Well Bill, what has happened is that USENET has condensed into a few central sites exchanging the articles, and accepting subscriptions from people who still want to read/post to the newsgroups. It's the distributed model that's died. Yes, those few sites are still using NNTP to move the news back and forth, so from that perspective I guess it's not dead either. But as for having hundreds or thousands of sites contributing to the discussions, that's dead.
People who want to continue with USENET can subscribe to one of the central Usenet servers. eternal-september.org is free; the others charge relatively modest subscription fees.
But I really don't think it's the best model for replacing the 44net mailing list. Let's look around and see what's out there. Maybe there's something better. - Brian
On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 03:20:36PM -0400, Bill Horne wrote:
Say it ain't so!
PLEASE don't say Usenet is obsolete. I used to be on the BIG-8 board! I once wrote a tutorial for users of KA9Q NOS, on how to enter nntp posts using Telnet to port 119! I was attending Northeastern University when the IS department retired their home-grown message board in favor of the new Usenet paradigm. Hell, I remember when the Eternal September started!
As fortune would have it, I'm the Moderator of The Telecom Digest, which predates Usenet but is now available on the comp.dcom.telecom newsgroup. Usenet is an old friend, and I don't want to think it's obsolete: it makes me feel old.
Oh, well: only Nixon could go to China, and only the author of nntp can say Usenet is obsolete. I guess I'll learn to adapt.
Bill, W4EWH
Please don't say that USENET is obsolete: it makes me feel old.