Hi all,

I'm pretty much one of the last people appearing around here, and I have
to say that I enjoyed this form of communication very much. From the technology, to the format, the idea in general. I was never a USENET
user, so this all is new (maybe pun intended. Not sure) to me.

Anyway, since I discovered this, I've spent some time catching up with
the whole archive. Subscribed to all the groups (of those tildes where I
am member, and the general ones). And read it all. In my opinion, it's
great that all these messages are here, quietly waiting for people to
find them, read them, and add some more. :)

And, I would love to see it revitalized a bit. But I'm not sure what sort of discussion/activity/content would fit best in here.

I would like then to propose an informal survey. If you are reading this
and wouldn't mind, here are some questions I would like you to answer:

- Are you there? (please answer so we get an idea of how many people read this
regularly)
- How often would you say you check your 'tildeverse' groups?
- how many of the (tilde) groups are you following?
- If you are also a USENET reader, how often do you check your usenet
groups?
- what sort of topics would you like to read about/discuss here?
- would you find a thread of "usenet groups recommendations"
interesting?
- any idea whether we should, or how can we if so, attract more
activity/users to the news?
- do you think tilde users don't use these groups because:
- they don't know it exists
- they don't know how to access
- they know it and could participate, but don't want to

This is mostly a probe to see the current state of these groups, and
maybe get a feeling of where we see them going (present, and future)

Answering any of these questions is not mandatory, feel free to answer
one, all, or none. But even if you don't want to answer any of them,
just replying to say "I've seen it" would be appreciated.

Also, if someone wants to ask any other questions that could be related
to the "present and future" of this channel, feel free to add them.

Alright, I think that covers all the things I had in mind. Hope this
message finds you all well, and hope you decide to respond :)

Cheers!

--
hand-signed with love,
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

jmcs <jmcs@nowhere.invalid> wrote:

- Are you there? (please answer so we get an idea of how many people
read this regularly)

Yes. How could I answer if I were not?

- How often would you say you check your 'tildeverse' groups?

Tens of times per day. Like all the other stuff I pull via NNTP.

- how many of the (tilde) groups are you following?

All I know of on this server.

The local.* groups will be different on neighbour servers and some have additional own hierarchies. :.(

- If you are also a USENET reader, how often do you check your usenet
groups?

Tens of times per day.

- what sort of topics would you like to read about/discuss here?

Building a P2P swarm or mesh of systems we run at home or in our
pockets. Peerverse? Peernix instead of Pubnix?

- would you find a thread of "usenet groups recommendations"
interesting?

No idea. Such judgement probably is far too subjective.

- any idea whether we should, or how can we if so, attract more
activity/users to the news?

Let's be sneaky?

Build stuff using SMTP (especially mailinglists) and NNTP, add
blingbling (G|T)UIs and only later tell them, that they have joined:

T H E O R I G I N A L F E D I V E R S E !

- do you think tilde users don't use these groups because:
- they don't know it exists

- they don't know how to access

Usenet is in a bad shape and servers of smaller crowds typically are too
small to be interesting, but I think they could be the ambassadors of a
new NNTP age. We may need experiments with hierarchies that allow a
well defined subset of HTML and maybe even images scaled down or
dithered to a reasonnable size. Additionally newsreaders should be like browsers: Jumping to other groups and subscribing to them should be as
easy as following a link and all that even over the server borders.

Compare a post's structure to what we get from a HTTPD. There is not a
huge difference. Especially when MIME comes into the game, we can start
to smell that s browser is not much more than a frontend do pick just
one post from somewhere.

Someone really did a good job of divide and conquer!

Adding newsreader plugins to browsers may be a way to fix that.

And I never understood why we needed 1001 incompatible unfederated
forums. IMO just having a different fronted to match different tastes
would have been enough.

N o t i n v e n t e d h e r e s y n d r o m e ?

- they know it and could participate, but don't want to

Attention span? Generation video#shorts and 500 chars toots cannot bear
more than those information packet sizes any more?
--
(∞)
\/|\/
<=>
_______
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

We may need experiments with hierarchies that allow a well defined
subset of HTML and maybe even images scaled down or dithered to a
reasonnable size.

Check

LOW-TECH MAGAZINE
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com

and their bridged to NNTP feed via Gwene

gwene.com.lowtechmagazin.solar

or

Hackaday
https://hackaday.com/blog/

and

gwene.com.hackaday

to see how much HTML your "newsbrowser" can bear.

Some of the mailinglists I get via Gmane allow HTML messages too and
sometimes I get eyecancer because of syntax coloured code snippets in
those. So surely that coin has two sides too.
--
I do not bite, I just want to play.
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

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jmcs <jmcs@nowhere.invalid> writes:

Hi all,

[...]

Hi, jmcs :-) .

- Are you there? (please answer so we get an idea of how many people
read this regularly)

Yes.

- How often would you say you check your 'tildeverse' groups?

Daily.

- how many of the (tilde) groups are you following?

"11", starting to count on 1. Starting to count on 0 is "10". On my
custom, and preferred, numerical system, this number equates to "00" :-)
.

- If you are also a USENET reader, how often do you check your usenet
groups?

Daily.

- what sort of topics would you like to read about/discuss here?

Anything relates to:
- Speech, Words, Numbers
- Logic
- Free/Libre Software
- Lisp programming language
- (responsible) Freedom and Modern (responsible) Citizenship
- Do It Yourself topics, Minimalism, Vegan, Green energies
- Alternative culture
- some Portuguese would be great (I know this is stretching)

- would you find a thread of "usenet groups recommendations"
interesting?

Not really. I would be neutral.

- any idea whether we should, or how can we if so, attract more
activity/users to the news?

Well, people that read this news don't produce much content, so expect
new users to also do follow this behaviour.

I see it as us needing to create more activity (of quality, of course),
and getting more engagement from the initiatives.

- do you think tilde users don't use these groups because:
- they don't know it exists
- they don't know how to access
- they know it and could participate, but don't want to

Probably because they don't have a good news client. Also, because they
lack interest in this.


Good initiative jmcs ;-) .

=2D-=20
The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that
refuse military service. ~ Albert Einstein

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--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

On 2025-06-19 Thu 12:06 GMT, jmcs <jmcs@nowhere.invalid> wrote:

- How often would you say you check your 'tildeverse' groups?

Every few days.

- how many of the (tilde) groups are you following?

A dozen or so. It might be all of them, most are inactive.

- If you are also a USENET reader, how often do you check your usenet
groups?

Might not understand this question. You mean public groups, outside the tildeverse? A few times a day.

- what sort of topics would you like to read about/discuss here?

Ooh, hard to say. The one I've liked most here is the ascii art one, now
sadly inactive. I didn't go in looking for such a group though. Not
easily predictable what might appeal.

- would you find a thread of "usenet groups recommendations"
interesting?

I'd take a look, sure.

- any idea whether we should, or how can we if so, attract more
activity/users to the news?

Easier said than done: posts by people with more energy and talent than
I have :D (Such as your parent post!)

- do you think tilde users don't use these groups because:
- they don't know it exists
- they don't know how to access
- they know it and could participate, but don't want to

No idea.

G'luck!
--
barnold
Demand the establishment of the government in its rightful home at Disneyland. --- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

jmcs <jmcs@nowhere.invalid> wrote:

- Are you there? (please answer so we get an idea of how many people read this
regularly)
- How often would you say you check your 'tildeverse' groups?

I look at news perhaps once a month.

- how many of the (tilde) groups are you following?
- If you are also a USENET reader, how often do you check your usenet
groups?

Same, once a month.

- what sort of topics would you like to read about/discuss here?
- would you find a thread of "usenet groups recommendations"
interesting?

Yes.

- any idea whether we should, or how can we if so, attract more
activity/users to the news?

I think that everything has already been tried. Sadly, I’m a pessimist by nature and more so with age.

--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

On Thu, 19 Jun 2025 12:06:09 +0000, jmcs wrote:

Hi all,

Hello!

- Are you there? (please answer so we get an idea of how many people
read this regularly)

I'm here!

- How often would you say you check your 'tildeverse' groups?

Usually daily. Sometimes more if things get active.

- how many of the (tilde) groups are you following?

All of them!

- If you are also a USENET reader, how often do you check your usenet
groups?

Same as above. Usually daily. More if something interesting is going on.

- what sort of topics would you like to read about/discuss here?

Anything I find interesting! I don't think content should be limited, it should just be directed into the appropriate group.

- would you find a thread of "usenet groups recommendations"
interesting?

Sure!

- any idea whether we should, or how can we if so, attract more
activity/users to the news?

I think it's cool that the tildeverse has their own little pocket of nttp
in addition to the broader usenet. I like the idea of this being a place
for tildeverse users (swintonians?). I would love to attract more tilde
users, but am against pulling in the broader internet audience onto these groups in particular, since we've already got that elsewhere.

- do you think tilde users don't use these groups because:
- they don't know it exists - they don't know how to access - they
know it and could participate, but don't want to

I think the answer, as in many other things, is complicated. Some don't
know they're here. Some prefer to use bbj locally, or the email list.
Others just want to stick to IRC for tilde interactions.

I think most people will be swayed, one way or another, by just where the activity is located. If bbj was where all conversations happened, I would follow that more. If it's all in NNTP, I'll prioritize that. But we've got
a little bit of activity in a lot of places.

I prefer NNTP over other methods, because it puts all the control over
what you'll read and prioritize in the user's hands. But opinions on this
will differ. Some might prefer bbj because it *is* super-local to our instance.

Thanks for kicking off the conversation!

Lafe
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

lafe <lafe@tilde.club> wrote:

I think the answer, as in many other things, is complicated. Some
don't know they're here. Some prefer to use bbj locally, or the email
list. Others just want to stick to IRC for tilde interactions.

Pubnixens often fall into the trap of running too many competing
services.

I think most people will be swayed, one way or another, by just where the activity is located. If bbj was where all conversations happened, I would follow that more. If it's all in NNTP, I'll prioritize that. But we've got
a little bit of activity in a lot of places.

As a start the Tildeverse's mailing lists should be bridged into NNTP
and it should not stop there.
--
I do not bite, I just want to play.
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

--=-=-=
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yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> writes:

lafe <lafe@tilde.club> wrote:

I think most people will be swayed, one way or another, by just where
the activity is located. If bbj was where all conversations happened,
I would follow that more. If it's all in NNTP, I'll prioritize
that. But we've got a little bit of activity in a lot of places.

As a start the Tildeverse's mailing lists should be bridged into NNTP
and it should not stop there.

Hmmm.... I don't know if a Mailing List <-> NNTP brigde is a good
idea...

Separation is natural, union is artificial.

Did today's SPAM teach yourself some lesson? What would you do to
prevent SPAM in this union that should not stop with a Mailling List <->
NNTP brigde?

That union would be a spammer's dream come true.


=2D-=20
The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that
refuse military service. ~ Albert Einstein

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--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

Hi all,

Hi, there

Are you there? (please answer so we get an idea
of how many people read this regularly)

I am definitely here.

How often would you say you check your

'tildeverse' groups?
Daily.

how many of the (tilde) groups are you following?

I follow
comp.{text.tex,lang.{c,awk,python},unix.{shell,misc}} and tilde.{art.ascii,club,green,institute,meta,python,services,team,text}.
About 15 if I am counting correctly.

If you are also a USENET reader, how often do you
check your usenet groups?

Daily. And are there people who do not use a
USENET reader? I thought the web interface died
when Google Groups disconnected from USENET. And
thanks to that one step, the spam problem has
substantially been reduced.

what sort of topics would you like to read about/discuss here?

I think HN put it more elegantly:
Anything that good hackers would find interesting. If
you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be:
"anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

would you find a thread of "usenet groups recommendations"
interesting?

No.

any idea whether we should, or how can we if so, attract more
activity/users to the news?

Nothing. Low traffic is better.

do you think tilde users don't use these groups because:

   [ ] they don't know it exists
   [ ] they don't know how to access
   [X] they know it and could participate, but don't want to
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

On Mon, 23 Jun 2025, Annada Behera wrote:

how many of the (tilde) groups are you following?

I follow
comp.{text.tex,lang.{c,awk,python},unix.{shell,misc}} and tilde.{art.ascii,club,green,institute,meta,python,services,team,text}.
About 15 if I am counting correctly.

If you are also a USENET reader, how often do you
check your usenet groups?

Daily. And are there people who do not use a
USENET reader? I thought the web interface died
when Google Groups disconnected from USENET. And
thanks to that one step, the spam problem has
substantially been reduced.

Maybe I'm getting the names of things wrong: I was refering on one side
to the newsgroups that are "internal" to the tildeverse (I'll try to
paste a list of all them further down), and on the other I called
the list of newsgroups that are public "USENET".

I also used the words "usenet reader" to refer to a "person that reads
those public newsgroups", not to the software used to read them.

In your response, you seem to group public and "tilde" newsgroups
together, so maybe I'm wrong when I call the public groups as a whole
"USENET"

My intent with this chain of messages was mostly to talk about the
"tildeverse" groups, and see if people considered it a good idea to
atract more *tildeverse* users to these groups.

At the same time, I was asking the question about the "usenet groups recommendations" to see if people who are "internal" users would like to discover "usenet" groups

(I think finding interesting public groups is a bit more difficult than
it could be, so maybe other "newbies" don't use "newsgroups" more
because they are unaware of good ones)

Alright, that's all for now, just wanted to clarify what I meant. If my
naming for things is wrong, please everyone, correct me. I'm just not
sure how things are called, but wanted to be as clear as possible.

Later on, I'll add my own answers to the survey as well.

Regards!

P.S.: here's the complete list of the "tildeverse groups", as far as I
know. The "local" ones are , in my case, local to tilde.club, while the
others are shared among several tildes. Other tildes might (should?) have
their own "local." hierarchy:

local.general local.test tilde.art.ascii
tilde.art.music tilde.black tilde.bsd
tilde.club tilde.cosmic tilde.food+drink
tilde.gopher tilde.green tilde.institute
tilde.javascript tilde.meetups tilde.meta
tilde.nsfw tilde.php tilde.pink
tilde.poetry tilde.projects tilde.python
tilde.radiofreqs tilde.services tilde.services.uucp
tilde.team tilde.text tilde.your


such as things are, some of these are no longer active. But that's the
whole list.


--
yeah, it's me
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

My bad, I read that wrong. I thought that anyone answering the survey
here was already reading USENET, so that was implied and you were
asking if I use a USENET reader software. Sorry about the confusion. -----Original Message-----
From: jmcs <jmcs@nowhere.invalid>
Subject: Re: present/future of the tildeverse newsgroups
Date: 06/23/2025 06:58:34 PM
Newsgroups: tilde.meta
On Mon, 23 Jun 2025, Annada Behera wrote:

how many of the (tilde) groups are you following?

I follow
comp.{text.tex,lang.{c,awk,python},unix.{shell,misc}} and tilde.{art.ascii,club,green,institute,meta,python,services,team,text}
.
About 15 if I am counting correctly.

If you are also a USENET reader, how often do you
check your usenet groups?

Daily. And are there people who do not use a
USENET reader? I thought the web interface died
when Google Groups disconnected from USENET. And
thanks to that one step, the spam problem has
substantially been reduced.

Maybe I'm getting the names of things wrong: I was refering on one side
to the newsgroups that are "internal" to the tildeverse (I'll try to
paste a list of all them further down), and on the other I called
the list of newsgroups that are public "USENET".
I also used the words "usenet reader" to refer to a "person that reads
those public newsgroups", not to the software used to read them.
In your response, you seem to group public and "tilde" newsgroups
together, so maybe I'm wrong when I call the public groups as a whole
"USENET"
My intent with this chain of messages was mostly to talk about the
"tildeverse" groups, and see if people considered it a good idea to
atract more *tildeverse* users to these groups.
At the same time, I was asking the question about the "usenet groups recommendations" to see if people who are "internal" users would like
to
discover "usenet" groups
(I think finding interesting public groups is a bit more difficult than
it could be, so maybe other "newbies" don't use "newsgroups" more
because they are unaware of good ones)
Alright, that's all for now, just wanted to clarify what I meant. If my
naming for things is wrong, please everyone, correct me. I'm just not
sure how things are called, but wanted to be as clear as possible.
Later on, I'll add my own answers to the survey as well.
Regards!
P.S.: here's the complete list of the "tildeverse groups", as far as I
know. The "local" ones are , in my case, local to tilde.club, while the
others are shared among several tildes. Other tildes might (should?)
have
their own "local." hierarchy:
local.general       local.test        tilde.art.ascii tilde.art.music     tilde.black       tilde.bsd tilde.club          tilde.cosmic      tilde.food+drink tilde.gopher        tilde.green       tilde.institute tilde.javascript    tilde.meetups     tilde.meta tilde.nsfw          tilde.php         tilde.pink tilde.poetry        tilde.projects    tilde.python tilde.radiofreqs    tilde.services    tilde.services.uucp tilde.team          tilde.text        tilde.your
such as things are, some of these are no longer active. But that's the
whole list.
--
yeah, it's me
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2