What about creating a subreddit?

Also, Reddit has the advantage that, unlike in Usenet, you can edit your posts.

Peter Stewart

2020-05-10 12:34:24 UTC

Post by Paulo Ricardo Canedo
Also, Reddit has the advantage that, unlike in Usenet, you can edit your posts.

If you do this the newsgroup will lose some participants (like me) who
have no idea what a Reddit is and no wish to learn.

Peter Stewart

Paulo Ricardo Canedo

2020-05-10 12:51:47 UTC

Post by Paulo Ricardo Canedo
Also, Reddit has the advantage that, unlike in Usenet, you can edit your posts.

If you do this the newsgroup will lose some participants (like me) who
have no idea what a Reddit is and no wish to learn.
Peter Stewart

Thing is, Usenet has been in decline for years. It may be a good idea to abandon it.

Peter Stewart

2020-05-10 13:09:28 UTC

Post by Paulo Ricardo Canedo
Also, Reddit has the advantage that, unlike in Usenet, you can edit your posts.

If you do this the newsgroup will lose some participants (like me) who
have no idea what a Reddit is and no wish to learn.
Peter Stewart

Thing is, Usenet has been in decline for years. It may be a good idea to abandon it.

I don't have a clue what Usenet is either, and equally little wish to
know - in the 1980s I was shown how to use e-mail by VAX, and switching
later to Mozilla is as far as I have ever got with online communication.
I belong to a subset of fogeys who find most aspects of computer
hardware and software actively repulsive, and the jargon incomprehensible.

Peter Stewart

Paulo Ricardo Canedo

2020-05-10 13:14:24 UTC

Post by Paulo Ricardo Canedo
Also, Reddit has the advantage that, unlike in Usenet, you can edit your posts.

If you do this the newsgroup will lose some participants (like me) who
have no idea what a Reddit is and no wish to learn.
Peter Stewart

Thing is, Usenet has been in decline for years. It may be a good idea to abandon it.

Usenet is a network, full of newsgroups, one of them being soc.genealogy.medieval.

Peter Stewart

2020-05-10 13:30:14 UTC

Post by Paulo Ricardo Canedo
Also, Reddit has the advantage that, unlike in Usenet, you can edit your posts.

If you do this the newsgroup will lose some participants (like me) who
have no idea what a Reddit is and no wish to learn.
Peter Stewart

Thing is, Usenet has been in decline for years. It may be a good idea to abandon it.

Usenet is a network, full of newsgroups, one of them being soc.genealogy.medieval.

This has no meaning for me - as far as I'm concerned,
soc.genealogy.medieval virtually materialises in a series of e-mails,
appearing in a Mozilla folder, which I can read, reply to, or ignore at
will. If it took any other form I would not know how to find it. If it
took any form remotely resembling a Facebook page I would avoid it. To
me having a computer is like living with a brainless and needy dog, that
is usually obedient enough but constantly craving my attention to tricks
it performs unbidden which are of less than no interest to me.

Peter Stewart

Richard Smith

2020-05-10 13:54:10 UTC

Post by Peter Stewart
I don't have a clue what Usenet is either, and equally little wish to
know

I don't blame you. Understanding this sort of thing is my job, but it's
really not very relevant to everyday users. The only two points I think
it is perhaps worth knowing are that there are there are lots of
possible ways of accessing soc.genealogy.medieval, and that the group
has no single owner or controlling party, meaning there is no
essentially way of closing or fundamentally changing it, though a
specific means of accessing it could be terminated.

Richard

Ian Goddard

2020-05-10 15:25:55 UTC

Post by Paulo Ricardo Canedo
Also, Reddit has the advantage that, unlike in Usenet, you can edit your posts.

If you do this the newsgroup will lose some participants (like me) who
have no idea what a Reddit is and no wish to learn.
Peter Stewart

Thing is, Usenet has been in decline for years. It may be a good idea to abandon it.

You know of newsgroups but not Usenet? Usenet is what's used to
distribute newsgroup messages around the net. Eternal September is a
Usenet provider.

But I agree with you - whether you think in terms of newsgroups, Usenet
or both I think it's the better route. A good news client gets rid of
the spam. Using Google Groups as the main access point rather then
subscribing to a Usenet service may be what makes the spammers hard to
avoid. Certainly I prefer to be able to moderate my feed by my
decisions using the tools that Thunderbird/Seamonkey provide is far
better than relying on the decisions of some 3rd party moderator.

Ian

Peter Stewart

2020-05-10 21:50:24 UTC

Post by Paulo Ricardo Canedo
Also, Reddit has the advantage that, unlike in Usenet, you can edit your posts.

If you do this the newsgroup will lose some participants (like me) who
have no idea what a Reddit is and no wish to learn.
Peter Stewart

Thing is, Usenet has been in decline for years. It may be a good idea to abandon it.

I don't have a clue what Usenet is either, and equally little wish to
know - in the 1980s I was shown how to use e-mail by VAX, and
switching later to Mozilla is as far as I have ever got with online
communication. I belong to a subset of fogeys who find most aspects of
computer hardware and software actively repulsive, and the jargon
incomprehensible.

You know of newsgroups but not Usenet? Usenet is what's used to
distribute newsgroup messages around the net. Eternal September is a
Usenet provider.
But I agree with you - whether you think in terms of newsgroups, Usenet
or both I think it's the better route. A good news client gets rid of
the spam. Using Google Groups as the main access point rather then
subscribing to a Usenet service may be what makes the spammers hard to
avoid. Certainly I prefer to be able to moderate my feed by my
decisions using the tools that Thunderbird/Seamonkey provide is far
better than relying on the decisions of some 3rd party moderator.

I think I agree with this, but I'm not sure enough of the terms to be
quite sure - "news client" and "feed" are not intuitively meaningful to
me, and I'm incapable of remembering such concepts no matter how fully
these are explained. My mind is analogue, and no doubt doomed to
obsolescence.

Peter Stewart

P J Evans

2020-05-10 22:40:56 UTC

Post by Paulo Ricardo Canedo
Also, Reddit has the advantage that, unlike in Usenet, you can edit your posts.

If you do this the newsgroup will lose some participants (like me) who
have no idea what a Reddit is and no wish to learn.
Peter Stewart

Thing is, Usenet has been in decline for years. It may be a good idea to abandon it.

Google took over the Usenet groups years ago.
And I wouldn't use Reddit.

Paulo Ricardo Canedo

2020-05-10 23:09:10 UTC

Post by P J Evans

Post by Paulo Ricardo Canedo
Also, Reddit has the advantage that, unlike in Usenet, you can edit your posts.

If you do this the newsgroup will lose some participants (like me) who
have no idea what a Reddit is and no wish to learn.
Peter Stewart

Thing is, Usenet has been in decline for years. It may be a good idea to abandon it.

Google took over the Usenet groups years ago.
And I wouldn't use Reddit.

Google didn't, really, take over the Usenet groups, it's simply that Google Groups is the easiest way to access them.
The reason that I think it may be good to switch is that, as Todd mentioned years ago, with the newsgroups' declines, Google may end up shutting down Google Groups.

Ian Goddard

2020-05-10 14:58:52 UTC

Post by Paulo Ricardo Canedo
With this newsgroup flooded by sex spammers,

From what little I've seen they seem to post to very few threads.
Using SeaMonkey (similar to Thunderbird) all I have to do is kill the
thread(s) and they're not seen again.

Thomas Tinney
Mercifully rare these days and again dealt with by the same means.

and John Schmeeckle,
Who?

I wonder if it would be better if we created a moderated subreddit. What
do you think?
I think all that's needed is a decent newsgroup client.

Ian

Paulo Ricardo Canedo

2020-05-11 22:13:27 UTC

Post by Paulo Ricardo Canedo
With this newsgroup flooded by sex spammers,

From what little I've seen they seem to post to very few threads.
Using SeaMonkey (similar to Thunderbird) all I have to do is kill the
thread(s) and they're not seen again.
Thomas Tinney
Mercifully rare these days and again dealt with by the same means.
and John Schmeeckle,
Who?
I wonder if it would be better if we created a moderated subreddit. What
do you think?
I think all that's needed is a decent newsgroup client.
Ian

Thing is, I and I suspect most others access the newsgroup via Google Groups.
As for Schmeeckle, he's the one who claims to talk with his dead ancestors.

John Higgins

2020-05-12 00:53:04 UTC

Post by Paulo Ricardo Canedo
With this newsgroup flooded by sex spammers,

From what little I've seen they seem to post to very few threads.
Using SeaMonkey (similar to Thunderbird) all I have to do is kill the
thread(s) and they're not seen again.
Thomas Tinney
Mercifully rare these days and again dealt with by the same means.
and John Schmeeckle,
Who?
I wonder if it would be better if we created a moderated subreddit. What
do you think?
I think all that's needed is a decent newsgroup client.
Ian

Thing is, I and I suspect most others access the newsgroup via Google Groups.
As for Schmeeckle, he's the one who claims to talk with his dead ancestors.

Most of us have figured out how to deal with spammers - Google Groups has tools (albeit rudimentary, but adequate) to deal with that.

The loss of the group's archives would be a major reason NOT to move to something different. Anyway, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

BTW a moderated group has been discussed here several times in the past. Check the archives - there are pluses and minuses.

Ian Goddard

2020-05-12 09:14:07 UTC

Post by Paulo Ricardo Canedo
As for Schmeeckle, he's the one who claims to talk with his dead ancestors.

Odd, that. My brain had completely erased him from my memory. Yes, he
gets his threads instantly hidden as well.

Ian

Alessandra Cattaneo della Volta

2020-05-10 17:21:10 UTC

Post by Paulo Ricardo Canedo
With this newsgroup flooded by sex spammers, Thomas Tinney and John Schmeeckle, I wonder if it would be better if we created a moderated subreddit. What do you think?

I agree. I had just found this thanks to Google groups, because I don't otherwise utilize Usenet. I have a degree in computer science, so I understand how it works, but it's a rather outdated medium, unlike Reddit. I think it is a good idea, both to cut out the spam and to get the group more exposure and hopefully more posts and posters. The ability to edit and add to your posts would be an added benefit.

Ian Goddard

2020-05-11 10:33:57 UTC

Post by Alessandra Cattaneo della Volta
I have a degree in computer science, so I understand how it works, but it's a rather outdated medium,

Your degree in computer science should tell you that:

(a) the IT world very much subject to fashions and being unfashionable
is often confused with outdated (OK, a recent degree might not, in
itself, tell you that but extensive experience in the industry will)

(b) the fact that something is unfashionable doesn't mean it doesn't work.

IME tweaking things which work for the sake of fashion is a major cause
of breakage. Moving over to Reddit would be an enormous break in that
it would cut the group off from its history unless you could fangle a
means of transferring that history over. As you've only just found the
group you may not be aware of the stress caused by losing one of the
archives of that history, Rootsweb. Long term users are not going to be
enthused by the idea of a complete cut-off.

Alessandra Cattaneo della Volta

2020-05-11 20:34:59 UTC

Post by Alessandra Cattaneo della Volta
I have a degree in computer science, so I understand how it works, but it's a rather outdated medium,

(a) the IT world very much subject to fashions and being unfashionable
is often confused with outdated (OK, a recent degree might not, in
itself, tell you that but extensive experience in the industry will)
(b) the fact that something is unfashionable doesn't mean it doesn't work.
IME tweaking things which work for the sake of fashion is a major cause
of breakage. Moving over to Reddit would be an enormous break in that
it would cut the group off from its history unless you could fangle a
means of transferring that history over. As you've only just found the
group you may not be aware of the stress caused by losing one of the
archives of that history, Rootsweb. Long term users are not going to be
enthused by the idea of a complete cut-off.

I was bouncing around pros and cons in my head after I read this and the biggest con was, as you say, being cut off from the massive archive of past posts. I am familiar with Rootsweb and its recent shutdown of its mailing list services, but I think that does demonstrate my point that mailing lists are unfashionable, if not perhaps outdated.

Paulo mentioned the possibility brought up by Todd that Google may end up shutting down Google Groups at some point, just as Rootsweb shut down their service. I have a sentimental streak myself, so I can appreciate long time users wanting to stick with what they like, but at what cost? I disagree with Matt's philosophy that Reddit is young and genealogy is not. If people in their twenties, like myself, do not develop an interest in genealogy, then all the archives are going to be moot in a matter of years. That's why professional genealogists write books and publish journals, to pass on the information. Moreover, Reddit is a tool, just like Usenet, and with moderation it is what you make of it.

Ian Goddard

2020-05-11 21:44:39 UTC

Post by Alessandra Cattaneo della Volta
I can appreciate long time users wanting to stick with what they like, but at what cost?

OK, what's the cost, or at least risk, of moving from Usenet to Reddit?

Usenet's old-fashionedness is in its being a peer to peer network. They
might be unfashionable but peer to peer networks have a huge advantage:
they don't have a single point of failure.

A website with a single operator behind it could be closed down if it no
longer suited the operator to keep it open. Those of us with long
memories can remember sites such as Geocities closing down. A peer to
peer network would need every server hosting it to close down and I
suspect if it looked like there was a danger of that happening there'd
probably be a few people willing to fire up new ones.

Reddit couldn't possibly close down, you think? I'm sure people said
the same about Geocities. Until it did.

Ian

Paulo Ricardo Canedo

2020-05-11 22:14:18 UTC

Post by Alessandra Cattaneo della Volta
I can appreciate long time users wanting to stick with what they like, but at what cost?

OK, what's the cost, or at least risk, of moving from Usenet to Reddit?
Usenet's old-fashionedness is in its being a peer to peer network. They
they don't have a single point of failure.
A website with a single operator behind it could be closed down if it no
longer suited the operator to keep it open. Those of us with long
memories can remember sites such as Geocities closing down. A peer to
peer network would need every server hosting it to close down and I
suspect if it looked like there was a danger of that happening there'd
probably be a few people willing to fire up new ones.
Reddit couldn't possibly close down, you think? I'm sure people said
the same about Geocities. Until it did.
Ian

Reddit is growing a lot, while, by the time it closed, Geocities wasn't. It's extremely unlikely that it will close.

Eric Kniffin

2020-05-11 23:46:07 UTC

I'm not a contributor at all. I don't know enough to do anything but ask the occasional question. But, just sayin', I ignore those weird threads.

As for sex spammers... Well, I'm looking for my next wife, so let's not be hasty.

Peter Stewart

2020-05-11 23:59:03 UTC

Post by Eric Kniffin
I'm not a contributor at all. I don't know enough to do anything but ask the occasional question. But, just sayin', I ignore those weird threads.
As for sex spammers... Well, I'm looking for my next wife, so let's not be hasty.

Hear, hear - I too ignore weird threads without a lot of bother.

I haven't noticed sex spammers for a while, maybe because I have used
the "ignore thread" facility on Thunderbird. But since I don't expect
any potential wives to be looking for me, as a mere spectator I wish you
luck.

Peter Stewart

P J Evans

2020-05-12 00:30:10 UTC

Hear, hear - I too ignore weird threads without a lot of bother.
I haven't noticed sex spammers for a while, maybe because I have used
the "ignore thread" facility on Thunderbird. But since I don't expect
any potential wives to be looking for me, as a mere spectator I wish you
luck.
Peter Stewart

They haven't shown up in the last two weeks. (Maybe it's the virus.)

Matt A

2020-05-10 23:20:52 UTC

As someone who uses Reddit a whole lot more than this newsgroup, I can say with great confidence that Reddit would not be a good format for a group like this. It’s a whole different culture, most notably because Reddit is young and genealogy is not.

Robert Forrest

2020-05-11 06:18:53 UTC

Beautifully put, as always, Peter Stewart.

Kelsey Jackson Williams

2020-05-12 07:30:11 UTC

I tend to agree with Ricardo and Alessandra. Reddit is a stable, well-designed platform with the added benefit of moderation, the archives are no more or less vulnerable either way, and it's worth the experiment if nothing else. Why not set up the sub-reddit and see if it achieves critical mass?

All the best,
Kelsey

Ian Goddard

2020-05-12 09:16:16 UTC

Post by Kelsey Jackson Williams
I tend to agree with Ricardo and Alessandra. Reddit is a stable, well-designed platform with the added benefit of moderation, the archives are no more or less vulnerable either way, and it's worth the experiment if nothing else. Why not set up the sub-reddit and see if it achieves critical mass?

Nothing stopping you.

Denis Beauregard

2020-05-12 14:29:10 UTC

On Tue, 12 May 2020 00:30:11 -0700 (PDT), Kelsey Jackson Williams

I visited that reddit and almost immediately, my computer was attacked
perhaps by some badly written software and I had to pull the plug.

reddit is only a social network, some kind of facebook for those who
want an example. And facebook is not the appropriate tool for a large
genealogy forum with a lot of archives. So, I don't see either reddit
as the best tool.

Denis

--
Denis Beauregard - généalogiste émérite (FQSG)
Les Français d'Amérique du Nord - http://www.francogene.com/gfan/gfan/998/
French in North America before 1722 - http://www.francogene.com/gfna/gfna/998/
Sur cédérom/DVD/USB à 1790 - On CD-ROM/DVD/USB to 1790

Ken Rolston

2020-05-12 22:37:52 UTC

So we get a few sex posts. Easily ignored and fewer recently.
Tinney and Schmeekle seem to have gone elsewhere, having finally succumbed to the critical comments and ridicule.

Personally I am happy with this forum as it works now. I have no objections to continuation. I think many readers and contributors will feel the same.

I have seen this suggestion come up previously but fail to be convinced that there are sufficiently good reasons to change it.
Perhaps my age is showing. Or perhaps as has been said, age comes with wisdom.

Ken Rolston.

Paulo Ricardo Canedo

2020-05-25 22:19:05 UTC

So, the consensus is that we shouldn't move right now. That being said, if Google eventually shuts down Google Groups, where do you think we should go?

j***@gmail.com

2020-05-26 00:30:21 UTC

This group was here for well more than a decade before Google groups and will survive long after Google groups goes away. They can't "shut down" the group,they can just choose to stop showing it again on their website.

j***@gmail.com

2020-05-26 00:49:49 UTC

Correction, my math is wrong. The Usenet group soc.genealogy.medieval started June 1995. I have only been subscribed regularly since September 1996 though. Google groups took over Deja in 2001 I believe.

-Joe C

Ian Goddard

2020-05-26 11:00:57 UTC