An objective criteria for deprecating community platforms

By Dean on November 26, 2022 5:21 PM

Perl has been around for a couple of years longer than Python and
Linux. Perl 5 was released in 1993, the same year as FreeBSD and
NetBSD.

In the 90's for Open Source projects the "community platforms" where
Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists run on Listserv or Majordomo
(Mailman didn't show up until 1999). IRC was used for text based chat
but without SSL!. CVS was the open source version control system of
choice or you might have been unlucky enough to use Visual Source Safe
at work, whilst Subversion wouldn't show up until 2000.

But the 90's are more than 20 years in the past and IPv6 is actually
seeing meaningful adoption now. Many of the above technologies are as
completely foreign to people with 10+ years of industry experience as
Compact Cassettes, VHS, LaserDisc and maybe CDs or even DVDs.

As people have embraced Git and even now IPv6 - we too can and must
embrace newer platforms that offer a better experience for us humans
as we work together on Perl related projects.

This will mean making some difficult and dispassionate decisions to
deprecate long cherished platforms, as we embrace contemporary
alternatives.

I think a reasonable decision criteria would be:

1. Will a newcomer have a satisfactory experience?
Which includes more than:

1a. How discoverable is it?
1b. How high/low is the barrier of entry?
1c. How familiar is the interface to newcomers?
1d. How intuitive and effective is the user interface?
1e. Will questions be taken seriously and answered in a timely manner?
1f. Is the platform providing reasonable privacy and moderation
controls?

2. How much time will admins spend maintaining the platform compared
to maintaining the community on the platform?

3. Would it be set up now if it didn't already exist?

Mailing lists are a good example which we can compare to my criteria.

If you can find the right list, you subscribe and send your question.
Your email address is blasted out to all subscribers which aren't
visible to you, whilst your inbox is already being filled with all
discussion on the list even if you're not interested- assuming there
is any discussion.

Good luck finding old questions or discussions to contribute or update
on.

Once something is sent it can never be edited or removed from
recipients. Users have each others email addresses so can contact each
other without moderation. You can set up filters in your email if you
care to, but this is an inconsistent user interface that is user
dependent and you're still having to maintain the folder's unread
messages. Emails themselves become dominated by reply text, making
reviewing threads high effort and low signal compared to interfaces
like reddit or even a classic but inferior webforum layout.

If I started a new community I wouldn't create an email list.

Run IRC through the above criteria and its even worse! To have a good
experience users need to connect continuously or set up something that
does. Then try to sift through the stream of content to find some
signal. If there's any significant activity, questions and comments
will get lost in the stream or conflated with other discussion.

So let's not, metaphorically speaking, hand new Perl programmers an
audio cassette saying "this really is the best way to listen to music"
and then expect them to take Perl seriously or to conclude that it is
anything other than a dead language.

From: <https://blogs.perl.org/users/dean/2022/11/
an-objective-criteria-for-deprecating-community-platforms.html>

From the comments section:

Jakub Narebski
November 28, 2022 6:08 PM

There is modern approach to the mailing list, namely the public-inbox
software (the same that powers lore.kernel.org). With it you have both
web interface and NNTP interface to the mailing list, and you can post
using the other.

That avoids filling the inbox with unrelated discussion, adds access
to the history, adds searchability and being indexed.

Still not for everybody, but in my opinion overall a better
experience.

Mike B
November 29, 2022 5:09 AM

Fun fact: public-inbox is written in Perl!

Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> quoted a "Dean":
>I think a reasonable decision criteria would be:

one criterion, several criteria

Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> wrote or quoted:
>Subject: An objective criteria for deprecating community platforms

When someone calls his own criterion "objective", this is
already more than suspicious.

>As people have embraced Git and even now IPv6 - we too can and must
>embrace newer platforms that offer a better experience for us humans
>as we work together on Perl related projects.

Sounds a bit as if written by an advertising agency. "We too
can and must embrace newer platform" does not give any
comprehensible reasons. "better experience" is vague and
subjective. "for us humans" superfluous (is there any riks
someone thinks it deals with experience for other animals?).

>This will mean making some difficult and dispassionate decisions to
>deprecate long cherished platforms, as we embrace contemporary
>alternatives.

More advertising blather. "Dispassionate"!

On 2023-01-08, Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> Sounds a bit as if written by an advertising agency. "We too
> can and must embrace newer platform" does not give any
> comprehensible reasons. "better experience" is vague and
> subjective. "for us humans" superfluous (is there any riks
> someone thinks it deals with experience for other animals?).
>
>>This will mean making some difficult and dispassionate decisions to
>>deprecate long cherished platforms, as we embrace contemporary
>>alternatives.
>
> More advertising blather. "Dispassionate"!

I basically read it as "Email is passe. The hip kids are on Discord,
Facebook, Reddit, etc. Ignore these at your own peril."

Even though i disagree with the sentiment, i think it needs to be
exposed to fresh air and sunlight.

I would like to point out that those "contemporary platforms" are not
free and open, so they don't seem compatible with the spirit that Perl
is developed in.

Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> wrote or quoted:
>>Subject: An objective criteria for deprecating community platforms
>
> When someone calls his own criterion "objective", this is
> already more than suspicious.
>
>>As people have embraced Git and even now IPv6 - we too can and must
>>embrace newer platforms that offer a better experience for us humans
>>as we work together on Perl related projects.
>
> Sounds a bit as if written by an advertising agency. "We too
> can and must embrace newer platform" does not give any
> comprehensible reasons. "better experience" is vague and
> subjective. "for us humans" superfluous (is there any riks
> someone thinks it deals with experience for other animals?).
>
>>This will mean making some difficult and dispassionate decisions to
>>deprecate long cherished platforms, as we embrace contemporary
>>alternatives.
>
> More advertising blather. "Dispassionate"!

The more ulterior motive reason is also:

The extreme difficulty in data mining user's activity, and in
presenting paid advertising to them provided by older, federated,
Internet communications systems means we must deprecate long
cherished platforms, in favor of contemporary alternatives that allow
us to push advertising at every turn, and hoover up an enormous
amount of "behavior data" about our users that we can also further
sell to advertisers.

Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> wrote:
>
> I basically read it as "Email is passe. The hip kids are on Discord,
> Facebook, Reddit, etc. Ignore these at your own peril."
>
> Even though i disagree with the sentiment, i think it needs to be
> exposed to fresh air and sunlight.
>
> I would like to point out that those "contemporary platforms" are not
> free and open, so they don't seem compatible with the spirit that Perl
> is developed in.

They have already closed the mailing lists/newsgroups in other projects.
See for example:

https://discuss.python.org/
https://discourse.mozilla.org/

As it is shown by the link posted by the OP it's clear that they intend
to do the same thing with Perl. But the change will not be as smooth as
in those other places. Perl developers are much harder nuts to crack.

Javier <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:
>They have already closed the mailing lists/newsgroups in other projects.

In Python, several mailing lists and a newsgroup are alive
and kicking (perhaps in parallel with other media).
The newsgroup is "comp.lang.python"; mailing lists are
"python-list", "python-dev", "python-checkins",
"python-help", and the "tutor mailing list".

Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> Javier <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:
>>They have already closed the mailing lists/newsgroups in other projects.
>
> In Python, several mailing lists and a newsgroup are alive
> and kicking (perhaps in parallel with other media).
> The newsgroup is "comp.lang.python"; mailing lists are
> "python-list", "python-dev", "python-checkins",
> "python-help", and the "tutor mailing list".

Your information is not up to date. The python-dev (which you mention
above) and python-ideas lists have been closed permanently. And those
were very important ones.

https://devguide.python.org/developer-workflow/communication-channels/index.html#mailing-lists

The python-dev list is superseded by the Core Development and PEPs
categories on Discourse.

The python-ideas list is superseded by posts in the Ideas category
on Discourse.

Existing threads on the python-dev, python-committers, and
python-ideas mailing lists can be accessed through the online
archive.

But, as a said before, good luck doing the same thing with the main perl
dev mailing list. Perl developers are made of a different paste.

https://lists.perl.org/

Javier <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:
>Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>>In Python, several mailing lists and a newsgroup are alive
>>and kicking (perhaps in parallel with other media).
>>The newsgroup is "comp.lang.python"; mailing lists are
>>"python-list", "python-dev", "python-checkins",
>>"python-help", and the "tutor mailing list".
>Your information is not up to date. The python-dev (which you mention
>above) and python-ideas lists have been closed permanently. And those
>were very important ones.

I looked at some recent web page from python.org.
The text there did not seem to reflect that change yet.

Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> Javier <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:
>>Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>>>In Python, several mailing lists and a newsgroup are alive
>>>and kicking (perhaps in parallel with other media).
>>>The newsgroup is "comp.lang.python"; mailing lists are
>>>"python-list", "python-dev", "python-checkins",
>>>"python-help", and the "tutor mailing list".
>>Your information is not up to date. The python-dev (which you mention
>>above) and python-ideas lists have been closed permanently. And those
>>were very important ones.
>
> I looked at some recent web page from python.org.
> The text there did not seem to reflect that change yet.

I have to apologise for my previous comment. I realize now that the
python-dev is still alive as a mailing list.

I just inferred the fact from the python.org website:

https://devguide.python.org/developer-workflow/communication-channels/index.html#mailing-lists

Some mailing lists have been supplanted by categories in the
Python Discourse. Specifically,

The python-dev list is superseded by the Core Development and PEPs
categories on Discourse.

The wording the wording is at minimum misleading. In any case, it's
clear that the people with power in the Python foundation are hostile
to mailing lists and they are talking of retiring the mailing list.

https://lwn.net/Articles/901744/

Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> wrote:
> Mailing lists are a good example which we can compare to my criteria.
>
> If you can find the right list, you subscribe and send your question.
> Your email address is blasted out to all subscribers which aren't
> visible to you, whilst your inbox is already being filled with all
> discussion on the list even if you're not interested- assuming there
> is any discussion.

Mailing lists are 'push': people get notified of activity without having to
do anything. Web forums are 'pull': people have to actively visit them to
find if there's anything new.

Forums attempt to simulate 'push' by:
a) Sending you emails about activity. Then it's just a bad mailing list,
because the emails typically do not convey the full content (they just say
'X posted to Y thread' or similar) so you have to visit the web site anyway
b) RSS, which almost nobody uses
c) browser notifications, which only work if the site is open in your
browser (and don't scale at all well)
d) phone apps, which are like c) but with less compatibility and more
tracking and bloat

Usenet is 'pull', but at least everything is in one place.
The same could be said about Facebook, although that has an ad-driven
algorithm to make reading as awkward as possible.

I don't know how people manage to keep track of more than a handful of
forums. Do they just open dozens of browser tabs every day?

Theo

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Forums attempt to simulate 'push' by:
> b) RSS, which almost nobody uses

I guess I'm "almost nobody." I use RSS not only for tracking new posts to
websites and blogs, but also to find new software releases for which I need
to update the Gentoo ebuilds I maintain. I started out using Google Reader
for this purpose, but when it was discontinued (probably for not bringing in
enough $$$), I switched over to self-managed TTRSS and have never looked
back.

> I don't know how people manage to keep track of more than a handful of
> forums. Do they just open dozens of browser tabs every day?

I don't really do forums, except to maybe dig up answers to questions
already asked. I suspect even an RSS feed from a forum would still be too
noisy to want to check on a regular basis.

--
_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us wrote:
> Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> Forums attempt to simulate 'push' by:
>> b) RSS, which almost nobody uses
>
> I guess I'm "almost nobody." I use RSS not only for tracking new posts to
> websites and blogs, but also to find new software releases for which I need
> to update the Gentoo ebuilds I maintain. I started out using Google Reader
> for this purpose, but when it was discontinued (probably for not bringing in
> enough $$$), I switched over to self-managed TTRSS and have never looked
> back.

I actually direct most RSS feeds that I watch to email, so that
takes the discussion full-circle. If I followed more high-volume
feeds then a dedicated feed reader would probably be more
desireable (or reading via NNTP with Gwene, which of course is also
an option with mailing lists using Gmane).

>> I don't know how people manage to keep track of more than a handful of
>> forums. Do they just open dozens of browser tabs every day?
>
> I don't really do forums, except to maybe dig up answers to questions
> already asked. I suspect even an RSS feed from a forum would still be too
> noisy to want to check on a regular basis.

In my experience only some forums supply an RSS feed in the first
place anyway. Or maybe the forum admins are the people who were
meant as the almost nobodys.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
> scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us wrote:
> > Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> >> Forums attempt to simulate 'push' by:
> >> b) RSS, which almost nobody uses
> >
> > I guess I'm "almost nobody." I use RSS not only for tracking new posts to
> > websites and blogs, but also to find new software releases for which I need
> > to update the Gentoo ebuilds I maintain. I started out using Google Reader
> > for this purpose, but when it was discontinued (probably for not bringing in
> > enough $$$), I switched over to self-managed TTRSS and have never looked
> > back.
>
> I actually direct most RSS feeds that I watch to email, so that
> takes the discussion full-circle. If I followed more high-volume
> feeds then a dedicated feed reader would probably be more
> desireable (or reading via NNTP with Gwene, which of course is also
> an option with mailing lists using Gmane).

There is probably a large crossover between RSS and NNTP users :-)
But I think it's safe to say that few non-technical people are using RSS.
It used to be advertised when you went to a site in eg Firefox, but now it's
pretty well hidden.

> In my experience only some forums supply an RSS feed in the first
> place anyway. Or maybe the forum admins are the people who were
> meant as the almost nobodys.

It probably depends on the luck of the draw with the forum software and
whether it supports it. If it does, but it's something the admin has to
actively turn on, I suspect many won't think about it.

RSS also struggles with private/restricted forums. I had lots of fun on a
phpBB site where the RSS was behind the login wall, so I either had to do
the (SSO) login from within the RSS client, or somehow convey the login
cookie from my browser to the client. And the cookie would time out after
some days, so I'd then have to do it all again.

Theo

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>> scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us wrote:
>> > Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> >> Forums attempt to simulate 'push' by:
>> >> b) RSS, which almost nobody uses
>> >
>> > I guess I'm "almost nobody." I use RSS not only for tracking new posts to
>> > websites and blogs, but also to find new software releases for which I need
>> > to update the Gentoo ebuilds I maintain. I started out using Google Reader
>> > for this purpose, but when it was discontinued (probably for not bringing in
>> > enough $$$), I switched over to self-managed TTRSS and have never looked
>> > back.
>>
>> I actually direct most RSS feeds that I watch to email, so that
>> takes the discussion full-circle. If I followed more high-volume
>> feeds then a dedicated feed reader would probably be more
>> desireable (or reading via NNTP with Gwene, which of course is also
>> an option with mailing lists using Gmane).
>
> There is probably a large crossover between RSS and NNTP users :-)
> But I think it's safe to say that few non-technical people are using RSS.

Podcasts are a special case of RSS, one that's used to serve up audio
instead of text. By that measure, there are probably lots of people out
there using RSS who don't even know it. That said, they probably aren't
also pulling down the Slashdot feed alongside the Adam Carolla podcast. :)

> RSS also struggles with private/restricted forums. I had lots of fun on a
> phpBB site where the RSS was behind the login wall, so I either had to do
> the (SSO) login from within the RSS client, or somehow convey the login
> cookie from my browser to the client. And the cookie would time out after
> some days, so I'd then have to do it all again.

I think I've dealt with that by changing the feed URL to include
credentials: http://user:password@invalid.tld/feed, or something like that.

(Just double-checked...I have a feed of radio recordings that I timeshift.
The RSS feed for that is password-protected so I can plausibly claim it's
for private use. :) TTRSS has options to send a username and password to
grab a feed, which falls into your first category.)

--
_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us wrote:
> Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> >> I actually direct most RSS feeds that I watch to email, so that
> >> takes the discussion full-circle. If I followed more high-volume
> >> feeds then a dedicated feed reader would probably be more
> >> desireable (or reading via NNTP with Gwene, which of course is also
> >> an option with mailing lists using Gmane).
> >
> > There is probably a large crossover between RSS and NNTP users :-)
> > But I think it's safe to say that few non-technical people are using RSS.
>
> Podcasts are a special case of RSS, one that's used to serve up audio
> instead of text. By that measure, there are probably lots of people out
> there using RSS who don't even know it. That said, they probably aren't
> also pulling down the Slashdot feed alongside the Adam Carolla podcast. :)

That's not really RSS as a 'community platform', ie a mechanism to keep
track of and participate in discussions on things. It's just a file of URLs
on a website.

> > RSS also struggles with private/restricted forums. I had lots of fun on a
> > phpBB site where the RSS was behind the login wall, so I either had to do
> > the (SSO) login from within the RSS client, or somehow convey the login
> > cookie from my browser to the client. And the cookie would time out after
> > some days, so I'd then have to do it all again.
>
> I think I've dealt with that by changing the feed URL to include
> credentials: http://user:password@invalid.tld/feed, or something like that.
>
> (Just double-checked...I have a feed of radio recordings that I timeshift.
> The RSS feed for that is password-protected so I can plausibly claim it's
> for private use. :) TTRSS has options to send a username and password to
> grab a feed, which falls into your first category.)

The problem is when the site doesn't do HTTP basic auth like above, but uses
some SSO like 'log in with Google' or 'log in with [organization
credentials]', and for those you need to do their login dance, including
entering the TOTP code, sending the SMS to your phone or whatever MFA
procedure there is. That needs a full browser to implement. I suppose the
RSS client could do OAuth2 but I'm not sure any do.

Of course you wouldn't design a site like that, but it's what happens when
somebody slaps SSO on the front of a website for humans and doesn't realise
RSS is not intended for human (browser) consumption.

Theo

ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:

> Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> quoted a "Dean":
>>I think a reasonable decision criteria would be:
>
> one criterion, several criteria

That's right! :-)

Source:
https://ancientlanguage.com/learn-latin/

Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> writes:

> On 2023-01-08, Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>> Sounds a bit as if written by an advertising agency. "We too
>> can and must embrace newer platform" does not give any
>> comprehensible reasons. "better experience" is vague and
>> subjective. "for us humans" superfluous (is there any riks
>> someone thinks it deals with experience for other animals?).
>>
>>>This will mean making some difficult and dispassionate decisions to
>>>deprecate long cherished platforms, as we embrace contemporary
>>>alternatives.
>>
>> More advertising blather. "Dispassionate"!
>
> I basically read it as "Email is passe. The hip kids are on Discord,
> Facebook, Reddit, etc. Ignore these at your own peril."

Seriously, you should also investigate the effects the medium has on the
discussions. For instance, does any of these platforms mentioned above
provide an easy way for me to continue this conversation from August
2023 (now in December 2023) with my choice of colors, font and text
editor? Just that already affects the discussion in relevant ways.

Here's another point. When you know someone is expecting what you're
writing and they can even see a flashing ``...'' as you type, you also
know that if you take too long writing, the person will be waiting for
your message, which hurries you up --- and that relevantly affects the
communication without a shadow of doubt. The medium must be chosen so
that the desired properties of the discussions are encouraged by the
medium and the undesired discouraged. Choosing your text editor, for
instance, is an often-neglected, but highly relevant factor in the
choice.

What we should be worried about is not with the fact that our
communities might miss the hip kids. We should be concerned with the
education that the hip kids are missing out precisely because they don't
seem to notice the deep hole they're getting themselves into. The
reason they can't find us here, for example, is not because we are
backwards or arcane, but rather because they have not found the interest
and the means to survive in this complicated world. Living in our
communities is too hard of a problem for them to handle --- it requires
minimum understanding and mastery of tools that they don't acquire
because, first of all, the required education to do it is not delivered
through the channels they tune to. We are the teachers, so we are the
first to answer to that.

> Even though i disagree with the sentiment, i think it needs to be
> exposed to fresh air and sunlight.

Sure.

> I would like to point out that those "contemporary platforms" are not
> free and open, so they don't seem compatible with the spirit that Perl
> is developed in.

Indeed. As Stallman has been explaining for decades, if it's not free
in the right sense of the word, then even if it were the most convenient
way, it still would not be what we should use. Some prices are simply
too high to be paid.

A tool I never investigated properly is Discourse. I don't think the
web is the right medium for the discussions that go on on the USENET,
but perhaps an integration between something like Discourse and NNTP
could be made --- I don't know.

Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> writes:
>provide an easy way for me to continue this conversation from August
>2023 (now in December 2023) with my choice of colors, font and text
>editor? Just that already affects the discussion in relevant ways.

Technically, I can answer any post I can still read, but
often people do not like it when one responds to old posts.

>What we should be worried about is not with the fact that our
>communities might miss the hip kids. We should be concerned with the
>education that the hip kids are missing out precisely because they don't
>seem to notice the deep hole they're getting themselves into.

But even the old hands who know Usenet inside out are leaving!

Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> writes:
>What we should be worried about is not with the fact that our
>communities might miss the hip kids. We should be concerned with the
>education that the hip kids are missing out precisely because they don't
>seem to notice the deep hole they're getting themselves into.

|The sage
|does not recruit students;
|the students seek him.
from a part of a translation of the
text of the I Ching diagram four.

ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:

> Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> writes:
>>provide an easy way for me to continue this conversation from August
>>2023 (now in December 2023) with my choice of colors, font and text
>>editor? Just that already affects the discussion in relevant ways.
>
> Technically, I can answer any post I can still read, but
> often people do not like it when one responds to old posts.

Why not?

>>What we should be worried about is not with the fact that our
>>communities might miss the hip kids. We should be concerned with the
>>education that the hip kids are missing out precisely because they don't
>>seem to notice the deep hole they're getting themselves into.
>
> But even the old hands who know Usenet inside out are leaving!

That's life. Why are they leaving?

Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> writes:
> ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:
>> Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> writes:
>>> What we should be worried about is not with the fact that our
>>> communities might miss the hip kids. We should be concerned with
>>> the education that the hip kids are missing out precisely because
>>> they don't seem to notice the deep hole they're getting themselves
>>> into.

In reality, many people are well aware of the issues with other
communication platforms.

>> But even the old hands who know Usenet inside out are leaving!
> That's life. Why are they leaving?

People stop using Usenet for a variety of reasons, including:

- they found better alternatives for their use cases
- they followed their communities elsewhere
- they got sick of spam
- they got sick of trolls (in the broadest possible sense)
- they became too busy
- they aged out

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

Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> writes:
>ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:
>> Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> writes:
>>>provide an easy way for me to continue this conversation from August
>>>2023 (now in December 2023) with my choice of colors, font and text
>>>editor? Just that already affects the discussion in relevant ways.
>>Technically, I can answer any post I can still read, but
>>often people do not like it when one responds to old posts.

>Why not?

>>>What we should be worried about is not with the fact that our
>>>communities might miss the hip kids. We should be concerned with the
>>>education that the hip kids are missing out precisely because they don't
>>>seem to notice the deep hole they're getting themselves into.
>>But even the old hands who know Usenet inside out are leaving!

>That's life. Why are they leaving?

I don't know! - These questions are probably best answered
by people who belong to one of these groups.

On 12/4/23 02:30, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
> Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> writes:
>> ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:
>>> Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> writes:
>>>> What we should be worried about is not with the fact that our
>>>> communities might miss the hip kids. We should be concerned with
>>>> the education that the hip kids are missing out precisely because
>>>> they don't seem to notice the deep hole they're getting themselves
>>>> into.
>
> In reality, many people are well aware of the issues with other
> communication platforms.
>
>>> But even the old hands who know Usenet inside out are leaving!
>> That's life. Why are they leaving?
>
> People stop using Usenet for a variety of reasons, including:
>
> - they found better alternatives for their use cases
> - they followed their communities elsewhere
> - they got sick of spam
> - they got sick of trolls (in the broadest possible sense)
> - they became too busy
> - they aged out
>

So their connection timed out?
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

On 2023-12-04, candycanearter07 wrote:
> On 12/4/23 02:30, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>> [...]
>> People stop using Usenet for a variety of reasons, including:
>>
>> - they found better alternatives for their use cases
>> - they followed their communities elsewhere
>> - they got sick of spam
>> - they got sick of trolls (in the broadest possible sense)
>> - they became too busy
>> - they aged out
>>
>
> So their connection timed out?

TTL expired.

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