Now that Google groups has been discontinued, is there a public
interface to access this group via the web? Not to post, but to simply
read, and without requiring a login or signup.

saitology9 <saitology9@gmail.com> wrote in news:urr171$rajs$1@dont-
email.me:

> Now that Google groups has been discontinued, is there a public
> interface to access this group via the web? Not to post, but to simply
> read, and without requiring a login or signup.
>

I have set up a web interface at https://cmacleod.me.uk/newsgrouper .
This works for all non-binary usenet groups, including comp.lang.tcl .
Anyone can read as a guest, but you can only post if you register.

This site is implemented in Tcl. At present it uses CloudTk for the user
interface. However I am now working on reimplementing it using plain html,
partly because the present design does not work well for mobile devices.

--
Colin Macleod.

On 01/03/2024 07:34, Colin Macleod wrote:
> saitology9 <saitology9@gmail.com> wrote in news:urr171$rajs$1@dont-
> email.me:
>
> I have set up a web interface at https://cmacleod.me.uk/newsgrouper .
> This works for all non-binary usenet groups, including comp.lang.tcl .
> Anyone can read as a guest, but you can only post if you register.

Does it allow access to individual messages via an URL with the
message-id and no groupname? It will help users and therefore usenet a
lot because standard news: URIs can be configured on their computers to
open their browser at the requisite URL.

Helpfully, that much requires only static site features for the commonly
referenced articles, making them fast and also cacheable to avoid load
on your host.

Caching can scale if you serve the articles via regular http and sign
the articles around their envelopes with your site certificate then they
can also be verified as being the true article as represented by your
site and be cached while not risking sabotage. Although clients might
not be so sophisticated initially, it has to start somewhere.

At that point, we can give network agnostic URIs in usenet articles, IRC
chat, manpages, etc which will improve things because URLs are already
failing all over the place as public sites are going dark.

--
Tristan

Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
> On 01/03/2024 07:34, Colin Macleod wrote:
>> saitology9 <saitology9@gmail.com> wrote in news:urr171$rajs$1@dont-
>> email.me:
>>
>> I have set up a web interface at https://cmacleod.me.uk/newsgrouper .
>> This works for all non-binary usenet groups, including comp.lang.tcl .
>> Anyone can read as a guest, but you can only post if you register.
>
> Does it allow access to individual messages via an URL with the
> message-id and no groupname? It will help users and therefore usenet a
> lot because standard news: URIs can be configured on their computers to
> open their browser at the requisite URL.

For "URL" to a usenet article, there is http://al.howardknight.net/
which provides that service. Put in message ID, get back article
i.e., the first post in this thread below:

http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3Curr171%24rajs%241%40dont-email.me%3E

If you want the article archived, there's a link to archive it (which
also creates a shorter URL than the one above (I didn't do the
archiving).

> At that point, we can give network agnostic URIs in usenet articles, IRC
> chat, manpages, etc which will improve things because URLs are already
> failing all over the place as public sites are going dark.

Archive the relevant ones at http://al.howardknight.net/ and pass
around the archive URL links.

On 3/1/2024 2:34 AM, Colin Macleod wrote:
>
> I have set up a web interface at https://cmacleod.me.uk/newsgrouper .
> This works for all non-binary usenet groups, including comp.lang.tcl .
> Anyone can read as a guest, but you can only post if you register.
>
> This site is implemented in Tcl. At present it uses CloudTk for the user
> interface. However I am now working on reimplementing it using plain html,
> partly because the present design does not work well for mobile devices.
>

Thanks for the info. This sounds like a useful service. As you noted, it
doesn't allow any input on a mobile device. Please post an update when
it is ready.

On 3/2/2024 11:32 AM, Rich wrote:
>
> For "URL" to a usenet article, there is http://al.howardknight.net/
> which provides that service. Put in message ID, get back article
> i.e., the first post in this thread below:
>
> http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3Curr171%24rajs%241%40dont-email.me%3E
>
>

What a weird and interesting service! I don't really get it. Even
weirder is that someone would know about it.

saitology9 <saitology9@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/2/2024 11:32 AM, Rich wrote:
>>
>> For "URL" to a usenet article, there is http://al.howardknight.net/
>> which provides that service. Put in message ID, get back article
>> i.e., the first post in this thread below:
>>
>> http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3Curr171%24rajs%241%40dont-email.me%3E
>
> What a weird and interesting service! I don't really get it. Even
> weirder is that someone would know about it.

One learns of it when one happens to be in another USENET group where
someone else posts those links. Just as you learned of it today.

> Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> wrote:

....

>> Does it allow access to individual messages via an URL with the
>> message-id and no groupname? It will help users and therefore usenet a
>> lot because standard news: URIs can be configured on their computers to
>> open their browser at the requisite URL.

....

On 02/03/2024 16:32, Rich wrote:

> http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3Curr171%24rajs%241%40dont-email.me%3E

that URL is only good while the service keeps running, you need a URI,
eg news:urvkar$1va4h$2@dont-email.me.

There's a specification for it,
https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5538.html linked from
https://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes/uri-schemes.xhtml

....

> Archive the relevant ones at http://al.howardknight.net/ and pass
> around the archive URL links.

Better to pass URIs around, they're valid for the usenet network and
don't depend on a specific locator pointing to a service that continues
to be available, or which permits you specifically to use the service.
All you need is your own choice of service or application to handle them.

The BIG problem with URLs is that they locate a resource at a service
and they all keep putting their own contracts and restrictions,
including limited feature-sets in their browser-based apps.

--
Tristan

On 02/03/2024 21:54, Rich wrote:
> saitology9 <saitology9@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 3/2/2024 11:32 AM, Rich wrote:

....

>>> http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=msgid&MSGI=%3Curr171%24rajs%241%40dont-email.me%3E

....

>> weirder is that someone would know about it.
>
> One learns of it when one happens to be in another USENET group where
> someone else posts those links. Just as you learned of it today.
>

I rather fancy an anonymous readonly nntp interface to usenet on the
occasions when I don't have a valid login for write access, and an nntp
gateway UI on a static webbrowser would suffice. That would enable
discovery of the full utility of usenet, ad-hoc browsing, and the UI
author doesn't have to also be a document archive service engineer.

People could attach the service details to their messages (whichever
combinations they want to ensure get known about) and you have the
ability to have many archives with the right selection of groups and
retention for you.

The only technical reason I can think of to serve anything via HTTP is
that it has a zeroconfig way to load an app view onto your screen and
send it all your mouse movements.

Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk>
wrote in news:urukbu$1otku$1@dont-email.me:

> On 01/03/2024 07:34, Colin Macleod wrote:
>> saitology9 <saitology9@gmail.com> wrote in news:urr171$rajs$1@dont-
>> email.me:
>>
>> I have set up a web interface at https://cmacleod.me.uk/newsgrouper .
>> This works for all non-binary usenet groups, including comp.lang.tcl .
>> Anyone can read as a guest, but you can only post if you register.
>
> Does it allow access to individual messages via an URL with the
> message-id and no groupname? It will help users and therefore usenet a
> lot because standard news: URIs can be configured on their computers to
> open their browser at the requisite URL.
>
That's an interesting idea. At present I don't have any facility to load a
posting by message-id. I could look at adding this in future, but I have
plenty of higher-priority fixes to do first :-)

--
Colin Macleod.

saitology9 <saitology9@gmail.com> posted:

> On 3/1/2024 2:34 AM, Colin Macleod wrote:
> >
> > I have set up a web interface at https://cmacleod.me.uk/newsgrouper .
> > This works for all non-binary usenet groups, including comp.lang.tcl .
> > Anyone can read as a guest, but you can only post if you register.
> >
> > This site is implemented in Tcl. At present it uses CloudTk for the user
> > interface. However I am now working on reimplementing it using plain html,
> > partly because the present design does not work well for mobile devices.
> >
>
> Thanks for the info. This sounds like a useful service. As you noted, it
> doesn't allow any input on a mobile device. Please post an update when
> it is ready.

The plain html update is now available at https://cmacleod.me.uk/ng .
This should be usable on mobile devices, though there is still plenty
of scope for improvement.

--
Colin Macleod.

On 4/18/2024 2:43 PM, Colin Macleod wrote:
> saitology9 <saitology9@gmail.com> posted:
>>
>> Thanks for the info. This sounds like a useful service. As you noted, it
>> doesn't allow any input on a mobile device. Please post an update when
>> it is ready.
>
> The plain html update is now available at https://cmacleod.me.uk/ng .
> This should be usable on mobile devices, though there is still plenty
> of scope for improvement.
>

Looks very cool! Thank you for the app and the service.

I can't test it or write more about it for a few days but I will sign up
soon.