Comments on: I Still Miss Usenet

By: nzb

nzb — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 15:57:18 +0000

I agree that today’s Usenet is more used for downloading of binary files like music, videos, software etc. Not many people use it just to read news as it was developed first. This will be the reason why many companies tried to forbidden Usenet.

By: Eric Gimlin

Eric Gimlin — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 20:59:02 +0000

I remember diving into usenet sometime back in the relatively late 90′s. One of my first memories was saying something about having enjoyed the 5 year later run of Legion, only to get savaged by somebody (Mike Chary?). I now know exactly what sort of mess I innocently stepped into there; and grew to greatly appreciate the discussion. (I still like the 5 year later run, but I’m MUCH more aware of the problems with it thanks to my usenet time.)

I think there’s a very good chance I never would have stayed if the DC digital rep at the time (I wonder what ever happened to them? :-) ) hadn’t sent me an e-mail telling me not to let that get me down. And for about 5 years I really enjoyed the discussion there.

By: Augie De Blieck Jr.

Augie De Blieck Jr. — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 17:08:11 +0000

When I finally read “Watchmen” a few years back, I followed it up immediately with the archives of rec.arts.comics’ conversation of the issues as they were being published. That was fun.

I can’t think of too many message boards I’d do that with a comic today. (I’m not going to go back to read Marvel’s “Civil War” alongside a transcript of the Marvel Universe message board at CBR, for example.)

And, at the risk of sounding a tad elitist, wasn’t the average IQ of a Usenetter pre-1995 much higher anyway, since you basically needed to be a college student earning a tech degree to get it? It was a very specialized class of folks, for the good and the bad.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 15:37:38 +0000

Because sometimes the interaction is more important than having control over the microphone.

By: SKleefeld

SKleefeld — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 04:05:47 +0000

It’s also worth pointing out that “back in the day” everyone went to Usenet because that was the ONLY place to discuss things online. Then message boards started popping up and the discussion fragmented because you now had several different boards where you could discuss the X-Men. Now, with blogs and YouTube followed by FB and Twitter, everyone who wants to weigh in on an issue essentially has their own channel. Why weigh in on someone else’s blog and have my comment buried amongst the riff-raff’s, when I’ve got my own blog where my POV is placed front and center?

By: Jamie Coville

Jamie Coville — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:43:16 +0000

All of that is true, but I don’t miss Christian Micheal Viola and other trolls.

By: SakeCult

SakeCult — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 00:51:42 +0000

Man, there are still those discussion sites. People still dissect every issue and story. It’s the crowd you’re around and not the entire fandom.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 00:31:58 +0000

The main problem with Usenet nowadays is that it is mainly used by people interested in downloading binaries. Discussion groups are almost dead, unfortunately.

By: Tim Skirvin

Tim Skirvin — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 23:17:47 +0000

This looks like a good start:

http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Usenet/Public_News_Servers/

If you’re willing to pay something, I can personally recommend individual.net:

http://news.individual.net/

By: James Schee

James Schee — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:52:26 +0000

How would one get to Usenet these days? I sort of lost my path to it once I moved from dial up to roadrunner.

I do miss just talking about a comic. I know there is still a lot of discussion about issues like how women are drawn or treated and the like. Which are important issues that I’m not discounting.

Yet at times it’d be fun to talk about a story direction, or creative choice. A lot of today’s comics don’t have something worth commenting on, but there a few. Yet even creator message boards and the like don’t have that type of discussion going on.

By: Tim Skirvin

Tim Skirvin — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 21:52:47 +0000

Usenet is still there, you know, and it would be easy to start talking there again.