Never seen that button. Speaks for the UI designer, that a comment about a function is more visible than the function itself ;-) Just kidding, I am a fault for not looking right!
Whilst we're on the subject, there's another function you may have missed. If you've got showdead on (via your account settings) and you see a dead post or story that you thought was worth sharing, click on the timestamp by the post and click on the 'vouch' link there to suggest that it shouldn't be hidden.
What's your provider? I'm on Giganews and while retention is pretty high, old files (>2 years) almost always are a problem for me. Something is missing, and there are not enough of pars to fix. This happened so much that I no longer bother with anything above 2 years.
For the same cost as a Usenet provider and indexer (some indexers have a fee(s)), you could easily buy a little torrent seed box. I find torrent sites are much more organized in their content libraries and more reliable for quick, complete downloads - especially with a dedicated torrent box doing the work.
That is not to mention the added benefit of using remote storage so you don't have to have multiple TBs of drives around, and the opportunity to run a Plex server right from the box.
As a Usenet subscriber a couple years ago I have had the opposite experience you described: multiple failed downloads, poor retention, bad labeling (often foreign language content downloaded by mistake), and high barrier of entry for automation (relatively). I used DogNZB and combined multiple provider block accounts for redundancy.
Alternatively, the private tracker community is much larger and more active than the Usenet community in my experience. And they don't charge you for access. The seedbox situation outlined above can be just as automatic (autodl-irssi for one example) and often much faster (dedicated euroservers often burst to ~100Mbps to 1Gbps depending).
I think only very poor countries are overpopulated, because when there is no social security system and you can't save anything for yourself when you get old because you are poor, the only way is to get many children to hope that they will provide for you when you are old.
Rich countries which offer "free" (payed with taxes) social cares like Germany suffer from too many old people and too few children. So you have to offer more benefits for young families to get more children.
If you develop a social security net in poorer countries maybe families will start to get fewer children, because the state will care for you with no exception.
Why? I don't get it. Facilities like these (and health care, care for the old/jobless) benefit our society, why shouldn't you pay for them with tax money?
What else should tax money be used for then?
Why is the US thinking that way?
Well it is like that in Germany, and it worked the last few decades. Homeless people get free food and free shelter.
If the government should not provide anything, why should there be a government? You get taxed because the government provides something for you and the provided services need to get paid. I doubt you want to live in total anarchy without police, firemen or a working sewerage for example.
>You get taxed because the government provides something for you and the provided services need to get paid.
To the extent I want or need those services I will be happy to pay for them individually like I do anything else. If the services government provides me are desired than I should be free to choose to pay for them and if I do not then I would not be able to take advantage of said services.
>I doubt you want to live in total anarchy without police, firemen or a working sewerage for example.
My Fire dept is all Volunteer funded by donations from the community, it gets very little to no tax money. I believe taxes may have paid for the fire truck, but that money could have been raised with out taxes.
I have a septic tank, no government sewer service, but even if I did every city near me has private run water and sewer services that are paid for by the people connected to them not by tax dollars
Police is the only service on your list that is actually paid for by tax dollars, that makes up about .000000000000000000000000000001% of my tax bill, if the police want to send me a bill for their service I will be happy to pay it directly and not have the rest of the government burden.
https://box86.org/2022/12/box64-on-asahi-with-experimental-g...