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I truly dislike Web-based forums. They require the user to connect to a specific Web site, which is sometimes down. Although Facebook is rarely down, a forum based there requires users to have Facebook accounts; similar requirements exist for other forum hosting services. Threaded discussions are often difficult to follow on Web-based forums, and threads usually cannot be sorted (both are also problems with mailing lists). To find a specific topic or thread, the user must use the forum's own search capability, which is too often rudimentary and insufficient for real-world use. Then, there is the fact that some Web-based forums work well only with certain browsers.

I much prefer the newsgroups hosted by NNTP (network news transfer protocol) servers. There are several NNTP service providers (NSPs), both free and paid; users only have to use one NSP to participate even when other users use other NSPs. That is, users are not required to connect and login to any one specific site.

A number of different NNTP applications also exist, mostly freeware. Those applications generally handle threaded discussions quite well. Search capabilities are built into the applications and are not needed for the newsgroup itself. If spam, flame wars, trolls, and other problems are a concern, a moderated newsgroup is also possible.

If your topic is limited, I would suggest creating an alt.* newsgroup. See the text document at http://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/CONFIG/README. However, many NSPs no longer host alt.* newsgroups because so many of them contained child pornography.

If your topic might have broad public appeal, you might consider creating a newsgroup under one of comp.*, news.*, sci.*, humanities.*, rec.*, soc.*, talk.*, or misc.*. See http://www.big-8.org/wiki/Main_Page.

A moderated newsgroup can have more than a single moderator, which would be appropriate if your forum is not related to your own personal Web site. See http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/mod-pitfalls.html for the negatives of moderated newsgroups. The "Moderator's Handbook" at http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/usefor/other/moderators-handbook is quite old but still useful. See also http://www.big-8.org/wiki/Changing_Moderation_Status.

I truly dislike Web-based forums. They require the user to connect to a specific Web site, which is sometimes down. Although Facebook is rarely down, a forum based there requires users to have Facebook accounts; similar requirements exist for other forum hosting services. Threaded discussions are often difficult to follow on Web-based forums, and threads usually cannot be sorted (both are also problems with mailing lists). To find a specific topic or thread, the user must use the forum's own search capability, which is too often rudimentary and insufficient for real-world use. Then, there is the fact that some Web-based forums work well only with certain browsers.

I much prefer the newsgroups hosted by NNTP (network news transfer protocol) servers. There are several NNTP service providers (NSPs), both free and paid; users only have to use one NSP to participate even when other users use other NSPs. That is, users are not required to connect and login to any one specific site.

A number of different NNTP applications also exist, mostly freeware. Those applications generally handle threaded discussions quite well. Search capabilities are built into the applications and are not needed for the newsgroup itself. If spam, flame wars, trolls, and other problems are a concern, a moderated newsgroup is also possible.

If your topic is limited, I would suggest creating an alt.* newsgroup. See the text document at http://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/CONFIG/README. However, many NSPs no longer host alt.* newsgroups because so many of them contained child pornography.

If your topic might have broad public appeal, you might consider creating a newsgroup under one of comp.*, news.*, sci.*, humanities.*, rec.*, soc.*, talk.*, or misc.*. See http://www.big-8.org/wiki/Main_Page.

A moderated newsgroup can have more than a single moderator, which would be appropriate if your forum is not related to your own personal Web site. See http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/mod-pitfalls.html for the negatives of moderated newsgroups. The "Moderator's Handbook" at http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/usefor/other/moderators-handbook is quite old but still useful. See also http://www.big-8.org/wiki/Changing_Moderation_Status.

Voting by the general using public is no longer required. The Big8 Management Board makes the decision, Go to http://www.big-8.org/wiki/Main_Page and read the links under "Core Information about the Newsgroup Creation Process".

The benefit of a Big8 (comp.*, news.*, sci.*, humanities.*, rec.*, soc.*, talk.*, and misc.*) newsgroup or even an alt.* newsgroup outside of the Big8 is that you are not tied to any one specific service or to any one specific application on your computer. (If you choose the Big8, your newsgroup would likely fall in the talk.* category.)

Seriously, though. There are very, very few people left who use the USENET for anything real.

You should write to all these independent Usenet providers. Maybe you'll convince them to have an epiphany and instantly drop their service to their hundreds of thousands of customers.

I mean, give me a break, the alt groups were a problem 10 years ago, and some ISPs are still carrying them? That's just stupid. When we were carrying the alt groups at BEST we had to set the article timeout for the high-bandwidth groups to 1-day, and that actually did a pretty good job stopping all the idiots trying to download 5000 part port movies over their dialup modems. They just couldn't keep up before the stuff timed out.

You're confusing alt.* and alt.binaries.*. There are plenty of good and active text groups in alt.*. In modern terms, the bandwidth they consume is insignificant. There is no reason you should have to carry binaries.

And then of course there's the Big 8 hierarchies, which you conveniently declared dead right along with alt.binaries.* even though none of them carry any binaries. Please stop conflating issues.

This is only true on the alt.* heirarchy. On the Big 8 you need to go through a review process to have additional groups added.

(Do they still bar any proposals for the creation of binaries groups under rec? Do any comp.binaries.* groups survive today?)

Most of comp.binaries.* is gone. We're not looking to make more binaries groups in the Big-8. You can see the current creation policies here, and the list of "discouraged" proposal types is here.

There is a reason why Usenet was forgotten: it was the birthplace of spam.

Naah, that didn't have much to do with it. Spam was actually effectively defeated on Usenet. The problem is that nobody tells anybody else that it exists anymore, and so the number of posters have gone down... I personally think that the difficulty of making a new group caused problems too, and I hope that the new system may help.

(Do they still bar any proposals for the creation of binaries groups under rec? Do any comp.binaries.* groups survive today?)

Most of comp.binaries.* is gone. We're not looking to make more binaries groups in the Big-8. You can see the current creation policies here, and the list of "discouraged" proposal types is here.

There is a reason why Usenet was forgotten: it was the birthplace of spam.

Naah, that didn't have much to do with it. Spam was actually effectively defeated on Usenet. The problem is that nobody tells anybody else that it exists anymore, and so the number of posters have gone down... I personally think that the difficulty of making a new group caused problems too, and I hope that the new system may help.

Text-based Usenet is a useful service. More people should use it; it does a better job of allowing discussion than most web forums out there, and there's little threat of centralized control over the discussion.

I've been tempted to make comp.internet.services.news.slashdot in the Big-8...

It bothers me that the only time that Usenet is brought up anymore on sites like this is in regards to the binary content on Usenet. Yes, alt.binaries.* exists, and it's 99.9% of Usenet's traffic; but the text-based groups still exist, and they're doing pretty well lately, especially with our new Big-8 newsgroup creation system. But it's difficult-to-impossible to publicize this through discussion fora such as Slashdot, which aren't interested in the old, less-catchy systems of yesteryear...

If anybody is any good at publicity and wants to help with Usenet, give me a mail.

It bothers me that the only time that Usenet is brought up anymore on sites like this is in regards to the binary content on Usenet. Yes, alt.binaries.* exists, and it's 99.9% of Usenet's traffic; but the text-based groups still exist, and they're doing pretty well lately, especially with our new Big-8 newsgroup creation system. But it's difficult-to-impossible to publicize this through discussion fora such as Slashdot, which aren't interested in the old, less-catchy systems of yesteryear...

If anybody is any good at publicity and wants to help with Usenet, give me a mail.