Re: Request Nova BBS add easier-to-remember search URL links for Usenet article lookups

Retro Guy wrote on Wed, 20 Mar 2024 14:57:27 +0000 :

The above task is complete.
There is now a 'copy link' to click to copy link to clipboard
in each message's header.
Please let me know what I broke while adding this :)

Ah. Perfect. Thank you. For the dummies.
Since "No good deed ever goes unpunished!", here's what I'll try.

 < ALMOST RANDOM ANCIENT HISTORY REPLAY >
On the Android newsgroup today is the classic argument (mostly from morons)
that the cellphone caused accident rates in the USA to skyrocket, and yet,
they didn't for two reasons - & the only place you see it being said that
the accident rate skyrocketed, was by 3 major agencies with an ax to grind.

But the reliable government agency (the US Census Bureau) who has been
reliably documenting normalized accident rates for all 50 US states since
the 1920s, shows no effect whatsoever on the accident rate from before,
during or after the meteoric rise in cellphone ownership rates.

Also, no US safety-related law (such as hands-free operation) has had any
statistically valid effect on the accident rate in the USA dating back
decades (according to aggregate studies) - but there was a second-order
effect on length of hospital stay, which the researches hypothesized was
likely due mostly to restraint laws such as the use of seatbelts/airbags.
 < /ALMOST RANDOM ANCIENT HISTORY REPLAY >

The reason it's "almost random" is that I needed this link just today!
(But I didn't want to go to the trouble of looking for it, until now.)

1. So, let's go to the Android newsgroup NovaBBS URL
   <https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=comp.mobile.android>
2. Tap the convenient "Search" button.
   (I had expected the URL to change, but it didn't change.)
3. Take the default of "Body" (but it's nice to see the others).
4. Type in the "Search terms" field (does it take regex perhaps?)
   first-order effect
5. Press "Search"
   (Again, I had expected the URL to change, but it didn't change from
    https://www.novabbs.com/computers/search.php)
6. Drat. I know that's wrong but it said
   "0 matching articles found"
Hmmm... I had never intended to test how far back it goes, so let me
first find the article in the normal Google Usenet search to make sure
that what I'm seeking existed (I remember the discussions well).
7. Go to the Google (no longer updated) search engine
   https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android
8. Type "first-order effect" in the search box.
   (as expected, the URL changes - which is helpful for future searches)
   https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android/search?q=first-order%20effect
9. That found two threads, one from July 6, 2020 & one from March 16, 2016
   <https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android/c/ygt6XZCvhX8/>
   <https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android/c/Ve_2cgliiGk/>
10. Does the NovaBBS go back that far?

Let me try the message-id first. Drat. Google doesn't provide it anymore.
And they're so far back that it won't be in my news server's archives.

Let's see by searching for the SUBJECT now that we know what it is.
2. Go to
3. Change the NovaBBS search default to "Subject" instead of "Body"
4. Type in the "Search terms" field (does it take regex perhaps?)
   They finally found proof texting bans - does it make a difference
5. Press "Search"
6. Drat. "0 matching articles found"

OK. Let's go to today's thread on the subject instead, as this
may simply be that NovaBBS archives don't go back that far
(which is just fine, BTW, as the Google Archives go way back).

1. Start at the top at the given Android newsgroup.
   <https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=comp.mobile.android>
2. Click on the recent thread (second in the listing)
   "Re: No fault cell phone law"
   The display, by the way, is sheer beauty in both simplicity,
   and in functionality, presenting the tree at top & articles below.
3. Click on a random article in that recent thread.
   Re: No fault cell phone law
   <MPG.406228b7abad68fc9902c6@news.individual.net> copy mid   
   https://www.novabbs.com/computers/article-flat.php?id=50820&group=comp.mobile.android#50820 copy link  
   Newsgroups: comp.mobile.android
   by: Stan Brown - Mon, 18 Mar 2024 13:32

Voila! You are a Usenet God. There it is.
In addition, I was curious what the open checkbox was for
next to Stan Brown's name, so as I am want to do, I clicked it.

Up showed the entire header (something Google stopped doing!).
 Path: i2pn2.org!i2pn.org!usenet.goja.nl.eu.org!3.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail
 From: the_stan...@fastmail.fm (Stan Brown)
 Newsgroups: comp.mobile.android
 Subject: Re: No fault cell phone law
 Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2024 11:32:56 -0700
 Organization: Oak Road Systems
 Lines: 25
 Message-ID: <MPG.406228b7abad68fc9902c6@news.individual.net>
 References: <ut4s0v$9ei$1@toxic.dizum.net> <ut5bef$353ou$2@dont-email.me> <ut5s9m$3bjd7$2@dont-email.me> <MPG.4060b42225f15ccb9902c4@news.individual.net> <ut793f$3krla$1@dont-email.me>
 Mime-Version: 1.0
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
 X-Trace: individual.net +YzOkPQEFWYt80jw3ALlyQninOU0J2ShImJzuMWWYSrPZsnPyH
 Cancel-Lock: sha1:24wMXEiESCaHpC5C3HgfXI/UmBc=sha256:TTU4UYlPqKEFOfdsXHHzg8QH/x6PP0WZgwPVJvBhH7s=
 User-Agent: MicroPlanet-Gravity/3.0.11 (GRC)

I didn't even need to click the "copy mid" link as a selection
and then paste is all I've been doing to get all of the above.

But to test how "copy link" shows up in the Windows 10 clipboard,
I clicked it, and to my expectation, put this in my clipboard.
<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/article-flat.php?id=50820&group=comp.mobile.android#50820>

This can be sent to dummies, who don't need to know how to properly
capitalize Usenet in order to just paste that link into their web browser
on any platform, even on the smartphone, to read that article.

In addition, I pressed the "copy mid" link whose results can
be pasted into various MID lookup engines on the net.
 <http://al.howardknight.net/>
 <http://news.chmurka.net/mid.php>
 <http://usenet.ovh/index.php?article=ual>
 <https://www.novabbs.com/SEARCH/search_nocem.php>
 etc.

1. HowardKnight worked as expected to provide a link to the article.
   <http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3CMPG.406228b7abad68fc9902c6%40news.individual.net%3E>
2. Chmurka repeatedly failed without any display of why it failed.
3. OVH worked to display the article but no link to it was provided.
   So OVH failed in effect.
4. NovaBBS said "Message-ID not found in NoCeM messages"
   (which is true, but then NovaBBS provided a link to the article)
   <https://www.novabbs.com/SEARCH/search_nocem.php?d=%3CMPG.406228b7abad68fc9902c6%40news.individual.net%3E>
  
I'd say it's almost perfect, the only extremely minor thing is that a dummy
can't tell there are two links (copy mid copy link) which are right next to
each other, since only spaces separate them so maybe a "comma" would help
dummies (e.g., copy mid, copy link) so that they know it's two links.

See! I told you no good deed goes wholly unpunished!

In summary, THANK YOU Retro BBS guy for adding value to the Usenet search
engine capability so that people can now do two things with efficiency.

1. They can search before they post, which allows them to start where
   all the others left off to add value to each thread from there...

2. And, they can search Usenet newsgroups for articles to cite so
   that they can send that link to even their grandma who only needs
   to know how to use the web browser on her platform of choice.