Re: [Pan-users] Re: New version of pan ?

[Rui Maciel]

On 01/15/2011 06:53 PM, Brad Rogers wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Jan 2011 18:11:35 +0000
> Maurice Batey<address@hidden>  wrote:
>
> Hello Maurice,
>
> > On Sat, 15 Jan 2011 02:16:18 +0000, Duncan wrote:
> > > nntp itself is slowly fading into history
> > I wish I understood why!
> Because, for the most part, people think the WWW *is* the internet.
> Anything that can't be accessed via a browser is "Here be dragons"
> territory;  Possibly dangerous, and probably frequented by
> ne’er-do-wells.

Yes, I also believe there is a hefty dose of ignorance (wilful or not) 
behind this.  There is also a problem caused by, for the lack of a 
better term, conflict of interests of those creating and managing those 
web forums.  As some tend to run them with the purpose of generating 
some sort of income, they tend to avoid (and in some cases even censor) 
any reference to alternative forums, including usenet.  Some even have 
the audacity to mirror the content posted to a set of specific 
newsgroups and try to pass off as their own traffic.  Go figure.

And meanwhile people shy away from usenet, which is a shame as it is far 
more than a forum.  In some cases, a newsgroup associated with a decent 
search tool becomes an expert system.  And we are losing that.

> > What is there out there that is more convenient than following
> > newsgroups?
> Email.  Possibly.

Mailing lists may provide a similar job as newsgroups but they are a 
crude hack which is much less convenient than plain old newsgroups.  
There is a reason why companies such as trolltech also offer a NNTP 
interface for their forums.


> > Although I do follow the occasional user or interest Forum, it is
> > nowhere near as convenient as following newsgroups via e.g. Pan.
> Indeed.  With email and usenet, I fire up a program, hit the "receive"
> button and I'm away.  I cannot fathom why people wish to move from web
> site to website, logging in to forums, trawling through poorly threaded,
> errr, threads, looking for stuff.

Hear, hear.



Rui Maciel