Talk:Usenet newsgroup

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In the various articles about newsgroups, Usenet, list of newsgroups, and other places on Wikipedia, there are at least three different standards uses for listing a newsgroup in an article. Those three standards are:

  • plain lettering: alt.ascii-art
  • italics: alt.ascii-art
  • block lettering: alt.ascii-art

Which of these three is the "correct" way to list a newsgroup in a Wikipedia article? Personally I think the italicized version should be correct, but I'm not sure if there is an "official" way to list a newsgroup. --Modemac 18:18, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Google is polluting its newsgroup archives

In early 2005, Google started polluting its newsgroup archives by including public and private mailing lists without any indication of the difference. --tshapin 11:50, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] External links

I removed two advertising links, when the link contains a flashy site with little informational value and general phrases but with affiliate links to usenet providers to earn on referrals, maybe there are more garbage links like that, I didn't check them all, just those two I saw in the past.

"Google Groups, Google's web interface to Usenet (http://groups.google.com) NNTP interface to Usenet (http://news.individual.net) "

Why cite these two sites in particular ? "Google Groups" is not synonymous with "web2news" (neither is individual.net synonymous with NNTP server, moreover their server will remain free only until end of March)Apokrif 11:43, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm against those "no external links" talebans. According to them, the only external links allowed are the ones to Google websites and the like, which is a great limitation to the concept of the Web, and an insult to the Wikipedia philosophy. It seems that only the websites owned by big companies can be linked, ignoring the efforts and the contribute of independent webmasters that help the Web to grow and remain free. Remember that for the big companies we are just costumers, not users.
For this article I propose to revert to this version: 03:54, 3 May 2006 63.199.231.98 (broken link) --80.181.230.202 07:55, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a link directory. Basically, external links are not appropriate for Wikipedia. They are allowed in some rare cases. Notability is one of the criterions. Not having a site linked from Wikipedia should not be taken as disrespectful. The revision you suggest has many sites that clearly do not belong in a Wikipedia External links section. Haakon 08:59, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree only if all links to major websites (including Google) are removed altogether. Otherwise I think relevant websites should be linked to articles. Also, There's nothing in the "external links guidelines" that supports your point of view. I've added a comment to the talk page there --80.181.230.202 10:42, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
DMOZ is a main site, but open. Does it make everybody happy? Otherwise, remove it... --Eltener 07:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moderation

Can somebody add content decribing moderation of USENET newsgroup?

[edit] Verifiability

By what specific method are these facts verifiable? Is it acceptable practice to discuss newsgroups when the guidelines for reliable sources say otherwise? This question may appear to be silly, however, it is in regard to better documentation for Wikipedia. Ste4k 00:59, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Newsgroups "precursor" of WWW?

The lead section says:

"Newsgroups of the 1980s thus became the precursor to the World Wide Web of the 1990s."

This seems quite misleading to me, except in the weak sense that ngs existed before the WWW. You could equally (and perhaps more accurately) say that FTP and Gopher (and even email) were precursors of the Web. I'd suggest deleting this sentence unless it can be reworded to be more meaningful. (And, come to think of it, did they become the precursors or were they the precursors?) AndrewWTaylor 16:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

No comments on this for 2 weeks - I'll delete the sentence; and also the inappropriate mention of Outlook Express AndrewWTaylor 12:29, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] minor important addition to article, tho messed up.

I added a link to the web archive from wayback machine (I can only add references via wayback machine @ my station)a site that lists all the usenet hierarchies in alphabetical order, but the link appears as a 1 @ the bottom of the article. I invite any who would be willing to teach me to do this better, to so do (I have always preferred the awkward "so do", and variants to ending sentences with prepesitions).Thaddeus Slamp 16:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC) Of course it would also be nice if someone fixxed my fix, without removing it, since I think that the basic idea is a pretty darned good one.Thaddeus Slamp 16:41, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MUCHA LANA (removed)

(Long chain letter in Spanish removed from here. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:16, 11 January 2008 (UTC))

[edit] history of newsgroups

While I agree the "precursor" comment (above) was misleading, I think some sense of history should be included in the introduction. Newsgroups were the first main way networked discussion happened - before the the Internet was widely used. It would also be nice to give a sense of the extent of usage (I have not read the whole article so not usre if this is in there somewhere). Clearly Newsgroups are a less significant part of all networked discussion now than they were at one time but have they declined in an absolute sense? Fholson 11:30, 7 April 2008 (UTC)