Just a test post, to see if I can post in this group

On 19/02/2024 13:40, Paul N wrote:
> Just a test post, to see if I can post in this group
>

Paul - you seem to be unaware of /why/ you can post in some groups and not others, which suggests
you are also unaware of the forthcoming Google Groups (GG) change which will affect you!

Google has removed write access to certain GG gropus which mirror the corresponding Usenet groups.
Note Usenet is not part of Google, and you could still post to those groups if you were posting via
Usenet, rather than Google. It did this because those GG groups were being targetted by spammers,
and it was not inclined to solve the issue by other means. [I suppose making those groups read-only
was a cheap option for Google.]

In just a few days (3 days??) Google will completely sever the links between Usenet and GG, and any
GG groups mirroring Usenet (like comp.theory, comp.programming) will be frozen within GG at that
point in time. They will all become read-only, and will not contain any new posts (made via Usenet)
after the Usenet link was severed. [Thus solving their spamming problem once and for all! :) ]

Anyway, if you want to continue posting to groups like this, you will need to set yourself up as a
Usenet user: you will need a Usenet newsreader client program, and sort out a Usenet server from
which you will download articles. You could e.g. download Thunderbird (free) and configure it to
connect to Eternal September (free, but registration is required), and a number of posters use that
combination. Or search in Google for lists of Usenet clients and servers you could use...

Regards,
Mike.

On Mon, 19 Feb 2024 15:41:52 +0000, Mike Terry wrote:

> Google has removed write access to certain GG gropus ...

All hail the imminent extinction of the Google Gropus!

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
> On Mon, 19 Feb 2024 15:41:52 +0000, Mike Terry wrote:
>
>> Google has removed write access to certain GG gropus ...
>
> All hail the imminent extinction of the Google Gropus!

Google Groups will still exist. What's being removed is its interface
to Usenet -- though articles posted before the cutoff will still be
available (until they decide they don't want to maintain that either).

I would have preferred if they had continued accepting articles from
other servers while cutting off the ability to post, so they could
continue to provide an up-to-date archive, but that's not what they did.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
Working, but not speaking, for Medtronic
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */

On 20/02/2024 04:21, Keith Thompson wrote:
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>> On Mon, 19 Feb 2024 15:41:52 +0000, Mike Terry wrote:
>>
>>> Google has removed write access to certain GG gropus ...
>>
>> All hail the imminent extinction of the Google Gropus!
>
> Google Groups will still exist. What's being removed is its interface
> to Usenet -- though articles posted before the cutoff will still be
> available (until they decide they don't want to maintain that either).
>
> I would have preferred if they had continued accepting articles from
> other servers while cutting off the ability to post, so they could
> continue to provide an up-to-date archive, but that's not what they did.
>

Even better, they could have found a way to stop the spam so that people
who wanted to use Google Groups to post, could still have done so. All
they really needed to do was introduce some delays - if you create a new
account, you cannot post to Usenet in the first 24 hours. And accounts
used to post to Usenet need to have two-factor authentication enabled.
That would pretty much end all but the most dedicated of spammers and
trolls, while still allowing those that used GG to post by necessity.

On 20/02/2024 13:05, David Brown wrote:
> On 20/02/2024 04:21, Keith Thompson wrote:
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>>> On Mon, 19 Feb 2024 15:41:52 +0000, Mike Terry wrote:
>>>
>>>> Google has removed write access to certain GG gropus ...
>>>
>>> All hail the imminent extinction of the Google Gropus!
>>
>> Google Groups will still exist.  What's being removed is its interface
>> to Usenet -- though articles posted before the cutoff will still be
>> available (until they decide they don't want to maintain that either).
>>
>> I would have preferred if they had continued accepting articles from
>> other servers while cutting off the ability to post, so they could
>> continue to provide an up-to-date archive, but that's not what they did.
>>
>
> Even better, they could have found a way to stop the spam so that people
> who wanted to use Google Groups to post, could still have done so.  All
> they really needed to do was introduce some delays - if you create a new
> account, you cannot post to Usenet in the first 24 hours.  And accounts
> used to post to Usenet need to have two-factor authentication enabled.
> That would pretty much end all but the most dedicated of spammers and
> trolls, while still allowing those that used GG to post by necessity.
>
>

Simply rate limiting would've helped. Nobody posting 10 articles a
second is involved in any kind of conversation.