this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by lamp@neon.nightbulb.net to c/bookstodon@a.gup.pe
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@bookstodon@a.gup.pe @histodons@a.gup.pe @academicchatter@a.gup.pe @actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe @palestine@a.gup.pe @infodump@a.gup.pe

== Usenet: Network News Free Speech Network ==

(303 words. Read time 2-3 minutes. Save and share!)

## Contents ##

  1. Introduction
  2. Ways to access Usenet
  3. Links to Usenet hosts and software
  4. Rough traffic count

Do you remember Network News, AKA Usenet? At over 40 years old, Usenet is the original 'social network'. Usenet is the oldest bastion of digital free speech networks.

Usenet is highly resistant to censorship. For decades Usenet has served as a free speech haven. It has also served as a platform for secure and anonymous messaging.

I suspect that many of GenY and GenZ have never heard of Usenet. We can change that. We can alert them to this censorship-resistant network as an alternative to highly censored social media.

## Ways to access Usenet ##

There are multiple ways to access Usenet:

- web front ends
- dedicated graphical clients
- dedicated terminal clients

## Links to Usenet hosts and software ##

Users can access Usenet to read and post by installing free client software or by visiting a host that provides web browser access.

* Free Forum front end for Usenet: https://novabbs.org/

* Free Usenet servers list: https://sybershock.com/#usenet

* Free Usenet reader software:

- Thunderbird https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/
- Betterbird https://www.betterbird.eu/
- Claws Mail https://www.claws-mail.org/
- Sylpheed https://sylpheed.sraoss.jp/en/
- Seamonkey https://www.seamonkey-project.org/

## Rough traffic count ##

A few days ago when I counted, more than 16 thousand articles were posted in Usenet threads in a 24-hour period. I checked today as of a few minutes past midnight GMT, and almost 12 thousand articles were posted in the past 24-hour period. At this rate about 4.4 million articles would be posted in a single year.

Share this information with your friends!

#Usenet #NNTP #NetworkNews #SocialMedia #SocialNetworks #FreeSpeech #Censorship

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[–] heretical_i@kafeneio.social 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Like nntp theres no intelligent life there anymore unless you bring it. @lamp @bookstodon @histodons @academicchatter @actuallyautistic @palestine

[–] lamp@neon.nightbulb.net 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)
[–] heretical_i@kafeneio.social 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Last time I looked at nntp 2 or 3 years ago it was 99% spam and adverts... But I repeat myself. I'm sure there are some newsgroups that aren't... But I didn't find them. Not even the tech oriented ones. The advent of a huge www made that sort of inevitable. Last time I used it functionally was when the comp.os9 newsgroup still existed... The 1990s. @lamp @bookstodon @histodons @academicchatter @actuallyautistic @palestine @infodump

[–] lamp@neon.nightbulb.net 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

@bookstodon@a.gup.pe @histodons@a.gup.pe @academicchatter@a.gup.pe @actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe @palestine@a.gup.pe @infodump@a.gup.pe

comp.os.plan9 still exists. Some plan9 maintainers were recently discussing appointing a moderator for the group to get it active again. People are thinking about the 'missing moderator' problem and how to solve it. The discussion is in this thread:

https://news.novabbs.org/usenet/article-flat.php?id=201&group=news.groups.proposals#201

"The MVI was prompted by one of the directors of the Plan 9 Foundation, who had written to the Board with the intention of reviving the newsgroup, perhaps via a bidirectional gateway to the 9fans mailing list. He suggested converting the group to unmoderated, but as this is a rather experimental solution, we proposed running an MVI, at least as a first step, to see if the group could remain moderated."

Some people want Usenet to die so they keep saying it is dead. Unfortunately a lot of people take them at their word and don't even bother to check it out. The ISC / Big8 Board is active again and taking care of business in the Big8 hierarchies. Some of us refuse to walk away from Usenet because we understand from experience that it has some features superior to all social networks, especially for decentralization and censorship avoidance. NNTP is simple compared to many 'modern' protocols and easily extended for custom applications.

[–] heretical_i@kafeneio.social 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Dunno what Plan9 is... OS9 was an optional os for tandy Color Computers developed by microware. A small footprint simple unix-like os that ran well on 6809 chips and multitasked. It even had a windows routine, MultiVue, for the COCO3 anyway. The manual came with all the C (no + or ++) for the windows s/w. @lamp @bookstodon @histodons @academicchatter @actuallyautistic @palestine @infodump

[–] lamp@neon.nightbulb.net 1 points 2 weeks ago

@bookstodon@a.gup.pe @histodons@a.gup.pe @academicchatter@a.gup.pe @actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe @palestine@a.gup.pe @infodump@a.gup.pe

I misunderstood. I assumed you meant plan9 from Bell Labs. There was a long lull of activity on the child project that is now maintaining it.