Why is this n/g so quiet these days?

It seems to be a trend with all usenet newsgroups. Some other groups which I've been following for many years now have almost no activity at all. Most people are using web-based discussion forums instead these days. A lot of people are not even aware of the existence of usenet any more.

It's unfortunate, because with a decent newsreader usenet is one of the most efficient ways of reading and participating in online discussions.

Chris

In message , AL_n writes

Newsgroup activity varies, whatever the group, but in the next year or two there will be about 1M people worrying what to do with their redundancy money, and we may get quite a few enquiries here. It may have already started...

Then there is the 6% increased contribution proposed to the EU, which will just about wipe out the "savings" announced in the Spending Review.

There'll soon be lots to talk about... ;-)

Amen. Web-based forums equals fragmentation with little information transfer between different forums, I would guess.

It occurs to me that there will be a fair number of influential people who have little reason to love Usenet. (Politicians, manufacturers, telecomm companies, security services for a start).

Whether they could encourage people away from Usenet towards something where you can't witter too much is another matter. But I don't think it's paranoid to consider that as at least a possibility.

ISPs find reasons nowadays to stop carrying Usenet and to block ports.

The gov't. announces that cyberwarfare is a major threat. How long before they virtually shoot a presumed virtual terrorist? The definition of virtual terrorist might be 'someone who claims we've got it wrong - again.' Or someone who has the wrong kind of politics.

I've suffered several puzzling faults recently to telephone and Internet in more than one location; others report an upsurge in problems; and (maybe it's only because they've made me aware of their actions) I seem to see a heck of a lot of OpenReach vans driving around town or digging up the road.

I'm just being fanciful in imagining a big orange button in the Bank of England which when pushed shuts down all communications nationwide, except those of the banks and of the right kind of politician. I hope.

In message , Windmill writes

You're just paranoid. :-) I keep rather more cash in my wallet than I did before the banking crisis after seeing what happened to Northern Rock customers in the short term. There is "No money left" for another major bail-out of the banks.

I've been posting since 1996 and I pop in now and again, but my posting is much less. I deliberatly withdraw when individual.net started charging because usenet was taking too much of my time. I use The Motley Fool and Stockopedia forums for my own benefit and help people on the ThisIsMoney forum. Something I've noticed on forums which have rewards systems is that my posts are not appreciated consequently, I'm withdrawing from TMF and Stockopedia. I do like usenet, via something like individual.net, so maybe I made the wrong choice in dropping it.

I also like the idea of an uncensored communications channel although perhaps this is niave thinking as it seems to be easy enough for ISPs to switch off.

Google who too over the Dejanews front end could have promoted it but instead allowed spam and also created there own wierd group system which seems also to have been taken over by spammers creating millions of one post groups.

Not much doubt about it!

And sometimes, reading between the lines, it seems that they haven't got the message.

The banks call the shots, and there is nothing the government can do about it. A General Strike might bring reality back; how about a Winter of Discontent? ;-)