[gopher] Future of this list, etc.

[Mateusz Viste]

On Sat, 30 Sep 2017 16:21:01 -0700, James Mills wrote:
> I concur. I've never used NNTP and I vaguely remember ions ago it was a
> bit awkward to use :/

It's surely *much* simpler than the messy pop3/imap/smtp stuff. NNTP is a 
single protocol specialized for exchange of messages using a very simple 
set of commands (thus very easy to implement). Mail, on the other hand, 
became a glorified mess in the last 30 years.

> Can someone explain why NNTP is better than a mailing list?

First I have to say that "better" is probably not the correct term. 
"different", yes. For a small project that will run over the course of a 
few months with a bunch of people - I'd say go with a mailing list. If 
we're talking about a subject that spans over a few years (decades even), 
with an uncontrolled amount of subscribers, then Usenet is the way to go.

This should provide you with an (incomplete, but still) introduction:
http://www.savetz.com/yic/YIC05FI_25.html

Myself, I value also the fact that Usenet is a truly public place. When a 
new subscriber gets the list, he can get the history of past messages 
right away. A mailing list doesn't allow such thing (not other than 
looking into some web-based archive stuff, if the mailing list provides 
such additional tool).

Resiliency: Usenet is a network of meshed NNTP servers. Should a few 
servers go down, no big deal, nothing is lost. Should the mailing list 
server go down, you're fucked. This gets me to another point:

Persistent across time. One day or another, the mailing list server will 
cease business. What then? "Migrating" the users to another mailing list 
provider. In the meantime, all past messages are lost from the internet. 
With Usenet, this doesn't happen.

The killfile is also a feature that I enjoy much, and pretty much every 
news reader implement it. Sure, you could probably emulate it with 
cryptic rules in some mail programs, but it's a mess.

Separating mail from public forum. Not everyone cares about this, but I 
do. I like to receive on my mail things that I am supposed to answer. 
Messages coming from a public forum are distracting me in times when I 
have more important things to attend to.

Spammy additions - some mailing lists like to add some ads to the 
messages that are posted by users. I really hate that. If I post 
something, I want it to be delivered exactly as I typed it, without 
additional crap.

Finally, I choose what I want to read (and fetch). If I'm not interested 
in a thread, I mark it as ignored, and its messages won't even be 
downloaded to my PC (headers only) - while with a mailing list I am 
forced into getting all the stuff.

Mateusz





> On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 2:55 PM, Mr. Leveck
> <leveck at leveck.us> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Was the decision made to move to NNTP?
>>
>> What are some good, free news-servers? What are some decent clients
>> (console & X11)?
>>
>> This is one aspect of the web I have not restarted use of yet. I'm
>> thinking about 17 years ago on a Palm device was my last active use of
>> NNTP... yeah, I suppose I could duckduckgo this, but I am looking for
>> tried and liked options. TYIA
>>
>> --
>> Leveck
>>
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>> Gopher-Project at lists.alioth.debian.org
>> http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gopher-project
>>
> <div dir="ltr">I concur. I've never used NNTP and I vaguely remember
> ions ago it was a bit awkward to use :/<div><br></div><div>Can someone
> explain why NNTP is better than a mailing list?</div></div><div
> class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature"
> data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><span
> style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(136,136,136);font-
size:13px"><br><font
> face="arial, sans-serif">James Mills / prologic</font><br><br><font
> face="arial, sans-serif"></font><font face="'courier new',
> monospace">E: <a href="mailto:prologic at shortcircuit.net.au"
> style="color:rgb(0,0,204)"
> target="_blank">prologic at shortcircuit.net.au</a></font></span><div><span
> style="font-family:'courier
> new',monospace;color:rgb(136,136,136);font-size:13px">W: </span><a
> href="http://prologic.shortcircuit.net.au"
> style="font-family:'courier
> new',monospace;font-size:13px;color:rgb(0,0,204)"
> target="_blank">prologic.shortcircuit.net.au</a><br></div></div></div>
> <br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 2:55 PM, Mr. Leveck
> <span dir="ltr"><<a
> href="mailto:leveck at leveck.us"
> target="_blank">leveck at leveck.us</a>></
span>
> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
> .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
>   
>   
>     
>   <div>
> <br>Was the decision made to move to NNTP? <br><br>What are some good,
> free news-servers? What are some decent clients (console &
> X11)?<br><br>This is one aspect of the web I have not restarted use of
> yet. I'm thinking about 17 years ago on a Palm device was my last
> active use of NNTP... yeah, I suppose I could duckduckgo this, but I am
> looking for tried and liked options. TYIA<span class="HOEnZb"><font
> color="#888888"><br><br>
> --
> <br>Leveck  </font></span></div>