
The Early History of Usenet - matt_d
https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/blog/control/tag_index.html#TH_Usenet_history
======
olah_1
Check out Aether[1] and Notabug[2] for some spiritual successors btw.

[1]: [https://github.com/nehbit/aether](https://github.com/nehbit/aether)

[2]:
[https://github.com/notabugio/notabug](https://github.com/notabugio/notabug)

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bbanyc
I knew that the decentralized structure of Usenet was born from necessity, but
I didn't realize how hard it was just to get a modem back then.

Can decentralized services work on the modern Internet? Even setting aside how
spam and illegal content destroyed Usenet as a discussion medium, in its late
stages it became a playground for kooks and trolls at the expense of
legitimate posting. Killfiles didn't work as the bad actors could easily
change names and email addresses; get them thrown off one server and they'd
just sign up on another one. The only way to ban someone from a newsgroup and
make it stick is with a court order - and that happened at least once.

Another post from the same blog details why the troll problem was
technologically impossible to solve:
[https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/blog/2018-02/2018-02-23.htm...](https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/blog/2018-02/2018-02-23.html)

~~~
greglindahl
Reddit has some similar troll problems, and there are a bunch of bots people
have written to manipulate subreddits to nuke trolls. It's a much easier
problem for them, though, because Reddit itself is centralized. So a bot
action takes place immediately instead of over many hours.

The first time I can recall anyone tried widespread cancels in Usenet was
Clarinet, and it didn't work very well.

------
commandlinefan
I’m always a little surprised to be reminded that Usenet still exists.

~~~
pwg
It still exists, and some groups do continue to have discussions.

For access to the textual groups, you can use Eternal September
([https://www.eternal-september.org/](https://www.eternal-september.org/)) or
AIOE ([https://news.aioe.org/](https://news.aioe.org/)) with a newsreader
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Usenet_newsreaders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Usenet_newsreaders))
to see what discussions are continuing to happen.

~~~
y0ghur7_xxx
Sorry I have to chime in, because there is also my very own nntp server with
also a web interface for people who don't want to download a client:
[https://in.memory.of.e.tern.al/comp.misc/](https://in.memory.of.e.tern.al/comp.misc/)

There are still some people there, and talking about stuff. It's very much
like hacker news, but with much less people :)

