I think you're making a big mistake in your
assumptions about the people who complain about
Dejanews. Your criticisms migh be valid, if the
people who were complaining were saying that we
had a natural right to good news service.
Of course we don't -- however, it is a simple
fact that Dejanews offers fewer services to
people who need a usenet archive/search utility
than it used to. Not only has deja's "complete"
usenet archive shrunk drastically in the amount
of time it covers, their main search from the
front page says: "I know what product I want".
If you want usenet searching, you have to follow
a little link below.
Try to bear in mind, we're not claiming to have
any right to dictate to deja how they run their
site. What we ARE saying is that deja sucks
as a usenet search engine, they've down some
pretty hokey stuff with our articles (such as
adding html references to their products to
keywords in our articles!), and as product-search-engines go, it just isn't that
great.
I also take issue with the notion that deja is
some sort of victim of our complaining here.
When they were a usenet search engine, they sold
ads. In return for getting to search the archive,
we had to deal with aforementioned ads. No, we
didn't have to pay money to use the archive,
but there was a price to be paid (no free lunch).
It's not that they're trying to make money --
it's that the service they're trying to sell us
on to make money sucks.
Just like we can compare and contrast internet
search engines (all of which are "free"), we can
analyze a usenet archive engine, and point out
that this one is failing miserably, and recommend
to all our friends that we not use it anymore.
I'm a reader of this forum, and if I could have
a usenet archive stretching back 10 years, I'd
be willing to pay a subscription for it. (People
already pay services like supernews for a news
feed -- what makes you think an archive couldn't
at least *possibly* be feasible that way, or
that all slashdot readers are freeloaders?)
Slashdot Mirror
Of course we don't -- however, it is a simple fact that Dejanews offers fewer services to people who need a usenet archive/search utility than it used to. Not only has deja's "complete" usenet archive shrunk drastically in the amount of time it covers, their main search from the front page says: "I know what product I want". If you want usenet searching, you have to follow a little link below.
Try to bear in mind, we're not claiming to have any right to dictate to deja how they run their site. What we ARE saying is that deja sucks as a usenet search engine, they've down some pretty hokey stuff with our articles (such as adding html references to their products to keywords in our articles!), and as product-search-engines go, it just isn't that great.
I also take issue with the notion that deja is some sort of victim of our complaining here. When they were a usenet search engine, they sold ads. In return for getting to search the archive, we had to deal with aforementioned ads. No, we didn't have to pay money to use the archive, but there was a price to be paid (no free lunch). It's not that they're trying to make money -- it's that the service they're trying to sell us on to make money sucks.
Just like we can compare and contrast internet search engines (all of which are "free"), we can analyze a usenet archive engine, and point out that this one is failing miserably, and recommend to all our friends that we not use it anymore.
I'm a reader of this forum, and if I could have a usenet archive stretching back 10 years, I'd be willing to pay a subscription for it. (People already pay services like supernews for a news feed -- what makes you think an archive couldn't at least *possibly* be feasible that way, or that all slashdot readers are freeloaders?)