Re: Briding Usenet to other social networks?

On Tue, 2/10/2026 6:57 AM, Daniel70 wrote:
> On 10/02/2026 3:29 am, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
>> On 2/9/2026 9:38 AM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>> On Sun, 8 Feb 2026 13:14:32 +0800, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
>>>
>>>> If someone (maybe a student from IT) could write bridges or gateways
>>>> to sync Usenet with modern social networks like Facebook, Threads,
>>>> Reddit, etc!! It isn't difficult, right? Because Echomail of Fidonet
>>>> did it!! :)
>>>
>>> We already had all that spam crap from Google Groups back when they
>>> were gatewaying Usenet, the last thing we need is for the spam crap to
>>> return from a new source.
>>
>> Does Usenet have a general chit-chat newsgroup? Just dump them into it? :)
>>
> Doesn't every thread in every newsgroup go that way ...... if it 'lives' long enough??

Actually, no.

Notice how some "hierarchies" have very very specific groups.
There is a group for noobs, where you can ask questions about
basics.

microsoft.public.excel
  microsoft.public.excel.123quattro
  microsoft.public.excel.charting
  microsoft.public.excel.crashesgpfs
  microsoft.public.excel.interopoledde
  microsoft.public.excel.links
  microsoft.public.excel.macintosh
  microsoft.public.excel.misc
  microsoft.public.excel.newusers  <===
  microsoft.public.excel.printing
  microsoft.public.excel.programming
  microsoft.public.excel.sdk
  microsoft.public.excel.setup
  microsoft.public.excel.templates
  microsoft.public.excel.worksheet

In the old days, a group could have a monthly posting called a "FAQ".
For example, in the newusers group, there might be a FAQ item
explaining how to make relative or absolute cell references. And
this might be put in the FAQ, so if a person were to ask "how
do I use these cells anyway", the respondent would say "did you
read the FAQ?". And the FAQ, being published monthly, would be
unlikely to roll off the server. There would always be a copy
for a newuser to read.

And that tells you, the groups don't exist to discuss the weather in Melbourne.

These are the equivalent of mailing lists. Would you want to be wasting
peoples time, by sending a message about "the weather in Melbourne"
to thousands of email boxes ? You would get tossed from the list for
one transgression.

USENET "now" is like mailing lists, but without the adult supervision.

It used to have all of the strictness of mailing lists,
but that was only because of the people who were here and
why they were here.

You used to be able to get tossed from here, for the smallest
thing. I received my "one warning" once, for replying to a
Nike shoe advert and making a joke. Naughty me. Now, Nike shoe
adverts are removed by Cleanfeed (it was one of the sample
filters on Cleanfeed).

*******

The traffic level used to be really high. You could have 200 posts per day
in a text group. The opportunities for mischief were endless. By the servers
tending to use "accounts" for users, that made it easier for a troublemaker
to get "tossed". Someone would contact the "[email protected]",
give the M-ID of the offending message and then "off with his head".
If you read the Terms Of Service on a USENET server today, the
only offense which rates a response is "legally actionable activity".
In other words, the administrator on the server, is really not
interested in providing the old style "adult supervision" that existed.

*******

Imagine you were here.

   https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/The_Acropolis_of_Athens_on_June_1%2C_2021.jpg

You're kicking the stones around, near the building.
You would ask "did the people here used to kick these stones around?".

Well, you're at a ruin, you're looking at the remains of a thing.
The streets were carefully swept back in the day. There would be
no stones for you to kick. There would be soldiers. There would
be law and order around these structures. If you kicked a stone,
maybe you would be thrown into a dark hole in the ground to think
about what you had done.

It's hard to say what life was like there, what the rules were,
whether "discussing the weather in Melbourne" was allowed.

Places like talk.misc might well have a wider range of discussions,
but if you are a "visitor" to someone elses list, start by
reading a bunch of the postings to see exactly how wide-ranged
the discussions are. Say for example, you spot zero "fart-jokes".
Then your first posting there, might not be a "fart-joke" as a result.

   Paul