In article <ulhl1v$1tiqu$1@dont-email.me>,
Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> wrote:
>Am 15.12.2023 um 22:20:23 Uhr schrieb noel:
>
>> On Fri, 15 Dec 2023 13:04:28 +0100, Marco Moock wrote:
>>
>> > Am 15.12.2023 um 21:54:27 Uhr schrieb noel:
>> >
>> >> On Fri, 15 Dec 2023 09:00:23 +0100, Marco Moock wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > Am 14.12.2023 um 22:56:56 Uhr schrieb Julieta Shem:
>> >> >
>> >> >> We got to provide solutions our ourselves.
>> >> >
>> >> > Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid
>> >> > light?
>> >>
>> >> If you want web interfaces go run a forum.
>> >>
>> >> dnews has a web interface - I shut it down in the late 90's
>> >> because the more who found it abused it.
>> >
>> > There is no need to have a posting opportunity there.
>> > But those web interfaces make it possible to find content via
>> > regular search engines.
>> > Or do you know a Usenet search engine that can query NNTP servers?
>>
>>
>> Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it
>> survived just fine back in the say before search engines
>
>Because there is a need to find information that has been posted months
>or years ago.
>
>That means that a search engine needs to be able to index it.
>I don't know any search engine that queries NNTP.
>

WEll what about pre-GG web interfaces to USenet?
--
Member - Liberal International This is doctor@nk.ca Ici doctor@nk.ca
Yahweh, King & country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism ; unsubscribe from Google Groups to be seen
Merry Christmas 2023 and Happy New year 2024 Beware https://mindspring.com

In article <871qbnef3v.fsf@yaxenu.org>, Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> wrote:
>noel <deletethis@invalid.lan> writes:
>
>[...]
>
>> Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
>> just fine back in the say before search engines
>
>That's an interesting point. It is perhaps a good idea not to display
>anything on the web precisely so that we do not attract people with an
>interest in seeing information displayed to a world such as the web.
>For instance, if we display something on the web, the system might be of
>interest to spammers.
>
>Maybe we should keep the USENET as hidden from the world as possible.
>This closedness might actually work as an invitation. The value of the
>USENET is the value of the people in it. If we only invite technical
>people, for instance, the USENET becomes attractive to whose interested
>in such properties.

What about non-tech hobbyists?
--
Member - Liberal International This is doctor@nk.ca Ici doctor@nk.ca
Yahweh, King & country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism ; unsubscribe from Google Groups to be seen
Merry Christmas 2023 and Happy New year 2024 Beware https://mindspring.com

In article <wwvzfyb5ycm.fsf@LkoBDZeT.terraraq.uk>,
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> writes:
>> noel <deletethis@invalid.lan> writes:
>>> Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
>>> just fine back in the say before search engines
>>
>> That's an interesting point. It is perhaps a good idea not to display
>> anything on the web precisely so that we do not attract people with an
>> interest in seeing information displayed to a world such as the web.
>> For instance, if we display something on the web, the system might be
>> of interest to spammers.
>
>Usenet had spam before it had a web presence. Spam will appear anywhere
>that has an audience and lacks sufficient controls to prevent it.
>

And now I have freeaks signing up thinking they have an aoutsystem.

>--
>https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

--
Member - Liberal International This is doctor@nk.ca Ici doctor@nk.ca
Yahweh, King & country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism ; unsubscribe from Google Groups to be seen
Merry Christmas 2023 and Happy New year 2024 Beware https://mindspring.com

I've cut the crosspost.

Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> wrote:
>Am 14.12.2023 um 18:55:14 Uhr schrieb Wally J:

>>Bad news for people who search before they post to Usenet:
>> <https://i.postimg.cc/tgQHDyjK/dejagoogle01.jpg>

>>Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
>>Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new
>>content from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of
>>historical data will still be supported as it is done today.
>> <https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering>

>>The bad news is that this search engine "may" stop working soon.

>Didn't it stop working long time ago?

At least a decade and a half ago, Google stopped maintaining the
indexes. Without indexing, searching is amazingly difficult.

Yeah. What is there to save the way Google Groups presented Usenet?

>>. . .

Am 15.12.2023 um 11:29:37 Uhr schrieb Julieta Shem:

> But
>
> https://news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.narkive.com/utLAtZzn/effective-february-15-2024-google-groups-will-no-longer-support-new-usenet-content#
>
> does not. (The one you mentioned doesn't either.)

Works for me after solving the captcha.

Am 15.12.2023 um 16:00:08 Uhr schrieb The Doctor:

> In article <ulh14h$1qodo$4@dont-email.me>,
> Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> wrote:
> >Am 14.12.2023 um 23:19:59 Uhr schrieb Wally J:
> >
> >> There is the narkive which, if it actually worked, would fit the
> >> bill.
> >
> >Although that doesn't include stuff from the 80s/90s.
> >
>
> So can Google give the archive over?

I don't think they will do that.
I also don't know if peers maybe can access it via NNTP to suck all
the articles.

Am 15.12.2023 um 18:36:27 Uhr schrieb Adam H. Kerman:

> What is there to save the way Google Groups presented Usenet?

Web Gateways exist and the content can be indexed by normal search
engines.

The Doctor wrote:

> Marco Moock wrote:
>
>> Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?
>
> URL?

<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>

Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> wrote:
>Am 15.12.2023 um 18:36:27 Uhr schrieb Adam H. Kerman:

>>What is there to save the way Google Groups presented Usenet?

>Web Gateways exist and the content can be indexed by normal search
>engines.

A News article is structured. Information from specific headers should
be indexed and tagged. Using a typical search engine, if I'm looking for
a specific author, I'm more likely than not to get a hit on a followup
article quoting the author and not a Usenet article written by that
author.

Any search engine can index a library catalog card database but failing
to understand MARC21 format won't provide a helpful result.

On 15/12/23 16:00 The Doctor:
> So can Google give the archive over?

They probably could if they were so inclined.

But I wouldn't hold my breath that they will.

Or if they did, it would probably only be the archive that they received
from DeJa News and nothing since then.

On 12/15/23 13:49, Marco Moock wrote:
> I don't think they will do that.

Agreed.

> I also don't know if peers maybe can access it via NNTP to suck all
> the articles.

Almost certainly not.

This is where the vagaries and technicalities of NNTP vs NNRP come into
play.

NNTP is server to server feeding articles.

NNRP is client to server fetching and posting articles.

Often the protocols are mutually exclusive, partially out of security
(clients can't feed) and partially out of daemon simplicity (why have
NNRP stack in a pure NNTP server).

What's more is that in my experience, the ability to be a peer and use
NNTP to feed articles is often controlled by IP. As such, any
connections from said IP is automatically doesn't have access to NNRP,
and vice versa.

--
Grant. . . .

In article <657c4487$1@news.ausics.net>, noel <deletethis@invalid.lan> wrote:
>
>Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
>just fine back in the say before search engines

But it did not. Most of the early Usenet archives that were turned over
to dejanews were a combination of files people had personally saved and
fragments of Henry Spencer's backup tapes from utzoo. A lot of it was
lost meaning that although there are many postings from before dejanews
was created, the selection is not random and they cannot be used for any
statistical analysis.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article <ku3pfhF10kbU3@mid.individual.net>,
Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
>The Doctor wrote:
>
>> Marco Moock wrote:
>>
>>> Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?
>>
>> URL?
>
><https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>
>

Got you!
--
Member - Liberal International This is doctor@nk.ca Ici doctor@nk.ca
Yahweh, King & country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism ; unsubscribe from Google Groups to be seen
Merry Christmas 2023 and Happy New year 2024 Beware https://mindspring.com

Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> wrote

> Works for me after solving the captcha.

Thanks for teaming up to help everyone & to find the narkive admin.

Please, can one or two of you test out the search feature of the narkive?

For me, with my privacy-based setup, I wish it worked better than it does.
But maybe that's only me - which - if that's the case - then it's fine.
(My browsers are generally set to be locked up for privacy reasons.)

But it doesn't matter if I can't search - it matters if you can search.
What matters is a search results in a reference URL to a thread or post.

To be perfectly clear, I don't know much about the narkive as I usually
defaulted to dejagoogle, except when there wasn't a Google archive, e.g.,
<https://alt.comp.software.firefox.narkive.com>
<https://alt.comp.software.thunderbird.narkive.com>

Unfortunately, only for "some" ngs are there any other archives, e.g.,
<https://tinyurl.com/alt-comp-os-windows-10>

But for most newsgroups, the only archive I know of left is narkive.

As always to help the team with every action I take, I wrote a letter to
David (davide@narkive.com) asking him to look at this thread and to perhaps
work with the experts here like Dave, Marco & Grant (et al.) to come up
with a solution that helps everyone search & reference old Usenet articles.

You guys are the ones who can get things done. I can only disseminate info.
--
Usenet is a way to team up with intelligent people who care about others.

Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

> The Doctor wrote:
>
> > Marco Moock wrote:
> >
> >> Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?
> >
> > URL?
>
> <https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>

That looks pretty good to me, kudos to the operator.

--
^Ï^. Sn!pe, PA, FIBS - Professional Crastinator
<snipeco.1@gmail.com>
Google to end Usenet gateway - My pet rock Gordon just cheered.
<https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538>

noel <deletethis@invalid.lan> wrote

> Why would you want the content archived outside of usenet, it survived
> just fine back in the say before search engines

Aurgh.

:)

Hi Noel,
You have to think differently. Big picture. Think of others. Not yourself.
Think of those others not being technical. They don't know what you know.

I can sense that you're likely a good person so I'm trying to be gentle
when I say there is tremendous utility to _others_ to be able to search
Usenet from today to its infancy on any platform using any web browser.

It's odd that people don't see the *utility* instantly, probably because
you know too much (not because you know too little); but let me tell you
Usenet *futility* instead, which everyone here (I'm sure) knows all about.

The futility of Usenet is it requires an account.
The futility of Usenet is it requires a newsreader of some type.
The futility of Usenet is it is (almost) never archived for long.
The futility of Usenet is that it requires knowledge to read for free.
The futility of Usenet is the search is only as good as your newsreader.
The futility of Usenet is you can't easily reference an article by URL.
(Sure, you can reference a message-id but you have to find it first)

Anyway, it's pretty irksome people don't get it that it's nice to be able
to search before posting and it's even nicer to be able to reference a
thread or article for a mother who doesn't even know how to spell Usenet.

Sigh.

In summary, there's utility for a web searchable read-only archive that
goes back to the olden days (if possible) which requires only a browser.
--
On Usenet, some people forget that they know more than the average person.

Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote

> Usenet had spam before it had a web presence. Spam will appear anywhere
> that has an audience and lacks sufficient controls to prevent it.

Aurgh... :)

Some of you know too much such that you miss the real problem of the spam.
You have to look at this as a BIG PICTURE thing. Not as an expert thing.

For each and every one of us, we can implement filters (much as I did with
email in the procmail days) where, in decades of reading Usenet, even I
only had a half dozen people plonked (e.g., Snit, Sn!pe, Dustin, et al.).

Their garbage could be found on the dejagoogle archives if I ever wanted to
see it - but more importantly the *amount of spam* on the dejagoogle
archives recently multiplied from a few a day to 99.5% of the newsgroup.
e.g., <http://groups.google.com/g/comp.mobile.android>

That 200 to 1 ratio is _easily_ filtered out by you who know how.
And it's even easier to filter out by Google (if they cared to filter it).

But "something happened" recently at Google.
Such that the amount is tremendous.

What does that mean to you?
Nothing.

You can filter it out.

But what does that mean to a dejagoogle web site that isn't filtering it?

HINT: *It makes the dejagoogle web search almost unusable*.
--
Especially as the dejagoogle web search wasn't all that good to start with.

Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote

>> Maybe we should keep the USENET as hidden from the world as possible.
>
> No. That is antithetical to the intentions of Usenet.

I'm pretty sure she was being cleverly facetious, which I had appreciated.

What we _want_ is for Usenet content to be available to everyone.
And that was her point I believe.

We need to find an archive to pick up where dejagoogle left off.
If people can petition David at narkive, that may help us out.

Wally J wrote:
>
> In summary, there's utility for a web searchable read-only archive
> that goes back to the olden days (if possible) which requires only
> a browser.

https://narkive.com/

Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote

>>> Does anybody here want to host a web interface like rocksolid light?
>>
>> URL?
>
> <https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>

Ah. Nice. Thanks Andy. So that makes two that we know of now.

<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.software.nntp>
<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.admin.peering>
<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=news.admin.net-abuse.usenet>
and
<https://news.software.nntp.narkive.com>
<https://news.admin.peering.narkive.com>
<https://news.admin.net-abuse.usenet.narkive.com>

Are there others?
--
Usenet is a wonderful way to meet smart people on both sides of the Pond.

In article <nnd$47644239$56aff236@ed594a78d9328f17>,
Blueshirt <blueshirt@indigo.news> wrote:
>Wally J wrote:
>>
>> In summary, there's utility for a web searchable read-only archive
>> that goes back to the olden days (if possible) which requires only
>> a browser.
>
>https://narkive.com/

Again, it doesn't go back very far, that's the problem. This is great
for the future, but large chunks of the past have been lost for a while
due to google groups search brokenness, and they are going to be lost
even more completely.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Hey! I'm the guy behind Narkive.

I agree with OP, my service kinda sucks. My only excuse is that I spent
most of 2022 rewriting the backend and was about a couple of months out
from releasing something completely new when I had to drop everything
to focus on a hardware startup (I tend to do this, but now my hands are
tied and I can't just go the other way around).

- Narkive should have most posts from 2003 onwards, and the ones before
then should be integrated at some point (I think the bulk of them might
be available from archive.org).

- I removed the search functionality because it was broken more often
than not and would lead to a bad user experience. I did almost finish a
search redesign based around a cluster of servers running Vespa (which
means ANN vector search + BM25, and would have been pretty much state
of the art), but again, other stuff got in the way and those servers I
bought for the job are currently sitting idle.

- The posting functionality is something that exists and should be
fairly stable and user friendly, but that I disabled because I gave up
on limiting spam coming from it. People were abusing it and doing so
manually, slowly circumventing the measures I had in place to avoid it
from happening.

Now I'm stuck between two choices: (1) is to do nothing (as I'm just
that busy) and (2) is to apply the minimum level of changes narkive
needs to maybe be ugly, still, but somewhat usable.

I could re-enable signups, posting, and maybe look into re-idexing the
content for search once, rather than in real time (using the old,
unstable search system rather than one I was rewriting). The only issue
being that if I'm succesfully, I will have won even more work to do.

Not sure what I'm trying to achieve in sending this message, but I hope
this explain what the situation is with narkive.

Davide

Davide Cavion <loveshisspam@narkive.com> wrote

> Hey! I'm the guy behind Narkive.

Thanks for returning my email, where the naysayers can note I only provided
you a URL - which is the only thing needed - which is the beauty of search.

> I agree with OP, my service kinda sucks.

Oh man. I am truly sorry for having said that. I apologize. The problem is
I don't know what you know. So, for example, I don't know how hard it is.

I will STOP saying it, as my way of atoning for having done that to you.

> My only excuse is that I spent
> most of 2022 rewriting the backend and was about a couple of months out
> from releasing something completely new when I had to drop everything
> to focus on a hardware startup (I tend to do this, but now my hands are
> tied and I can't just go the other way around).

Understood. I worked for startups in the Silicon Valley for decades.
Many here (e.g., Grant) know a lot more than I do I'll let them respond.

> Not sure what I'm trying to achieve in sending this message, but I hope
> this explain what the situation is with narkive.

To me, the priority, as I see it, for the most good, is the search engine.

Wally J <walterjones@invalid.nospam> wrote

> Many here (e.g., Grant) know a lot more than I do I'll let them respond.
> To me, the priority, as I see it, for the most good, is the search engine.

I belatedly realized I responded to the three groups (I don't use a
newsreader, my scripts are telnet hacks) so I am re-posting Davide's
original so that the other two groups can respond to what he said.

I'll step out of this subthread as a proper response should come from those
who are experts and I'm pretty much a putz at dealing with Usenet at this
high level.

From: Davide Cavion <loveshisspam@narkive.com>
Newsgroups: news.admin.peering
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2023 23:45:22 +0100
Message-ID: <2023121523452261422-loveshisspam@narkive.com>
References: <ulg14i$3o4hi$1@paganini.bofh.team>
Subject: Re: Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new Usenet content

Hey! I'm the guy behind Narkive.

I agree with OP, my service kinda sucks. My only excuse is that I spent
most of 2022 rewriting the backend and was about a couple of months out
from releasing something completely new when I had to drop everything
to focus on a hardware startup (I tend to do this, but now my hands are
tied and I can't just go the other way around).

- Narkive should have most posts from 2003 onwards, and the ones before
then should be integrated at some point (I think the bulk of them might
be available from archive.org).

- I removed the search functionality because it was broken more often
than not and would lead to a bad user experience. I did almost finish a
search redesign based around a cluster of servers running Vespa (which
means ANN vector search + BM25, and would have been pretty much state
of the art), but again, other stuff got in the way and those servers I
bought for the job are currently sitting idle.

- The posting functionality is something that exists and should be
fairly stable and user friendly, but that I disabled because I gave up
on limiting spam coming from it. People were abusing it and doing so
manually, slowly circumventing the measures I had in place to avoid it
from happening.

Now I'm stuck between two choices: (1) is to do nothing (as I'm just
that busy) and (2) is to apply the minimum level of changes narkive
needs to maybe be ugly, still, but somewhat usable.

I could re-enable signups, posting, and maybe look into re-idexing the
content for search once, rather than in real time (using the old,
unstable search system rather than one I was rewriting). The only issue
being that if I'm successfully, I will have won even more work to do.

Not sure what I'm trying to achieve in sending this message, but I hope
this explain what the situation is with narkive.

Davide

On 12/15/23 16:34, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> In article <nnd$47644239$56aff236@ed594a78d9328f17>,
> Blueshirt <blueshirt@indigo.news> wrote:
>> Wally J wrote:
>>>
>>> In summary, there's utility for a web searchable read-only archive
>>> that goes back to the olden days (if possible) which requires only
>>> a browser.
>>
>> https://narkive.com/
>
> Again, it doesn't go back very far, that's the problem. This is great
> for the future, but large chunks of the past have been lost for a while
> due to google groups search brokenness, and they are going to be lost
> even more completely.
> --scott

At the very least, a couple newsgroups (like rec.arts.comics.creative)
have their own archives that go back pretty far:
https://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/racc/
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

candycanearter07 <no@thanks.net> wrote:

> On 12/15/23 16:34, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> > In article <nnd$47644239$56aff236@ed594a78d9328f17>,
> > Blueshirt <blueshirt@indigo.news> wrote:
> >> Wally J wrote:
> >>>
> >>> In summary, there's utility for a web searchable read-only archive
> >>> that goes back to the olden days (if possible) which requires only
> >>> a browser.
> >>
> >> https://narkive.com/
> >
> > Again, it doesn't go back very far, that's the problem. This is great
> > for the future, but large chunks of the past have been lost for a while
> > due to google groups search brokenness, and they are going to be lost
> > even more completely.
> > --scott
> >
>
> At the very least, a couple newsgroups (like rec.arts.comics.creative)
> have their own archives that go back pretty far:
> https://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/racc/
>

Some of the commercial binary servers (I have Astraweb) carry text
groups with 10+ years retention and good completeness (Giganews claims
20 years). Astraweb and others offer inexpensive non-expiring block
accounts; even a small block will last a very long time if used for text
only. Being binary servers they're not quite as "snappy" as a dedicated
text server but I find that acceptable. I don't know how searchable
they are.

--
^Ï^. Sn!pe, PA, FIBS - Professional Crastinator
<snipeco.1@gmail.com>
Google to end Usenet gateway - My pet rock Gordon just cheered.
<https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538>