Wihtout harbinger or warning, I suddenly realised that a
mailing list is a competent blogging platform, to wit---

-- an off-the-web system,
-- a text-based medium,
-- a widely adopted technology
-- based on open and stable standards,
-- has good Free implementations thoughout the stack.
-- works on the oldest hardware,
-- supports thousands of clients,
-- includes an arhiving mechanism,
-- supports subscription,
-- supports (pre-moderatable) comments,
-- includes a web-inteface
for reading (the revered Mailman2)
or even for writing (the dreaded Mailman3).
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

What defines a BLOG and why can't a news server "do it"?
--
KNORKATOR
Rette sich wer kann [LIVE @Columbiahalle]
<https://youtu.be/TVEraAs6_eA>
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

On Mon, 14 Sep 2026 10:06:32 +0042
yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

What defines a BLOG and why can't a news server "do it"?

I've toyed with this idea before. I think it was on irc, maybe xwindows remembers? I can't access my irc logs until tilde.team is back up :p

The thing is, newsgroups cover the publishing (and 'discoverability'),
and they already include a comments system for free. I think I even
mentioned the idea to have a tilde.[tilde].blogs hierarchy (and I might remember xwindows commenting that it would be better if it was under
tilde.text (although maybe this was about another idea, something like
having a book club here in the news? not sure)

In other contexts (maybe it was on rec.bicycles.rides? ) I have seen
the netnews used pretty much as someone would use their own blog:
writing about a nice sunday morning bicycle ride, and then getting
comments from other people...

So, yeah, not a crazy idea. Could even be hooked to the 'feels' program
many tildes have, so it could write to gopher, html and netnews... Who
knows, maybe it's the idea of the century :D

--
KNORKATOR
Rette sich wer kann [LIVE @Columbiahalle]
<https://youtu.be/TVEraAs6_eA>

--
jmcs <jmcs@tilde.club>
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

jmcs <jmcs@tilde.club> writes:

On Mon, 14 Sep 2026 10:06:32 +0042
yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

What defines a BLOG and why can't a news server "do it"?

I've toyed with this idea before. I think it was on irc, maybe xwindows remembers? I can't access my irc logs until tilde.team is back up :p

The thing is, newsgroups cover the publishing (and 'discoverability'),
and they already include a comments system for free. I think I even
mentioned the idea to have a tilde.[tilde].blogs hierarchy (and I might remember xwindows commenting that it would be better if it was under tilde.text (although maybe this was about another idea, something like
having a book club here in the news? not sure)

In other contexts (maybe it was on rec.bicycles.rides? ) I have seen
the netnews used pretty much as someone would use their own blog:
writing about a nice sunday morning bicycle ride, and then getting
comments from other people...

I do see a problem with this approach in that it would be hard to
revisit an old post. Most newsreaders hide read messages by default, and
I don't know of any that support a bookmarking feature. Retention
presents another issue. You could save posts to disk, which would make
finding them easier and addresses the retention issue--but only for the
posts and comments you save. This may not be an issue in a small
environment like the tildeverse, though!

--
luna
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

jmcs <jmcs@tilde.club> wrote:

On Mon, 14 Sep 2026 10:06:32 +0042
yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

What defines a BLOG and why can't a news server "do it"?

I've toyed with this idea before. I think it was on irc, maybe
xwindows remembers?

Ok, xwindows probbably will notice this thread.

So, yeah, not a crazy idea. Could even be hooked to the 'feels'
program many tildes have, so it could write to gopher, html and
netnews... Who knows, maybe it's the idea of the century :D

HTML's CGI and it's gopher neighbour can just play newsreader.

Maybe as a start one of these web newsreaders' source can be obtained?

<http://csiph.com/>
<https://newsgrouper.org/>

Independently from the BLOG topic, having such in the Tildeverse may
attract more users to news too.
--
Qntal
Ad Mortem Festinamus
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIDpG8ntV0w>
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

luna <luna@cosmic.voyage> wrote:

I do see a problem with this approach in that it would be hard to
revisit an old post. Most newsreaders hide read messages by default,

Reading new entries probably is a mode some human BLOG readers are in
iften too.

and I don't know of any that support a bookmarking feature.

Emacs can bookmark near to everything, so Gnus inherits that, but it is
not nice enough, so I rarely use it. :.( I typically keep pointers to
posts and other bookmarks in orgmode texts (per topic).

Retention presents another issue.

Just a configuration question. It can be turned off in INN.

You could save posts to disk, which would make finding them easier and addresses the retention issue--but only for the posts and comments you
save. This may not be an issue in a small environment like the
tildeverse, though!

And you can show all posts including the read ones and Gnus won't be the
only news reader that can search through all the posts' bodies.
Searching in the group overview, so in the subject is a different one.

If we stare long enough at WWW, eMail or mailing lists as BLOGS, we'll
probably find some missing or not so easy usable functions too.
--
Qntal
Ad Mortem Festinamus
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIDpG8ntV0w>
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

On Thu, 17 Sep 2026 07:25:28 +0042
yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

jmcs <jmcs@tilde.club> wrote:

On Mon, 14 Sep 2026 10:06:32 +0042
yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

What defines a BLOG and why can't a news server "do it"?

I've toyed with this idea before. I think it was on irc, maybe
xwindows remembers?

Ok, xwindows probbably will notice this thread.

So, yeah, not a crazy idea. Could even be hooked to the 'feels'
program many tildes have, so it could write to gopher, html and
netnews... Who knows, maybe it's the idea of the century :D

HTML's CGI and it's gopher neighbour can just play newsreader.

Maybe as a start one of these web newsreaders' source can be obtained?

<http://csiph.com/>
<https://newsgrouper.org/>

Independently from the BLOG topic, having such in the Tildeverse may
attract more users to news too.

This made me remember this thingy made by deepend:

http://tilde.club/~deepend/netnews/

--
Qntal
Ad Mortem Festinamus
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIDpG8ntV0w>

--
jmcs <jmcs@tilde.club>
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2