Re: You Can Use the Internet the Old-School Unixy Way With Shell Accounts

On 13/04/25 4:51 am, Borax Man wrote:

> Geographic similarity does help.  One thing I liked about BBS's back in
> the 90s, was that you were connecting with other people *nearby*.  You
> could meet the system.  This is something that wasn't obviously a
> feature back then, as it was the norm, but now I kind of appreciate the
> usefulness of it.
> 
> Now, I suppose the closes to a "local Usenet" is the Reddit group
> specifically for my hometown in Australia, but I don't really like the
> Reddit interface and I don't think the format really is conducive to
> good discussion.  Modern Social media just does suck.

While Reddit's interface is slow, clunky, and has been infested with 
advertising; its biggest sin is the way it uses (abuses?) the concept of 
*karma* (upvotes / downvotes) to actively promote hive-minds. Fediverse 
alternatives like Lemmy suffer the same fundamental flaw.
> Altexxanet has a good template.  You have chat/forum and webspace under
> the one banner.  Even some web forums form the 2000's, using the phpBB
> software or what it was, also had a chat room, where you could chat to
> the people you were engaging with in forums, in real time.  Discord kind
> of is a bit of both, but sits awkwardly between forum and chat, doing
> neither really well in my opinion.
Altexxanet is just nostalgia-farming about a "golden time of the 90s." 
That's all fine, but not really useful in the modern context.

Even though most of its glory days are way back in the past, Usenet is 
still one of the best methods for online discussion and communication.