Re: Emigration from Usenet

Johanne Fairchild <jfairchild@tudado.org> writes:

Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:

A core problem with Usenet is that you can’t exclude people whose net
contribution to a discussion is negative. If you have absolutist
ideas about free speech then, or are part of the problem, that may be
what you want. But if you actually want to get something useful done
there are better options available.

>
I agree.  I came to the conclusion that technical communities should be
semi-closed.  Like mailing lists, they can be open for reading, but
closed for writing.  I like NNTP.  I think that closing NNTP servers for
writing is a good thing.  I like the idea of getting an account by
invitation (from any other member).  Perhaps we could have good
communities this way again.

They do exist, including closed NNTP networks, not just single servers.

I’m sentimental about NNTP too. But the decentralization (of clients as
well as servers) leads, at scale, to insoluble structural problems. The
impossibility of exclusion referred to above is one of the consequences.
Another is that’s very hard to upgrade: any innovation will only really
work properly either if it degrades gracefully on legacy servers and/or
clients, or if it’s so compelling that essentially everyone is motivated
to upgrade.

For example Unicode has existed for more than half of Usenet’s lifetime
and yet adoption in the client software remains partial.

--
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