No Messages Here?

- J
- Just me
  
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posted
13 years ago

Sun, May 23, 2010 12:13 PM

I still think there's more to this than just people are not using Usenet like they used to. Something else is going on.

The number of posts in ALL of the newsgroups that I frequent dropped precipitously starting about three weeks ago. Groups where I used to get several hundred messages a day have dropped to several dozen and even less. Some groups where I used to get messages EVERY day I now often get none.

In addition I have noticed that I no longer get any spam messages in the newsgroups I subscribe to. Everything that comes down is a legitimate message. Maybe there is a connection there? And no, the removal of spam cannot account for all of the decrease in the number of messages I get!

I'm using Giganews and Comcast..

George snipped-for-privacy@nospamcomcast.net

- L
- Laura
  
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posted
13 years ago

Sun, May 23, 2010 2:14 PM

Most of my newsgroups are down in activity too. So are the yahoo & e-mail lists that I subscribe too. Many of my internet friends are busy working outside now that the weather has improved. A few have shifted from newsgroups/e-mail chat lists to Facebook because they are too busy doing other things to be online all day.

- J
- Jim H
  
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posted
13 years ago

Sun, May 23, 2010 5:44 PM

Cox sent me an email announcing their withdrawal from Usenet service. They included a discount offer for Giganews.

- D
- David H. Lipman
  
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posted
13 years ago

Sun, May 23, 2010 6:28 PM

| Cox sent me an email announcing their withdrawal from Usenet service. | They included a discount offer for Giganews.

Just like Verizon and Comcast.

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- wbertram
  
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posted
13 years ago

Sun, May 23, 2010 7:13 PM

Don't forget teranews.com. they offer a free account.

- L
- Laura
  
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posted
13 years ago

Sun, May 23, 2010 7:23 PM

I have a freebie teranews account but don't use it for posting. I have only been able to get it to post 1 or 2 messages of mine in the 5-6 years that I have had the account. Totally useless if you are an active poster.

Another free news server is news.eternal-september.org. All text newsgroups--no binaries allowed.

- B
- B
  
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posted
13 years ago

Sun, May 23, 2010 7:56 PM

I discovered that the name of the free eternal-september.org newsserver that I've been using suddenly stopped working. After a couple of days of getting (not able to connect to server" messages I went to their website and see that the server name I have been using for months or years was not listed. When I changed to one of the listed servers all is well again.

I wonder how many other people have been impacted by that.

- H
- Han
  
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posted
13 years ago

Sun, May 23, 2010 8:08 PM

B wrote in news:htc1ac$ho7$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal- september.org:

Used to be a song, brother can you spare a dime? Because of inflation, that should now read $10. This would give you years of downloads on astraweb.com, where there is no time limit to get your 25GB of downloads for $10. I have used less than 1 GB since June 20, 2008 (oh-eight).

- L
- Laura
  
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posted
13 years ago

Sun, May 23, 2010 8:12 PM

What server were you using? I have always used News.eternal-september.org.

I found several google posts indicating folks using just eternal-september.org for the server name not being able to connect.

- D
- David H. Lipman
  
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posted
13 years ago

Sun, May 23, 2010 9:10 PM

| I discovered that the name of the free eternal-september.org newsserver | that I've been using suddenly stopped working. After a couple of days | of getting (not able to connect to server" messages I went to their | website and see that the server name I have been using for months or | years was not listed. When I changed to one of the listed servers all | is well again.

| I wonder how many other people have been impacted by that.

Many - based upon Usenet posts indicating the same.

- J
- Jerry Boyle
  
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posted
13 years ago

Mon, May 24, 2010 12:51 AM

I've been using eternal-september with no problems since last July when AT&T and BellSouth shut down their news servers. A very belated thanks to Laura for making me aware of it way back then.

Jerry

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- Laura
  
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posted
13 years ago

Mon, May 24, 2010 12:58 AM

You are very welcome.

- N
- Nobody
  
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posted
13 years ago

Mon, May 24, 2010 1:02 AM

You've edited out that my comment applied to Oz and Kiwi ISP's who were singularly unhelpful to anyone trying to unnerstand what wuz going on!

Several years ago, my own ISP in western Canada signed me up with a freebie subscription to an NNTP server whose name I've forgotten.

Retention was abysmal... Giganews won easily at $US3/month for the few GB I need.

- R
- Rick Hess
  
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posted
13 years ago

Mon, May 24, 2010 1:51 PM

I'm using news.eternal-september.org and news.aioe.org simultaneously. I've found the latter to be more reliable. Both are free.

- B
- B
  
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posted
13 years ago

Tue, May 25, 2010 6:30 PM

Had been using eternal-september.org for quite some time. Only very recently that stopped working. Eventually I discovered that the solution was to change the server to news.external-september.org.