 2026, D <[email protected]> posted some
news:[email protected]: 

> 
> certainly for more than three decades, unmoderated usenet newsgroups 
> have been the untamed wild west of internet-accessible public forums, 
>   as anyone could post plain text articles averting content
> moderation, making unmoderated usenet the only public repository on
> planet earth       that has not been routinely subjected to
> moderation, i.e. censorship      
> 
> newsreader filters are typically used to improve the signal-to-noise
> ratio inherent in these uncensored message boards, by manually white- 
> listing helpful content while automatically ignoring everything else, 
>      most all newsreaders have filtering options, allow multiservers,
> etc.       
> 
> (using Tor Browser 15.0.11)     
>>http://usenet-fr.yakakwatik.org/newsreaders.html         
>>Last update:  05/06/2025             
>>  Introduction
>>  Newsreaders         
>>    40Tude Dialog (Windows)
>>    Betterbird (Linux / Windows / macOS)     
>>    Claws-Mail (Linux / Windows / macOS)
>>    Evolution (Linux)   
>>    flnews (Linux, UNIX systems)
>>    Gnus (Linux / Windows / macOS)      
>>    Gravity (Windows)     
>>    MacCafe (macOS)
>>    MacSOUP (macOS = 10.14)
>>    MesNews (Windows)  
>>    ModNewsreader (Android and its forks)     
>>    Pan (Linux / macOS)  
>>    SeaMonkey (Linux / Windows / macOS)
>>    slrn (Linux / Windows / macOS)     
>>    Sylpheed (Linux / Windows / macOS)  
>>    Thunderbird (Linux / Windows / macOS)
>>    tin (Linux / Windows / macOS)       
>>    Xananews (Windows) 
>>    Xnews (Windows)  
>>  References and useful links           
> [end quote]              
>                            
> client-side newsreader filtering is essential to usenet's usefulness,
> listing helpful content while automatically ignoring everything else  
>       
>  
> web-based usenet servers certainly have their usefulness too, telnet 
> is also very helpful, but for those who recall using "deja news" for
> newsgroup browsing, searching, posting, replying, it worked reliably  
>  up to until about twenty-five years ago, then "google groups" worked
> for a couple of years, but after 2004 (twenty-two years ago), it was
> clear to everyone that gg had become unreliable, no longer useful as  
> a usenet archive search engine, but did apparently work famously for  
> flooding usenet beyond all other servers combined, reigning champion
>                        
> and yet, after forty-five long years, tiny usenet just won't go away,
> hence has been the forum of choice for nonconformists, free thinkers, 
> outsiders, specifically because unmoderated newsgroups are available, 
>   and apart from server-side spam filters, expirations, removals,
> etc.,      uncensored content is posted intact . . . social media
> can't compete, and some nntp newsservers carry binary groups, for
> those so inclined     
> 
> usenet probably serves other purposes lesser known or even unheardof, 
> but in general terms, it's a means of communication unique to itself,
> its audience many contributors but mostly lurkers, a silent majority, 
>         so though it may seem as if no one is reading, be sure that
> they are 

I find it very gratifying when an exact quote of one of my posts shows up 
in the media or a blog somewhere.