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Microsoft to do for Usenet what it did for Email & The Web?
tjones2 writes "Seems like Microsoft isn't content with sad state of email these days. They now want to "make engaging with communities easier and friendlier". This means extending their reach into Usenet." Fortunately most of Usenet is such a cespool that really they can only make it better. And after cornering the market on email worms, imagine the benefits they can bring to NNTP!
if usenet was supposed to be friendly it would have been designed that way :-)
Seriously, usenet is supposed to be distributed and resiliant to poor communications and have no choke points that would slow operation. All of the MS ideas would seem to introduce complication, choke points and remove much of the resiliance.
Hey Microsoft, what did you innovate today?
This is very bad news for Usenet. In the beginning, USEnet was a haven for people with the persistence and intelligence necessary to figure out how to use it, and it was good. Flamewars were minimal, people were respectful, and knowledge flowed freely. Then AOL, WebTV, and their ilk came along and lowered the barriers to entry. The quality of discussion went down, the quantity went up, and USEnet became a lot less USEful than it had been. I feel like that situation has improved slightly, at least in the text-only discussion groups. But if MS makes it possible for every dingbat melonhead with a modem to get on it, it's going to get much worse.
I'm probably being elitist, but I like it when it takes a little effort and intelligence to be able to participate in a discussion. I know that the people on a newsgroup are at least slightly more advanced (usually) than their ICQ-going friends, and that better discussions will result.
The other thing is that USEnet has (so far) been flying below the **AA's radar as far as file sharing and software IP ifringement go. If they all of a sudden turn their attention towards it, USEnet is easy prey for a takedown: the servers are centralized machines that are easily traceable to a company or individual, and most ISPs would probably just take theirs down rather than fight it out with the RIAA. Of course, the user uproar would be like nothing we've ever seen before, because USEnet's main use is not only non-infringing, it's incredibly valuable to a lot of technical types out there.
What would happen is you load all the posts into a database and perform analysis on that data. From there you draw conclusions on the pretext that, if there were a lot of replies and a lot of repeats last week on newsgroup X, then that should continue this week, so that might be a good one to go for info.
Once they get the ball rolling on this though, I'd be willing to bet they try to "update" USENET as they become a major player there. Maybe that's just pessimism on my part though.
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
In August 1996, Microsoft made their internal microsoft.* hierarchy available to the world at large. Around that same time, they switched from INN v1.4 to a proprietary MS NNTP server.
For the next few weeks, every post made to microsoft.* and select other groups was duplicated by msnews.microsoft.com and spewed back to the world because the proprietary MS server changed the Message-ID for every post. Message-IDs are supposed to be unique, so an altered ID was seen as a new post by servers peering with MS and thus were not treated as duplicates and dropped.
Thousands and thousands of posts were duped and spewed by Microsoft's "innovative" server, both inside microsoft.* and out. The reaction among news admins ranged from mild chuckles at Microsoft's expense to blind rage and the use of cancelbots.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to this. I could use a good laugh.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Exactly: it's great, but only if you know where to look. Sounds as though Microsoft's ideas on this one are steps in the right direction. I'm a Usenet veteran, but still find it difficult to identify a group that's relevant to me when I first want to explore a new subject.
For bonus marks, if they could just get people to understand that it's polite to read the FAQ before posting (and make the FAQ an obvious link somewhere) and that following local customs and keeping on-topic also go a long way, they'd be ahead of everyone else who currently offers Usenet access. A group with influence of Microsoft could do a lot to improve the signal/noise ratio on some newsgroups. Extending their reach into Usenet isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Ill-informed editorial comments like Taco's don't help much, BTW. Most newsgroups actually are pretty good these days, as long as there's one where your interest is on-topic and you have decent filtering in your client to cut out the noise. I've found worthwhile groups on various technical subjects, all of my major hobbies, my local area and more. We can do without putting off people who might be genuinely interested in reading and/or contributing to such groups with juvenile statements like Taco's.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
From the rumors we've heard about Microsoft dumping tons of money into improving their search engine, and integrating it into the next version of Windows, I don't think the "Google has already done this" argument is going to slow them down.
While Linux is probably Microsoft's number one threat in the business world, I would guess sites like Google (privately held) are close to the top of the list on the home front. There's a lot of power to be had if you can funnel millions of internet users through your search engine or portal. This is what Microsoft is trying to do.
If they can clue the masses into Usenet in such a way that users think that they need Microsoft software in order to do Usenet, they'll control millions of people's access to Usenet, and to some degree Usenet itself.
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
So what's wrong with some elitism. Internet mail, usenet and IRC all came from the UNIX world. They were developed by geeks for geeks. Linux has nothing to do with it. I was using them first on a VAX mainframe. It appears that it's Linux elitist because generally users with clue use Linux on their home machines. But having said that I know plenty of windows users who hate top posting, insufficient trimming of quotes and the like. This is because they started on line using DOS and such practices were highly inconvenient when using DOS too. The elitism comes from those who used the net in the early days and those who have got the AOL CD on the door mat. It's a lack of understanding which can be sorted with polite education.
Why change usenet? It doesn't need changing. It works.
Usenet is like a mass of pubs. Some pubs you like, others you don't. Some are the olde worlde pubs that sell real ale, others sell mass produced beer and you can buy chip butties, others are more like wine bars and others are where the lager louts hang out. If you don't like your local you go somewhere else, you don't try and change it.
I am subscribed to several groups. We are all types of users, some newbies, some not. There are strict rules about the groups laid down in the group's charter. It's only twats who leap in without lurking for a while and who haven't read the charter who get stick. Usually they are helped politely first and it's only if they are beligerant do they get hassled. Most of the time the groups are nice happy families.
You wouldn't go to a pub and leap in to conversations without testing the water. So why do it on line.