[...]
Post by Peter T. DanielsPost by WhiskersPost by Peter T. DanielsI am using Google Groups and have been since I switched to DSL almost
seven years ago. I have no reason to suppose it is a "web forum
service," whatever that may be.
Sheesh. It's a service; Google provide advertising space for profit and
For some reason you refuse to believe that THERE IS NO ADVERTISING AT
GOOGLE GROUPS. Why don't you just go there and see for yourself?
That must be another change with the current interface; there certainly
were adverts alongside the articles in earlier versions. Perhaps the
ads will be sneeked in later, or perhaps they now just mine the content
you read and post to help target adverts at you elsewhere.
Post by Peter T. DanielsPost by Whiskersattract potential customers for the advertisers by creating a place
where people can exchange messages in public - ie, a forum, or rather
several forums related to different interests. This all happens on the
World Wide Web, or 'web' for short, and people use web browsers to
access the forums. So there is a service, in the form of forums, on the
web; a web forum service.
It's a service; it isn't on the World Wide Web, unless it can somehow be
on the World Wide Web without having "www." in its url;
Many things on the web don't have www. in the URL; the server address
chosen for a web server can be anything you want - many people do use
www.something.tld as a web server name, but it isn't a requirement.
The URL for this newsgroup's Google Groups page is
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/alt.usage.english>. What makes
it a web page is the https:// which says 'use the hypertext transfer
protocol'; 'hypertext' is the unique aspect of the web which allows
'links' to documents on different servers all over the planet to be
followed from within any other document carried on a connected computer.
Whatever comes after the http:// or https:// is whatever the operator of
the web site wants to call the web server concerned - or the IP number
of it, if no name is wanted and no other web servers are using the same IP
number. Here's one that works with no server name at all
<http://130.133.4.11/> instead of <http://individual.net/>; that is a
web page, part of the worldwide web, accessed using a web browser - just
as all of Google Groups' pages are.
<http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616.html> "Hypertext Transfer
Protocol -- HTTP/1.1"
Using the Individual.net news-server, this newsgroup's URL is
<news://news.individual.net/alt.usage.english/> (you need an account
with a username and password to actually go there) for which you need a
'newsreader' or 'usenet client' (or telnet), not a web browser.
(Although Lynx is a web browser that can handle news:// URLs, and so is
Opera 12.* which has a built-in usenet client). That is not a web page,
and it isn't part of the worldwide web. It is 'on the internet' though.
Post by Peter T. Danielsand "forum" means nothing to me in this context.
,---- [ "forum, n.". OED Online. September 2013. Oxford University Press.
| <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/73767?redirectedFrom=forum>
| (accessed December 02, 2013). ]
| forum, n.
| 1.
|
| a. Roman Hist. The public place or market-place of a city. In ancient
| Rome the place of assembly for judicial and other public business.
|
| b. as the place of public discussion; hence fig.
|
| [...]
|
| Draft additions March 2003
|
| Computing. A discussion group which is accessible online, as through a
| mailing list, a bulletin board system, a newsgroup, or the World Wide
| Web, esp. one dedicated to the exchange of information and opinions on a
| particular topic.
| In early use, not always distinguished from the general sense of ‘a
| place of public discussion’ (see 1b).
`----
We are discussing, in public, here; so this is a forum.
Post by Peter T. DanielsPost by WhiskersGoogle aren't the only people doing such things; Yahoo and Microsoft do
too, and so do many commercial entities and publications for
communicating with and supporting their customers or readers.
Yahoo Groups are nothing like the newsgroups accessed via Google Groups.
Primarily, Yahoo Groups send messages to email, and Google Groups don't.
The key difference between Google's web forums and those operated by
Yahoo and others, is that Google combine access to usenet newsgroups
using the same interface as for their own proprietary 'groups'.
Google do offer "Read group posts through email, ..."
<https://support.google.com/groups/answer/46601?hl=en-GB> and it's
possible to post to Google Groups using email:-
,-- <https://support.google.com/groups/answer/1059071?hl=en&ref_topic=2459438>
| To read and respond to posts using email:
|
| Click on the email in your inbox. The contents of the email are
| displayed.
| Type a response to the email.
| Select reply (to respond only to the poster) or reply to all (to respond
| to the whole group). The response is posted.
| Note: This process assumes that you have "Email" checked in the "How do
| you want to read this group?" section of the my Membership settings (you
| are receiving an email for every post to the group).
`----
Which looks to me like a 'mailing-list'. AUE is rather too busy for
convenience as a mailing-list unless you have a good email service and
an email user agent that can 'thread' and 'filter' like a newsreader. I
don't think there would be much point using webmail to read and post to
Google groups; you'd just be substituting one web page for another.
Post by Peter T. DanielsPost by WhiskersGoogle bought a usenet archive called 'DejaNews' in 2001 to give their
new proprietary web forums some ready-made content and so attract users.
The DejaNews archive was later supplemented by adding usenet archives
from various universities, and then they added the facility for Google
Group users to create new 'Google Groups' of their own, not having
anything to do with usenet. All user access provided by Google is via
the World Wide Web; usenet has no mechanism for generating income or
profit from advertisements so they have no interest in providing a
conventional news-server accessed using the NNTP protocol.
Again, no "www." Who is the "they" who "have no interest"? Not Google,
since there is no way it is getting any money from Google Groups.
A www. in a URL doesn't make it part of the worldwide web, and a web
page doesn't need a www. in its URL. It's the http:// or https:// that
makes it part of the worldwide web. See above.
Google can 'mine' what you read and post, and connect their analysis of
that to a profile (not the one you can manage, one of their own) linked
to your Google account and the cookies associated with it, and use that
information to direct adverts 'relevant' to you wherever Google have
advertisements on web pages. They do the same with Gmail.
Post by Peter T. DanielsPost by WhiskersThe interface by which users interact with Google Groups has undergone
significant changes from time to time.
Once in the past seven years -- about 5 months ago. It was a serious change
for the worse.
That's just the most recent of at least three major changes, and several
small ones. As far as usenet is concerned, almost every Google change
has been for the worse. So much so that some people block anything
posted using Google Groups <http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/>
(yes, another web site without a www in its URL).
Post by Peter T. DanielsPost by WhiskersPost by Peter T. DanielsNor do I have reason to suppose that
the earlier Google Groups put up some sort of six-week barrier.
Well it's too late now to go back in time to compare what could be
posted in 2006, 2010, or before and after June this year (when the
latest version appeared). I can clearly remember the annoyance caused
in usenet newsgroups by Google users answering ancient articles, and I
seem to remember being one of many who complained to Google about it. I
clearly remember the general delight expressed by usenet users in 2010
when a new Google Groups version restricted the age of articles that
could be responded to. It seems that the new 2013 version has lost that
restriction.
What a pity you were inconvenienced by history.
Not history but Google. I used to be a fan, when they had one of the
best web search engines and a fully functional usenet archive; they've
spoiled the former and have competition that works better for me, and
the latter has become very limited and unreliable. Their ethos has also
changed from 'hey, let's do cool useful stuff for people' to 'aha;
there's gold in them there punters'. Their 'portal' to usenet has
always been an irritation, although the annoyances vary depending on
which parts of their software design they get wrong.
Post by Peter T. DanielsPost by WhiskersWikipedia's offering is informative
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Google_Groups&oldid=581894974>
(The link near the foot of the page to "Old (pre-2012) version of Google
Groups" now goes to the current version's front page).
See the www that isn't in that web page URL?
--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~
