It is ironical that we talk about usenet everywhere but on usenet. Events like the blackout on reddit and the scramble to move to alternate platforms would hardly be necessary if usenet worked clearly as a discussion platform.

While everyone blames spam for the slow death of discussions on usenet, I think there are a couple of other reasons:

  • access over http
  • searchability

These two reasons are why Google Groups continues to work while discussions on usenet barely do.

Usenet has to evolve to provide solutions to these problems:

  • spam: moderated groups are an insufficient solution when compared to moderation tools provided by modern discussion platforms.
  • usenet over http: people should be able to carry on discussions using browsers as well as apps. They should be able to share links to these discussions as well.
  • search: people should be able to conduct a search across all discussions by using native as well as third-party search engines (Google, Bing, Brave etc).
  • Death Metal
    3•1 year ago

    Usenet was a stream of consciousness and, short of blocking individuals, there was no way to separate the interesting topics from the dull.

    Maybe this is the best it gets. Upvoting and downvoting invite abusive behavior once the userbase gets widely distributed enough. Upvoting alone seems superior.