The end of an era?

From Google:

Effective February 22, 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.

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--

On Fri, 22 Dec 2023 23:18:28 -0800 (PST), RecRanger
<comicaluser@gmail.com> wrote:

>The end of an era?
>
>
>From Google:
>
>Effective February 22, 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.
>
>Starting on February 22, 2024, you can no longer use Google Groups (at groups.google.com) to post content to Usenet groups, subscribe to Usenet groups, or view new Usenet content. You can continue to view and search for historical Usenet content posted before February 22, 2024 on Google Groups.
>
>In addition, Google’s Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) server and associated peering will no longer be available, meaning Google will not support serving new Usenet content or exchanging content with other NNTP servers.

I think it will be better. Isn't google groups the source of that
bucketload of spam that appeared yesterday? If anything, USENET needs
more barriers to entry. How do you like rubbing shoulders with
thieving drug dealers when the newsgroup title includes roguellike?
They are like weeds that overrun groups and from what I've seen, are
the reason why newsgroups never recover from even a brief absence of
posters.

Since this is not "r.g.r.n.j" I changed the subject and tagged it as
meta[*] discussion. And with my longish rant I'll also drag the post
at its end a bit into the, less meta, more RGRN direction.

On 23.12.2023 08:18, RecRanger wrote:
> From Google:
>
> Effective February 22, 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.
>
> Starting on February 22, 2024, you can no longer use Google Groups
> (at groups.google.com) to post content to Usenet groups, subscribe to
> Usenet groups, or view new Usenet content. You can continue to view
> and search for historical Usenet content posted before February 22,
> 2024 on Google Groups.
>
> In addition, Google’s Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) server
> and associated peering will no longer be available, meaning Google
> will not support serving new Usenet content or exchanging content
> with other NNTP servers.
>
> --

> The end of an era?

I think this question is not fully hitting the area. My observations
on Usenet, RGRN, Google, just briefly (by content), yet still a bit
longish (by number of lines)...

Yes, I think an era changed its face. But Usenet was existing before
Google appeared. It had already changed; when Google occupied Usenet
for the good (it got wider prominence or at least wider distribution
and it provided the feature to search the archives), and for the bad
(many folks couldn't distinguish Google based Usenet groups from
other web based forums, so that -e.g.- sensible Usenet conventions
eroded, and with the larger audience also quality suffered, partly).
Personally I'm glad that Google's process of Usenet assimilation is
[at the moment] history (sort of); but history (naturally) changes.
With Google there also came a lot of Spam, and Google obviously did
not care (or did not care enough) about that annoyance for users. To
be honest, I don't exactly recall the 1990's (when I started to use
Usenet) but I think there was also Spam in Usenet, but certainly not
to the degree that we observed later when Google joined the newsgroup
area. It's good that the search capabilities will survive; but for
how long? Commercial services will follow their own agenda and don't
care much about the communities' demands (unless it serves their own
goals). Even ISPs that get paid by their customers for their services
just shut down their Usenet servers and services; been there twice.
(Now I use a free Usenet service; but how long will it persist?)
Newsgroup's qualities also vary, depending on the contributing folks.
That was true before, during, and after the Google era.[**] Though a
lot of folks left RGRN, even regulars[***]. There were some technical
circumstances that fostered the outflux. Web based forums appeared,
maintainers of these forums advertised them, some badmouthed Usenet
(even someone who later became a Devteam member, one of the more
recent; not sure he's still active). Also chat systems dragged some
folks away from Usenet; for interactive help on a Nethack game chat
systems have advantages, and they also serve the attention span of
our modern times better. Finally, the long hibernation period of the
Nethack development (after NH343 was released) contributed, I think,
to the loss of interest. More variants spread and split the players.
The cohesion effect of the rogue-like flag-ship Nethack vanished.

As Heraclitus said: "πάντα ῥεῖ" ("Panta rhei"; "everything flows").

As a personal ending of this post I want to note that I'm also not
any more looking into this newsgroup as intensive as I've done in the
past - if the original subject would not have had my name mentioned
I'd have missed it. Though not Google, its presence or absence, is
the reason for that. Diversification of (non-coherent) variants, the
shrinking community, sometimes the quality of the posts, sometimes
the tone of the discussions. There's also not any more the focus on
an/the (IMO) historically exceptional game that gets discussed; new
versions appear and not the least discussion about it takes place
(at least not here in RGRN). I am thinking back at times when RGRN
had tons of on-topic posts regularly and dozens of regular posters.
*That* era - to close the circle to the original question - certainly
had ended, and it has (or rather had) more impact on this newsgroup
than Google's actual policies.

Janis

[*] Too bad that one of the Big Five hijacked the word "meta", as the
others have done with other common, previously generally used words.

[**] I recall a poster that came newly to RGRN (around the mid 2000's
saying something like "What a polite newsgroup RGRN is. My experiences
with other newsgroups were really bad in that respect."

[***] The one (only one) I can identify to be still here is Pat Rankin
(since long part of the DevTeam); I seem to recall email exchanges in
the end of the 1980's (concerning an Atari port) and early 1990's for
support on AIX. But memories are faint.

Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> Since this is not "r.g.r.n.j" I changed the subject and tagged it as
> meta[*] discussion. And with my longish rant I'll also drag the post
> at its end a bit into the, less meta, more RGRN direction.
>
> On 23.12.2023 08:18, RecRanger wrote:
>> From Google:
>>
>> Effective February 22, 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.
>>
>> Starting on February 22, 2024, you can no longer use Google Groups
>> (at groups.google.com) to post content to Usenet groups, subscribe to
>> Usenet groups, or view new Usenet content. You can continue to view
>> and search for historical Usenet content posted before February 22,
>> 2024 on Google Groups.
>>
>> In addition, Google’s Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) server
>> and associated peering will no longer be available, meaning Google
>> will not support serving new Usenet content or exchanging content
>> with other NNTP servers.
>>
>> --
>
[...]
>
>> The end of an era?
> As a personal ending of this post I want to note that I'm also not
> any more looking into this newsgroup as intensive as I've done in the
> past - if the original subject would not have had my name mentioned
> I'd have missed it. Though not Google, its presence or absence, is
> the reason for that. Diversification of (non-coherent) variants, the
> shrinking community, sometimes the quality of the posts, sometimes
> the tone of the discussions. There's also not any more the focus on
> an/the (IMO) historically exceptional game that gets discussed; new
> versions appear and not the least discussion about it takes place
> (at least not here in RGRN). I am thinking back at times when RGRN
> had tons of on-topic posts regularly and dozens of regular posters.
> *That* era - to close the circle to the original question - certainly
> had ended, and it has (or rather had) more impact on this newsgroup
> than Google's actual policies.

I don't discuss variants because I'm desperately trying to ascend in
3.6.7 vanilla. It's not out of reach... I # quit once on dlvl 38 for no
other reason than the bleakness of the labyrinth. If I get there again,
I'll be mentally prepared for it. The main obstacle I'm seeing is
achieving lvl 16 for the quests. Have to get lucky with potions or be
safe around wraiths. I slog through a good portion of the game at lvl
13 searching for those and often inadvertently meet my end in the meanwhile.

I am gruff by nature and have to force myself to be polite. It's not
about the recipient, it's that I have a minimal control of English which
I am working on improving. Also, my peers right now are the unwashed
masses here in Disciplinary Den. I have to keep them at arm's length or
they will take the shirt off my back and not even say "thank you".

As for variants I'm interested in: dnethack. What I've heard that I
like is that all 9 alignments are included, lawful good, neutral evil,
etc. I'd like to see how that's done and I've heard there may be more
total content to it.

On 13.02.2024 00:38, Lane Larson wrote:
>
> I don't discuss variants because I'm desperately trying to ascend in
> 3.6.7 vanilla. It's not out of reach... I # quit once on dlvl 38 for no
> other reason than the bleakness of the labyrinth.

This complaint has a long history in Vanilla Hethack.

If you want to experiment with a larger pre-Castle dungeon and a
less Gehennom labyrinths have a try of Slashem (which is NH-343
based).

Some other variants have much more and very longish pre-Castle
branches, a lot to explore since the deviation from Vanilla NH
is quite large (in many respects).

> If I get there again,
> I'll be mentally prepared for it. The main obstacle I'm seeing is
> achieving lvl 16 for the quests.

Assuming you mean XP level; has that changed in recent versions?

Earlier releases had the minimum of XL:14 to be allowed to do the
quest; which was of course still too high. Here as well, Slashem
has reduced or removed(?) that limit; I typically just enter when
I'm there and, IIRC, was never disallowed to enter.

> Have to get lucky with potions or be
> safe around wraiths. I slog through a good portion of the game at lvl
> 13 searching for those and often inadvertently meet my end in the
> meanwhile.
>
> [...]

> As for variants I'm interested in: dnethack. What I've heard that I
> like is that all 9 alignments are included, lawful good, neutral evil,
> etc. I'd like to see how that's done and I've heard there may be more
> total content to it.

There's many variants around, each with interesting ideas implemented.
Last year I've tried quite some of them. But they appeared to me not
to be easier than Vanilla Nethack and partly not as well balanced as
Nethack has been, and some also unnecessary complex and opaque.

Janis