[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> In comp.lang.perl.misc John Bokma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> the argument that usenet should never change seems a little
>>> heavy-handed and anachronistic.
>> No, simple since there *are* alternatives: web based message boards. Those
>> alternatives *do* support HTML formatting (often the subset mentioned
>
> ... and generally these "web based message boards" (i.e. forums I
> assume you mean) have none of the useful tools that Usenet offers and
> are much, much slower.
That is because NNTP and its applications didn't evolve to feed the
glitzy need lots of users have.
Sadly web forums (esp. the ugly, sloooow PHPBB, and the unspeakable
Google groups) are increasingly replacing usenet, but there are
exceptions (DragonflyBSD).
On the information side (in contrast to the discussion side) RSS is
replacing Usenet, with some obvious disadvantages: go on vacation,
return after a week, and -- yahoo! -- all your RSS feeds only turn of
the, say, most recent 30 articles, while your newsgroups all show
everything you missed.
There is no real reason why NNTP couldn't be used like RSS (i.e. contain
a small description and a web link as message text), or why a newsgroup
shouldn't we written in HTML and contain a (default, or user-provided)
CSS sheet. If things were that way, suddenly people *would* use Outlook
and Thunderbird for news-reading, while today everything is just
Browser+HTTP.
Oh, yes:</rant>
--
I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people
all day long and I assume they deserve it.
Dogbert
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