[Info-vax] [OT] Real Usenet clients, was: Re: backups and compaction or nocompaction might be better

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2013-01-29 17:47:04 +0000, Simon Clubley said:

> On 2013-01-29, Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
>> On 2013-01-29 15:28:54 +0000, pcoviello at gmail.com said:
>> 
>>> that was what I was afraid of and unfortunately I can not un-encrypt
>>> the databases :-(
>>> as far as the interlock I thought I had seen something on that awhile
>>> back and totally forgot about it.
>> 
>> ps: Get yourself a news reader for your preferred platform and a (free)
>> account on Endless September, or one of the other (free) nntp servers
>> available.
>> 
> 
> $ set response/mode=good_natured
> 
> That's a bit of a change from you. :-)

Um, OK.

I've changed my opinion on server uptime and on some other topics, but 
I don't recall switching sides on the morass that is Google Groups.

Corrections and objections here are welcome, of course.

> I thought those of us who insisted Usenet clients should conform to
> commonly accepted standards instead of following whatever Google decides
> to do this month were living in the past. :-)

While Google Groups has the advantage of being "better than nothing", 
whether folks lack a client or lack NNTP access, a poor new client is 
still a poor news client.  Here's one of my recent-previoius comments 
on this topic:

"Do feel free to contact Google's product support, and escalate the 
breakage report.  Though I suspect launching a world-wide-web usenet 
nntp client downgrade might be more effective than the outcome via the 
Google Groups support path.  Google is going to do what Google does, 
after all, and their Groups-to-NNTP bridge (if that's how they're doing 
this) is wonky.

The "errant" post came through as double-spaced, but otherwise quite 
readable in the local news reader.  Far from the worst I've seen posted 
here.

For those folks that are working on news readers, chasing after Google 
compatibility (or contending with Google breakage, depending on your 
perspective) may or may not be feasible.  Or interesting.

End-users upgrading or migrating news readers is feasible, however."



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