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| Author |
Message |
tpryan
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Will Usenet news return?
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Nov 24 18:19 UTC 1996 |
rn
News on Grex is down. Sorry!
It may be back in several months.
It's been several months. Any progress or desire to do news?
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| 62 responses total. |
dang
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response 1 of 62:
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Nov 24 18:22 UTC 1996 |
I think the problem right now is the link. It's **SLOW**.
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otter
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response 2 of 62:
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Nov 24 19:00 UTC 1996 |
Besides, there are lots of other places to get usenet news. I'd rather see
grex's resources used in other ways. For you telnetters, try envirolink.org
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scg
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response 3 of 62:
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Nov 24 19:04 UTC 1996 |
Or nether.net. Jared says he's happy to have his system flooded with people
looking for news and e-mail, while Grex would really like not to be used for
that sort of thing nearly as much.
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janc
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response 4 of 62:
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Nov 24 20:19 UTC 1996 |
I think there are a few people on staff who are eager to see news on Grex,
but we're far from unanimous on that. It's a big drain on reasources.
Ultimately, the decision is up to the users, not the staff, however.
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dang
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response 5 of 62:
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Nov 25 00:39 UTC 1996 |
At this point in time, I would be definately against it. It's bad enough over
my 14.4 modem, but trying to pump it in and out over Grex's link would be Bad
Bad Bad (tm).
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kerouac
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response 6 of 62:
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Nov 25 19:37 UTC 1996 |
If grex partitions itselrf and adds a second computer, surely that would
make usenet more feasible. Since the grex conferences are open to anyone,
there is an argument that it is unfair for usenet to be a member perk. So
it usenet is offered again, everyone should use it. Problem is, as
currently grex is so slow, if you ran "tin" from here you could be old and
gray haired before you made it through a conf!
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scg
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response 7 of 62:
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Nov 25 20:06 UTC 1996 |
No matter how we devide up network bandwidth, it remains somewhat finite.
Adding a second computer without adding more network bandwidth wouldnt' help
Usenet in the least. It would theoretically be possible for us to add more
network bandwidth and then add Usenet, but I think we have much better things
to do with any additional bandwidth we can get.
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krj
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response 8 of 62:
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Nov 25 21:21 UTC 1996 |
My feeling is that Usenet News is (1) a commodity service, available from
lots of places; (2) resource-intensive, in terms of bandwidth/disk/staff;
(3) decreasing significantly in terms of interest & usefulness, as it
really does start to turn into "CB radio."
I'd rather see resources go elsewhere.
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kerouac
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response 9 of 62:
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Nov 25 21:43 UTC 1996 |
On the other hand, who knows how many people subscribe to
usenet or listserv groups via email, and how much of that
accounts for the current mail bulk. If users were able
to access such groups outside of email, then email load would
go down theoretically and the extra space needed to offer such
would seem warranted.
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kerouac
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response 10 of 62:
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Nov 25 23:51 UTC 1996 |
An argumenbt against having open usenet here is that doing so
would increase grex's email load. I learned the hard way
myself not to post on usenet using my primary email address.
Junk emailers regularly download active email addresses from usenet
postings. ON the login that I usenet from, I must get dozens
of get rich quick solicitations and other such. Open usenet
would result in a substantial increase in junk email coming here.
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arthurp
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response 11 of 62:
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Nov 26 01:01 UTC 1996 |
Usenet is commodity. Get it from someplace that has the resources to provide
that service. It takes about 4GB of disk to buffer a days traffic from a full
feed. (At least that's the last I heard prolly worse now).
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scott
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response 12 of 62:
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Nov 26 01:41 UTC 1996 |
Yeah, Usenet is still a bit too expensive for Grex. Used to be a lot smaller,
which is why Grex used to be able to provide it.
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kerouac
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response 13 of 62:
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Nov 26 17:07 UTC 1996 |
I think grex could offer open IRC though without muchproblem. Never
understood the logic behind making IRC a member perk when there are enough
places to get it free that noone is going topay for it. Open IRC would be
a nice companion to party.
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draven
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response 14 of 62:
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Nov 27 03:52 UTC 1996 |
It could also be argued that, with so many places offering IRC, why should
we waste our time and resources with it?
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tsty
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response 15 of 62:
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Nov 29 06:27 UTC 1996 |
we shouldn't ...
i used to be STRONGLY in favor of peoviding usenet news. now, it's
just a mediocre 'in favor.' i'd be delighted if grex *were* able to
offer usenet news though. irc ... not!
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ajax
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response 16 of 62:
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Nov 30 09:05 UTC 1996 |
I think there are lots of lukewarm feelings toward Usenet on Grex.
It used to be a much more popular idea here, but I think it's lost
some luster. It is just a tremendously resource-consuming service
to offer. My ISP doesn't even have its own news server - they pay
another company to provide their users with news service.
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kerouac
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response 17 of 62:
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Nov 30 20:57 UTC 1996 |
Ad as I understand it, members can usenet anyway, because
they can outbound telnet and run tin from grex's internet connection.
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scg
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response 18 of 62:
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Dec 1 02:31 UTC 1996 |
In theory, yes. However, the amount of stuff that has to transfer just to
get started on reading news is such that it would take all day.
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ajax
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response 19 of 62:
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Dec 1 07:21 UTC 1996 |
Members can use the NNTP protocol, which connects to other news
servers through tin or other news reader programs. You need a news
server on the other end, though, which means either a public news
server (often slow themselves, compounded by Grex's slowness), or
one that you're probably paying for with a real ISP, so you'd
generally want to use that ISP for access.
On the extremely rare occasions when I want to check Usenet news
from Grex, I telnet to a shell account I have elsewhere, and run
tin on that machine. It's far faster than running tin on Grex,
and connecting to a remote news server.
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arthurp
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response 20 of 62:
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Dec 1 18:20 UTC 1996 |
Yep, me too.
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krj
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response 21 of 62:
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Dec 3 01:25 UTC 1996 |
draven in #14: sure, that would be a good argument, if IRC consumed
anywhere near the resources that News does.
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tpryan
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response 22 of 62:
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Dec 13 23:13 UTC 1996 |
So, will Usenet news return to GREX?
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kaplan
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response 23 of 62:
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Dec 13 23:44 UTC 1996 |
Re 22, I think it's unlikely that usenet news will return to grex any time
soon. As a member, I would vote against it.
Re 0, shouldn't this item be linked to coop?
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kerouac
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response 24 of 62:
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Dec 14 01:17 UTC 1996 |
if a new SUN is cobbled together and grex is partitioned, maybe usenet
would be more feasible.
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