some news servers have very long article retention, with terabytes
of overview and article storage, and some newsgroups with millions
of articles, from historical usenet archives, commercial providers
e.g. utzoo-wiseman archive
http://annex.retroarchive.org/utzoo and
https://archive.org/details/usenethistorical with many hierarchies;
these archives can also be searched by retrieving overview headers
online> sample headers from selected groups > download all headers
(up to 'x'), the total available depending on server and newsgroup,
or select a smaller number as needed; after downloading be sure to
set group > selected group options to "never" purge read or unread
article headers; subscribe to newsgroup, and backup entire program
folder (c:\40tude dialogue) to removable media; with the newsgroup
article list pane selected [f6], try subject > has, and enter some
keyword probably found in that group, e.g. famous historical event
in
news:alt.history.ocean-liners.titanic, type "iceberg" and press
enter (or click button on right side) to filter the list, which if
using the popular "news.blueworldhosting.com" server, should yield
about three dozen articles; select all and press enter to download
these small article bodies; in edit > find [ctrl+f] > text to find
in article body pane, try "olympic" in scope > selected group, and
click ok, total of ten instances may be found using find next [f3];
but there are about three thousand four hundred (3400) articles in
this newsgroup, many dating back over twenty years, so it's easier
to search overview subject headers first for keywords, then filter
the list before downloading several dozen rather than thousands of
article bodies (any server may block ip if excessive use detected);
many free newsservers store articles for only about one year, some
even less, but others have longer retention, so the best way is to
test them; add as many servers as you like, and get complete group
list for each; at this writing news.alt119.net, paganini.bofh.team,
news.usenet.ovh, freenews.netfront.net, news.novabbs.org, and some
others (see
news:alt.free.newsservers) should be added to the list;
pick one popular newsgroup and download all headers on each server
for comparison; the server i've been using regularly on "localhost"
has less than one year of article retention, but connects securely
via omnimix and using tor browser, socks 5, implicit ssl, port 563;
while some newsgroups have remained popular over the years, others
have not or had long ago succumbed to troll farm infestation which
overran that formerly active discussion forum--perhaps hundreds of
newsgroups fit that description? but sometimes the public interest
in a particular subject like the sinking of a luxury liner in 1912
waxes and wanes over time; sometimes the subject of a newsgroup is
too obscure or lacks common definition, e.g. politics and religion
are not alone in that category; anything other-worldly, paranormal,
occult, ufos, aliens, ghosts, crop circles, tarot, astrology, etc.,
is also too far removed from this weaponized world of human beings
who are united in but one common purpose, namely the love of money;
even so, there are many newsgroups that still attract some modicum
of on-topic discussion and that makes archive searches worth while;
also, recommended reading about how articles are stored on servers:
https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/inn/docs/install.html
Choosing an Article Storage Format
https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/inn/docs/install.html#S6
Choosing an Overview Storage Mechanism
https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/inn/docs/install.html#S7
Article retention and archive search