
Google has made Usenet archives impossible to search - tarr11
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/google-a-search-company-has-made-its-internet-archive-impossible-to-search
======
th0ma5
This has been fixed
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/apps/JEIYhpk7aa...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/apps/JEIYhpk7aaE/VqPInidInb0J)

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sigmonsays
Its been fixed people...read the google groups thread....

~~~
joe_the_user
Links please

~~~
th0ma5
Read here:
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/apps/JEIYhpk7aa...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/apps/JEIYhpk7aaE/VqPInidInb0J)

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smt88
The usability of almost all Google products is on a baffling nosedive. Google
search now reinterprets the words searches so thoroughly that my own keywords
appear far from the top of the results. "Ok Google" worked amazingly well on
my 2013 Moto X, but it's terrible on my 2015 Moto X. It misunderstands almost
everything I say, and it doesn't tell me what I've just done the way it used
to.

There are myriad small examples of this, and I think we've all seen the Google
support forum posts where someone has suggested a seemingly obvious fix, and
Google ignores it (even as the +1's number into the thousands).

It's incredibly frustrating to have my live absolutely saturated by a company
that doesn't seem to care at all how usable their products are.

And don't even get me started on the worst usability disaster of the last 5
years: Material design.

~~~
harryf
> And don't even get me started on the worst usability disaster of the last 5
> years: Material design.

Would be interested to hear it. To me it seems to work pretty well in the
Google Maps app on mobile - mostly intuitive. What problems do you see?

~~~
smt88
Material has the same issues as any flat design. It doesn't provide
affordances[1]. If something is just a rectangle, you don't know whether it's
button or not. Sometimes, things look like text but are actually clickable.

There's a Google app (I can't remember which) where a text-entry box is the
same color as the top bar. So you just see the red top bar, and then an arrow
that indicates "go back". That's it. If you tap the top bar, suddenly a cursor
appears, and you realize you can enter text. I constantly find myself confused
in Google apps because of that exact issue.

Problems with flat (and Material) design have been written about
extensively[2][3][4]. Recently, there was even a study showing that young
people are more confused by UIs than they used to be because of flat design.
It takes them longer to figure out where to click.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance#As_perceived_action...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance#As_perceived_action_possibilities)

2\. [https://www.nngroup.com/articles/clickable-
elements/](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/clickable-elements/)

3\. [https://medium.com/tech-in-asia/material-design-why-the-
floa...](https://medium.com/tech-in-asia/material-design-why-the-floating-
action-button-is-bad-ux-design-acd5b32c5ef)

4\. [http://www.matthewmooredesign.com/almost-flat-
design/](http://www.matthewmooredesign.com/almost-flat-design/)

------
pmoriarty
The title is hyperbole. Rather that being impossible to search at all, the
problem is that "the 'before:YYYY/MM/DD' and 'after:YYYY/MM/DD' terms have
stopped working, and it also appears to no longer be possible to search by
date."

That said, Google's web interface to Usenet has always been garbage compared
to the standalone news readers of even 20 years ago. I've long wondered when
the day would come that Google stopped seeing it worth their bother to
maintain their Usenet archive. Hopefully when that day comes they'll donate it
to a more capable institution.

~~~
cpeterso
The Internet Archive would be an ideal Usenet custodian.

~~~
pmoriarty
That I'm not so sure of. The Internet Archive itself has recently made a
rather controversial Web 2.0 style makeover of their own site.

~~~
tennysonmach
Those are weasel words ("some people say").

They've spent a lot of effort on improving playback and media discovery, and
on the contrary, I've heard a lot of positives.

If there's some specific or large deviation from their mission that you
perceive from their re-design, I'd like to hear it. I have a great interest in
internet preservation, and even though I'm not associated with IA, I would
hope to learn more about how people are using the collected work of
organizations of the IA and how to better serve those people.

~~~
sillysaurus3
When I go to archive.org, I care about one thing: Pasting a URL to a now-
broken site into their search bar.

I don't know how other people use it. But for me, that's their central
function. And their redesigns have sometimes made that more difficult.

The current version is okay. One of their previous versions hid the search bar
somewhere else, and that was very annoying.

As for the rest of the site, I've never used it.

~~~
y4mi
why would you browse to their homepage for that? its exactly why custom search
engines exist, and its sure as hell is faster to write "ia ctrl-v" into your
address bar than navigating there...

~~~
sillysaurus3
[http://i.imgur.com/vv8LuDZ.png](http://i.imgur.com/vv8LuDZ.png)

Because it's not default, and learning how to tweak a browser isn't fun to me.
I'd rather study history, or how to write well.

I also have an irrational sense that bypassing someone's website is wrong. By
avoiding their homepage, I'd also be avoiding their plea for donations, for
example. But I realize this is an irrational feeling, and the only reason I'm
voicing it is because you asked why I personally won't do that.

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TactiFail
I always feel like I missed out on a pretty exciting era whenever I read about
Usenet. I envy those who have strong memories around comp.* and wish that I
could have been a part of it.

~~~
steven2012
Take reddit and remove all the karma whoring, and you have the Usenet. I think
reddit is essentially Usenet 2.0 for all intents and purposes. You get all of
the good and bad associated with Usenet, but in a much more easily accessible
format.

~~~
DanBC
Reddit is a much worse form of Usenet.

You're limited to the reddit clients; you're limited to what admins allow; and
you're limited to what mods allow.

~~~
steven2012
I disagree. I think reddit is much, much more accessible, and because of that,
some of the communities on reddit are thriving in a way that was never
possible with the Usenet.

------
harryf
Kinda ironic that Google employs Vint Cerf who spends his time trying to raise
awareness of bit rot -
[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/google-
bos...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/google-boss-warns-
forgotten-century-email-photos-vint-cerf)

------
yuhong
I once reported the now fixed
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10236987](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10236987)
here on HN.

------
mr-ron
I am really upset there is no good way of searching archives of usenet. It is
a fascinating piece of history.

I used to have a pretty good screen scraper that would search queries on the
Google Groups Usenet archives. Inspired by images like this
[http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom_clones?file=Doom_clone_vs_fi...](http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom_clones?file=Doom_clone_vs_first_person_shooter.png)

I was able to dredge some pretty amazing historic articles. Some examples:

First impressions of the GNU manifesto:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.arts.animation/n...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.arts.animation/nKfkfLmfzM4)

Furst impressions of SNES

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.games.video/gt3T...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.games.video/gt3TN5_EnPY)

First impressions of PERL

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.sources.d/QPt28...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.sources.d/QPt288ya0QI)

First impressions of Eminem

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.music.hip-
hop/oL...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.music.hip-
hop/oLAW4Mlt8Sk)

Steve jobs leaves in 85

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/net.micro.mac/93SYtB...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/net.micro.mac/93SYtBQKEQw)

First impressions of Doom:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.sys.ibm.pc.game...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action/331R_W597JA)

People pissed at apple in 84

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/net.flame/e4-wxFKyUu...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/net.flame/e4-wxFKyUuE)

WWW first announced:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.sys.next.announ...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.sys.next.announce/avWAjISncfw)

~~~
tarr11
On a lighter note, Elon Musk sharing Virtua Fighter tips:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.games.video.arcade...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.games.video.arcade/QRFJiSJHN0k/BJv6bXiFBbAJ)

~~~
mr-ron
hah nice! There are also articles of linus torvalds asking for Computer help
pre linux

------
dang
The article is from Feb. 2015. Has the situation changed since then?

~~~
tarr11
Looks like you can now use the "before:" operator again, but there's no
documentation of it in Google Groups Help.

It used to be part of the UI, they've removed / hidden it. But at least it is
back.

------
kev009
I run a public Usenet node, it's not that hard and is kind of fun:
[http://csiph.com](http://csiph.com)

One of my goals is to eventually build a web frontend that doesn't suck..
Google Groups is pretty terrible. I would love to find a way to crawl and
archive Google's Usenet archive but they rate limited it many years ago.
Highwinds/easynews has complete text retention back to 2003 or so, and I think
that's the oldest I've seen elsewhere.

I released a SaltStack formula [https://github.com/kev009/salt-
innd](https://github.com/kev009/salt-innd) so you can see what an inn config
looks like and set up your own. Without peering, it would be a pretty nice way
to do company discussion.. new employees can see all the old topics which
mailing lists are often not ideal for.

Feel free to PM me for posting access or peering, would be nice to get more
discussion and eyeballs in the comp.* space.

------
peter303
Usesnet is still alive, but mostly unused. Its posts were not immediately
displayed like Hacker News. Imwas a user in 1990s.

~~~
kseistrup
What do you mean “its posts were not immediately displayed”? You were always
able to see you own posts immediately, and it would take just a few seconds
for a post to propagate globally.

------
blackguardx
It was a sad day when Google shut down Deja News. Google's replacement was
definitely inferior and ultimately turned me away from Usenet for good.

------
ipadbluesfor_dl
it's not just google. it applies to innumerable apps in the App store as well.

The term "upgrade" should only apply to things that have the option to revert
back to a previous version. Only then is it a true upgrade, a term supposed to
indicate enhancement.

otherwise, it is brazenly a false upgrade.

