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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Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

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

--=-=-=
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

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

On Thu, 19 Jun 2025, jmcs wrote:

Alrighty, time to answer my own questions (thanks everyone who chimed
in!)

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

Indeed, I'm here

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

I'd say as part of my daily routine. There's not often new messages

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

All of them (the local ones from tilde.club, and the common ones)

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

As I tried to clarify, by this I mean "public newsgroups like the ones accesible through eternal-september and other news servers.
I open my reader pointing to these groups mostly when I have some spare
time, and I'm still catching up with several groups (newbie here, so I
have quite a backlog :) )

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

I'm interested in reading and getting to know other tilde-inhabitants.
Whatever our interests might be, book recommendations, music, music
theory, media recommendations (series, movies...)... I'd like to see our "internal" groups become a forum under the loose topic of "tildeverse
people's interests"

Netnews as a technology has 2 very interesting characteristics that I
think, unfortunately, make this difficult: it's distributed, and has a
"strict" hierarchy. So there's no "front page" so to speak, where one
can discover what groups are gaining momentum.

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

My asking this was a bit based on what I just wrote above: maybe I would
like to read about someone's bike trip across Europe, and maybe there's
a group about precisely that, but maybe I don't even know about it :D

Some personal recommendation from tilde neighbors would have more weight
for me than any algorithm or aggregator page.

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

Ironically, I think having a page in news.tildeverse.org with a "latest activity" and easy instructions on how to connect and read the news
could help newcomers. Aggregator! algorithm!

This theoretical page could maybe just expose the group and subject of
latest messages. Or be more elaborate. Not sure

- 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 can share my personal experience: I've heard of usenet, and
newsgroups, for years. But I've been online "only" since circa 2000.
I've known "the internet" mostly through a web browser. During all these
years, USENET was always looming there, looking like a "foreign"
technology to me. Even when I was setting up things recently, I couldn't
shake this "I'm not sure what I'm doing" feeling.

With younger-than-me people, who have "known the internet" via apps, I'm
not sure how alien all this sounds.

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 :)

As a closing note, I'm going to go ahead and let out an "ideas-dump" of
"things we could do with the 'internal' newsgroups". Maybe later we can
open a new thread and keep this one as the "survey":

- several tildes share a "bbj". Accesing bbj is as easy as it can be:
type 3 letters and you're in. Many (most?) tildes have a mail client already configured to fire up "mail" and you're in. Could we greet new users
with a preconfigured news reader?

- This theoretical news reader could either be subscribed to all(*) groups,
or there could be a "meta" group with very little content welcoming
people and suggesting other groups. Ideally, this news reader should be
the easiest to use ever :)

(*) all internal tilde.* and local.* groups, I mean

- We could feature this theoretical "meta" group within a web interface.
Include suggestions, instructions, etc, there

- A different approach: turn these newsgroups into "infrastructure":
some of us here like netnews and like other "small" protocols as well.
Does anyone have any ideas on how one could use newsgroups as comment
systems for gopher phlogs? or gemlogs. Some other "interconnected" use
we could explore for netnews?

- A more recent (well, it's 20 years old now) "thing" that looks suspiciously
like newsgroups hierarchies is reddit. Is there something we could
learn from how reddit works that we could import here? (having a
"popular" page? making creating new groups easier? I'm not saying those
are good ideas, just examples of things that are different )


... I know some of these ideas might sound naive or ridiculous, and feel
free to critizise them. But have in mind you don't have to convince
anyone against them, since they are already non existing. If instead we
could hear other ideas of "things that could be", that'd be awesome :)


Thanks all for reading, and see you around!


--
remember to stay hydrated!
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

jmcs <jmcs@nowhere.invalid> wrote:

Does anyone have any ideas on how one could use newsgroups as comment
systems for gopher phlogs? or gemlogs. Some other "interconnected" use
we could explore for netnews?

That's NNTP comments for WWW:

<https://koldfront.dk/openqrcode_1929>

Is there something we could learn from how reddit works that we could
import here?

Never ever add voting! That poisons the climate.

(having a "popular" page?

That only invites "drive by" comments. The number or frequency of
answers is no reliable metric about the quality of the thread.

making creating new groups easier?

Won't happen here.

Let's install own news servers and experiment with them!

... I know some of these ideas might sound naive or ridiculous,

* * * T H A T ' S M Y J O B ! * * *

and feel free to critizise them.

I won't!
--
2. Hitchhiker 17: (110) "Careful with that hammer, sir," he said.
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

On Thu, 19 Jun 2025, jmcs wrote:

- Are you there?

Tilde.club's semi-official netnews wrangler [1] hereby reporting in.

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

I have "You got news." news spool refresh alert on my Tilde.club shell login, and I check the news every time I see this notification;
so... twice a day would be my answer.

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

All of them; including Tilde.club's all `local.*` newsgroups
(local.test and local.general).

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

- Libre software/computer users' rights and privacy advocacy
- Legacy-first design, and retrodevelopment of software and hardware
- Self-hosting, technological self-sufficiency, and low-tech solutions
- Daily life on, and troubleshooting under libre software OSes
- Amateur electronics, maker culture, and libre hardware
- Art and crafts (not limited to ASCII art-- which I have already
been occasionally active in posting about them here)
- Home economics (not limited to food and drinks) and DIY
- Books and publishing
- Webcomics
- Miscellaneous hobbies (photography, stargazing, collecting, etc.)
- Music (I think I should go post another one in this topic now)
- Gaming (not exactly about regular videogames per se, but the thing
I'm more interested on are exotic games, like interactive fiction
[including visual novels], teletype games, text mode games, etc.)

- 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

Years before, I have discussed with ~yeti (though, in IRC)
about this exact issue. 5 Years in using in IRC (Tilde.chat and Newnet.net), Tilde.club mailing list, and Tildeverse Netnews;
what I have been seeing is...

While majority people who set foot into pubnix scene and Tildeverse
these days know of and often got hyped by the the concept of Small Internet
and network decentralization, including hot newfangled protocols
of the day like ActivityPub (usually by a name "Mastodon"),
Matrix, Gemini, as well as some continually-used classic protocols
like IRC and Gopher...

But I found out that majority of these people didn't know that netnews
--the Internet's original distributed threaded text forum protocol--
still exists and is in-use. They would be taught in school/college about
USENET in past tense (if at all) as if it was an extinct "platform",
with no information about how to connect (especially via gratis provider)
if someone still want to participate today.

Another issue is even in the cases where formal education actually made
mention of USENET, there would not be any disambiguation about
the underlying protocol (formally called netnews) versus the global
federation of servers using that protocol (called USENET);
so people often have no idea that someone (or multiple someones)
can actually set up these servers --lone or networked in isolation--
as forum for their community...

The consequence of these facts is they are unlikely to find out unassisted
that there is a netnews network here-- and they would not even thinking of asking about it when they join a tilde. [2]

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

Make sure that Tildeverse Netnews is always mentioned and introduced
when talking/writing about available communications/hangout facilities
in Tildeverse and on all associated tildes [3]; including the fact that
joining is often as easy [4] as just opening one's favorite email client
and add new newsreading account there.

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

(N/A; I'm not currently using USENET in any real capacity)

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

As already said, I don't use USENET in any real capacity right now;
but I wouldn't mind it, in case I any day I decide to explore there.

Regards,
~xwindows


[1] Semi-official, as I'm officially listed as one of the people responsible
(coordination and technical troubleshooting) for netnews service;
but I have no actual administration power.

[2] And before someone ask: the reason I know about Tildeverse Netnews
(just right before I become Tilde.club member actually) was because
back in 2020, when I discovered Tilde.club and the associated Tildeverse,
I didn't join right away. I shopped around to see which tilde server
would be best-suited as my $HOME tilde (due to my "mission"
and unusual requirements); which meant reading though much of the
documentations provided by each tilde in the process.

That was how I found out about Tilde.club's netnews service,
which ended up being another big reason I have chosen Tilde.club
as my $HOME tilde.

[3] Not just tildes which have their on-site netnews service
like Tilde.club, Tilde.team, Cosmic.voyage, or Tilde.green;
because the rest of Tildeverse servers are allowed read/post access
via news.tilde.club .

[4] It would be easiest when one is a member of a tilde which have on-site
netnews service (they would just connect desktop newsreader to their
$HOME tilde's netnews service, and use system's user/password).
For members of other tildes, they must connect to news.tilde.club
on or through their $HOME tilde; though no additional authentication
is needed for posting.

It used to be significantly easier back when Tildeverse Netnews was open
for public to participate (September 2020 to March 2023);
when anyone, tilde member or otherwise, could simply point
a newsreader to <nntp://news.tilde.club/> and post away.

(Such open-to-public access was turned off because of abuses it got
at the end of that time period)
--
xwindows' gallery of freely-licensed artworks
https://tilde.club/~xwindows/ http://tilde.club/~xwindows/ gopher://tilde.club/1/~xwindows/
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

jmcs <jmcs@nowhere.invalid> wrote:

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:

Nice! I'm in!

- 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?

looking at the date of your post, I'll say about once a month.

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

I follow these groups:

cosmic.general tilde.meetups
cosmic.storyhelp tilde.projects
cosmic.worldbuilding tilde.services
tilde.cosmic tilde.text
tilde.meta tilde.art.ascii
tilde.services.uucp campaignwiki.talk
tilde.food+drink campaignwiki.games

so 14 all counted. cosmic.* and campaignwiki.* are only
available on cosmic.voyage

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

about once a week

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

anything hobby/diy and arts related. I'm much into ttrpg gaming,
boat building and sailing so those would be my favourites.

I would be opposed to thoughtful political discussions either.

Philosophy and science in general would be interesting too.

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

yes, please! I find usenet still a worthwhile place. And it
all depends on the users, right?

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

Using it and telling about it.

- 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

nothing to be done about those who don't want to, I guess.

But it's really about usage. Are there interesting things to
read? Thoughtful discussions to be had? Things to learn?
Other than "Hey, seems like netnews still works!" ;-)

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.

Here's one thing I'd like to add, even risking repeating myself:

I would love to see tilde netnews link up with other interested
pubnixes, especially sdf. I know I know, news.sdf.org is in a
pitiful state right now, but I'd expect both sides to benefit
from peering. sdf users might find it interesting to explore the
tildeverse and tilde users would get a glimpse of what's going on
on one of the most venerable and quite active pubnixes around.

I'd also vote for peering with campaignwiki.org, so not only
cosmic.voyage would get to see that small campaignwiki.* hierarchy.

While campaignwiki.org is not a pubnix, it's a great smol net
places for everything ttrpg related (also not so small actually).

So essentially my suggestion would be that tilde news carry
sdf.* and campaignwiki.* and sdf news carry the tilde.* hierarchy.

Cheers!

yep, thanks all \o/

best,

lkh
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

Laurens Kils-Huetten <lkh@cosmic.voyage> wrote:

so 14 all counted. cosmic.* and campaignwiki.* are only
available on cosmic.voyage

Looks like you can get them read-only from everywhere.
--
I do not bite, I just want to play.
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

Laurens Kils-Huetten <lkh@cosmic.voyage> wrote:

I would love to see tilde netnews link up with other interested
pubnixes, especially sdf.

I contradict. News readers just should be capable accessing many
servers without needing a multi year course and an exam about their configuration first. Some newsbrowsers still feel like webbrowsers that
only can access one server. Who would use those? THAT is what has to
end!

I know I know, news.sdf.org is in a pitiful state right now, but I'd
expect both sides to benefit from peering.

o.O

sdf users might find it interesting to explore the tildeverse and

They already can. At least read-only. No ~account needed.

tilde users would get a glimpse of what's going on on one of the most venerable and quite active pubnixes around.

THAT deviates a lot from my impression of the current state of SDF.

There is not much in sdf.* groups that throws a good light on SDF.

SDF is a walled garden and their news server is not even public
read-only.

| (yeti@home)~$ nc news.sdf.org 119
| 502 You have no permission to talk. Goodbye!

And I assume their code of conduct will be incompatible to the ~verses'
one too.

If news.sdf.org wants more users, they should start with dropping their
wall at least for public read access. That alone might help because
writers then can point users from outside to those articles. And if
more users don't associate writing there with wasted time, it may even
attract more users to get SDF accounts. They just do not seem
interested?

And they should not let the news server stay broken for months while
ignoring all questions about it being broken in SDFEU's (their INN runs
on SDFEU aka odin) BBOARD.
--
Spacetime is flat and has 3+1 dimensions.
So how can the earth be anything other than a cube?
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

--=-=-=
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> writes:

Laurens Kils-Huetten <lkh@cosmic.voyage> wrote:

I would love to see tilde netnews link up with other interested
pubnixes, especially sdf.

I contradict. News readers just should be capable accessing many
servers without needing a multi year course and an exam about their configuration first. Some newsbrowsers still feel like webbrowsers that
only can access one server. Who would use those? THAT is what has to
end!

I would also like this to happen. There is no conflit for a user to
have access of other's news server groups in the news server of choice.

In this case the other's news server is SDF, and the news server of
choice is tilde.club's.

I know I know, news.sdf.org is in a pitiful state right now, but I'd
expect both sides to benefit from peering.

o.O

sdf users might find it interesting to explore the tildeverse and

They already can. At least read-only. No ~account needed.

Great.

tilde users would get a glimpse of what's going on on one of the most
venerable and quite active pubnixes around.

THAT deviates a lot from my impression of the current state of SDF.

There is not much in sdf.* groups that throws a good light on SDF.

SDF is a walled garden and their news server is not even public
read-only.

| (yeti@home)~$ nc news.sdf.org 119
| 502 You have no permission to talk. Goodbye!

And I assume their code of conduct will be incompatible to the ~verses'
one too.

If news.sdf.org wants more users, they should start with dropping their
wall at least for public read access. That alone might help because
writers then can point users from outside to those articles. And if
more users don't associate writing there with wasted time, it may even attract more users to get SDF accounts. They just do not seem
interested?

And they should not let the news server stay broken for months while
ignoring all questions about it being broken in SDFEU's (their INN runs
on SDFEU aka odin) BBOARD.

This lack of read access is a problem. And it shows how they would
stand for such cooperation (with tilde.club's). Not tilde.club's fault.

It would be more profitable to raise this question inside SDF Netnews,
for what I am seeing here. It would make reaching this cooperation much easier.


=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

yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

Laurens Kils-Huetten <lkh@cosmic.voyage> wrote:

so 14 all counted. cosmic.* and campaignwiki.* are only
available on cosmic.voyage

Looks like you can get them read-only from everywhere.

Are we talking about the same thing? I know you can get read-only
access to both cosmic.voyage and campaignwiki.org's nntp servers.

I meant to say cosmic is the only tilde news server to carry those
groups. They're not on the wider usenet for sure. Maybe they
spilled over to tilde.club?
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

keyboardan <keyboardan@tilde.club> wrote:

yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> writes:

Laurens Kils-Huetten <lkh@cosmic.voyage> wrote:

I would love to see tilde netnews link up with other interested
pubnixes, especially sdf.

I contradict. News readers just should be capable accessing many
servers without needing a multi year course and an exam about their
configuration first. Some newsbrowsers still feel like webbrowsers that
only can access one server. Who would use those? THAT is what has to
end!

Except for the contradiction, I do agree. And obviously most of us already
do just that.

I would also like this to happen. There is no conflit for a user to
have access of other's news server groups in the news server of choice.

In this case the other's news server is SDF, and the news server of
choice is tilde.club's.

Right, I think the disagreement we have takes place on two slightly
different levels. As far as user capability and news client capabilities
are concerned, I agree with yeti. From a community perspective I'd vote
for peering and sharing. The whole thing is about communication after
all.

I know I know, news.sdf.org is in a pitiful state right now, but I'd
expect both sides to benefit from peering.

o.O

0_o

sdf users might find it interesting to explore the tildeverse and

They already can. At least read-only. No ~account needed.

Great.

and they alread do

tilde users would get a glimpse of what's going on on one of the most
venerable and quite active pubnixes around.

THAT deviates a lot from my impression of the current state of SDF.

I was thinking about plan9 bootcamps, and the Interim Computer Museum and aNONradio for example.

There is not much in sdf.* groups that throws a good light on SDF.

SDF is a walled garden and their news server is not even public
read-only.

yep, here's the catch. Those groups seem mostly abandoned except for
us few who cause some miniscule traffic until the service crashes and
has to be restartet eventually.

| (yeti@home)~$ nc news.sdf.org 119
| 502 You have no permission to talk. Goodbye!

as for the walled garden problem, I wonder if that's on purpose or
just neglect. I suspect the latter.

And I assume their code of conduct will be incompatible to the ~verses'
one too.

If news.sdf.org wants more users, they should start with dropping their
wall at least for public read access. That alone might help because
writers then can point users from outside to those articles. And if
more users don't associate writing there with wasted time, it may even
attract more users to get SDF accounts. They just do not seem
interested?

Maybe I suggest something along those lines to membership.

And they should not let the news server stay broken for months while
ignoring all questions about it being broken in SDFEU's (their INN runs
on SDFEU aka odin) BBOARD.

no question. As I said, it feels like neglect. Probably also lack of
time / resources.

This lack of read access is a problem. And it shows how they would
stand for such cooperation (with tilde.club's). Not tilde.club's fault.

It would be more profitable to raise this question inside SDF Netnews,
for what I am seeing here. It would make reaching this cooperation much easier.

I've done that already, maybe 1 - 2 years ago. Problem seems to be
the sdf admins don't seem to even notice what's being said on the sdf.* hierarchy.

So all in all, it's a pitiful state, unfortunately.

Cheers,

lkh
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

Laurens Kils-Huetten <lkh@cosmic.voyage> wrote:

yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

Laurens Kils-Huetten <lkh@cosmic.voyage> wrote:

so 14 all counted. cosmic.* and campaignwiki.* are only
available on cosmic.voyage

Looks like you can get them read-only from everywhere.

Are we talking about the same thing? I know you can get read-only
access to both cosmic.voyage and campaignwiki.org's nntp servers.

I meant to say cosmic is the only tilde news server to carry those
groups. They're not on the wider usenet for sure. Maybe they
spilled over to tilde.club?

cosmic.voyage is _readable_ from everywhere I try it.
--
I do not bite, I just want to play.
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

On Sat, 5 Jul 2025, Laurens Kils-Huetten wrote:

I would love to see tilde netnews link up with other interested
pubnixes, especially sdf.

[...]

sdf users might find it interesting to explore the
tildeverse and tilde users would get a glimpse of what's going on
on one of the most venerable and quite active pubnixes around.

Side note a bit, since this is undocumented and not currently widely-known:

SDF users *are* actually granted read/post access to Tildeverse Netnews
via Tilde.club gateway.

They could point their newsreader to <nntp://news.tilde.club/>
and post away; no authentication is needed. [1]

Cheers,
~xwindows
(Tilde.club's semi-official netnews wrangler)


P.S. Note that I'm not super-privy with how SDF segment their network
endpoints on public-facing side, so I'm not sure if there was any IP address
I missed when whitelisting them.

If anyone is being SDF user [1] and found that accessing <nntp://news.tilde.club/> from there didn't give read-post access [2];
please get in touch via email (see `From:` field of this post),
netnews (`tilde.services` newsgroup here), or IRC (#netnews on either Tilde.chat or Newnet.net); so I could arrange it to be fixed.

-----

[1] Bookkeeping is done using Identd identity, like how it's done with IRC.

[2] Issuing a command `nc news.tilde.club 119` on SDF should give a first
line of output that looks like:

> 200 news.tilde.club InterNetNews NNRP server INN 2.7.2 ready (posting ok)

The key is "posting ok" part. Press Ctrl+C to exit.
--
xwindows' gallery of freely-licensed artworks
https://tilde.club/~xwindows/ http://tilde.club/~xwindows/ gopher://tilde.club/1/~xwindows/
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

xwindows <xwindows@tilde.club> wrote:

If anyone is being SDF user [1] and found that accessing <nntp://news.tilde.club/> from there didn't give read-post access [2];
please get in touch via email (see `From:` field of this post),
netnews (`tilde.services` newsgroup here), or IRC (#netnews on either Tilde.chat or Newnet.net); so I could arrange it to be fixed.

-----

[1] Bookkeeping is done using Identd identity, like how it's done with IRC.

[2] Issuing a command `nc news.tilde.club 119` on SDF should give a first
line of output that looks like:

> 200 news.tilde.club InterNetNews NNRP server INN 2.7.2 ready (posting ok)

On sdf-eu.org == odin.sdf-eu.org == news.sdf.org I get:

$ nc news.tilde.club 119
200 news.tilde.club InterNetNews NNRP server INN 2.7.2 ready (no posting)
^^^^^^^^^^
odin's IP is 178.63.35.195
^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Things are fine on sdf.org == otaku.sdf.org:

$ nc news.tilde.club 119
200 news.tilde.club InterNetNews NNRP server INN 2.7.2 ready (posting ok)

otaku's IP is 205.166.94.8

Thanks for keeping news.tilde.club up and happy! :)

lkh
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

Laurens Kils-Huetten <lkh@cosmic.voyage> wrote:

$ nc news.tilde.club 119
200 news.tilde.club InterNetNews NNRP server INN 2.7.2 ready (no posting)
^^^^^^^^^^ odin's IP is 178.63.35.195
^^^^^^^^^^^^^

| ~$ grep odin /etc/hosts
| 178.63.35.195 odin.sdf-eu.org sdfeu.org odin

<https://sdfeu.org/w/> explains:
|
| Welcome to the Super Dimension Fortress EU located in Falkenstein,
| Vogtland, Germany. We are a networked community of free software
| authors, teachers, students, researchers, hobbyists, enthusiasts and
| the blind. The SDF-EU is supported by its members and is an
| independent subsidiary of the non-profit SDF Public Access UNIX
| System.
.
--
Make America GAGA Again!
...
Mission accomplished!
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

On Sat, 5 Jul 2025, Laurens Kils-Huetten wrote:

yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

Laurens Kils-Huetten <lkh@cosmic.voyage> wrote:

so 14 all counted. cosmic.* and campaignwiki.* are only
available on cosmic.voyage

Looks like you can get them read-only from everywhere.

Are we talking about the same thing? I know you can get read-only
access to both cosmic.voyage and campaignwiki.org's nntp servers.

I meant to say cosmic is the only tilde news server to carry those
groups. They're not on the wider usenet for sure. Maybe they
spilled over to tilde.club?

I can confirm that, if you are using tilde.club as nntp server (like
I'm doing by connecting to localhost from alpine in that machine), those
groups are not present.

Of course, connecting to several servers is also an option. I'm, from
the same alpine, connecting also to news.eternal-september.org and ciao.gmane.io, if I trust the different .newsrc files I have around.

But, the fact is that those groups are not in tilde.club

--
Cheers
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

On Sun, 6 Jul 2025, Laurens Kils-Huetten wrote:

On sdf-eu.org == odin.sdf-eu.org == news.sdf.org I get:

$ nc news.tilde.club 119
200 news.tilde.club InterNetNews NNRP server INN 2.7.2 ready (no posting)
^^^^^^^^^^ odin's IP is 178.63.35.195
^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Thanks for testing, ~lkh!

On Sun, 06 Jul 2025, yeti wrote:

| ~$ grep odin /etc/hosts
| 178.63.35.195 odin.sdf-eu.org sdfeu.org odin

Thanks for additional hostname information, ~yeti.

~deepend has now applied the NNRPd configuration update I suggested
on news.tilde.club netnews service. So now, the rest of SDF
should be able to participate.

Be the news with you,
~xwindows
(Tilde.club's semi-official netnews wrangler)
--
xwindows' gallery of freely-licensed artworks
https://tilde.club/~xwindows/ http://tilde.club/~xwindows/ gopher://tilde.club/1/~xwindows/
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xwindows <xwindows@tilde.club> wrote:

~deepend has now applied the NNRPd configuration update I suggested on news.tilde.club netnews service. So now, the rest of SDF should be
able to participate.

After the tests seen in tilde.club

<104odm0$2hv46$1@tilde.club>
<104oeud$2riu4$1@tilde.club>

and LKH being the strongest supporter of interaction between sdf.* and
tilde.* the announce in sdf.* about the status quo IMO should be posted
by LKH.

I always was the sceptic one about this. We'll see what the future may
or may not change.

Be the news with you,

;-D
--
1. Hitchhiker 25: (59) Scarcely pausing for breath, Vroomfondel shouted,
"We don't demand solid facts! What we demand is a total absence of solid facts. I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!"
--- 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)

I'm here, but read-only since they stopped allowing posts via
unencrypted NNTP, and waning interest since then really.

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

These days about once a month, hence I only just saw this.

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

All except the following:
tilde.food+drink
tilde.javascript
tilde.python

Mind you I skip a lot of posts/threads in many of them.

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

Two or three times a day, but I typically only post things once a
day except on weekends.

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

Well everything I wish was discussed on Usenet but isn't really
anymore. Which based on my subscribed groups there includes
everything from vehicle mechanics to numismatics. More hopeful
might be discussion of old computers and software. But I'm at the
point where I've already given up. People don't want to use NNTP?
Fine, stuff 'em. People want me to use encryption to post to their
NNTP server? Fine, stuff 'em. They have their reasons, I have mine,
might as well leave it at that and continue on without all the
discussion which is probably 99% time wasting anyway. I'm coming
to think that lack of social interaction online might be a net
positive for me, not that I get much offline either.

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

Nah, I've got fairly good at searching the full group list. I don't
care if they're empty anymore, I just subscribe. If I post there
nobody replies. Now nobody even bothers fruitlessly referring me on
to the intevitable Web forum or Facebook group that everyone's
using instead. But why should I care? Stuff 'em.

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

Not really. I'm a terrible judge of what motivates people anyway.
Physical clubs and similar social groups could potentially adopt
news groups as a semi-official location for online discussions,
with the benefit of in-person assistance for setting the software
up. But there'd need to be some common preference for NNTP to begin
with, which probably wouldn't happen. Anyway I wouldn't know since
I don't do that sort of thing.

- 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

Not a clue, but I've been in the last category posting-wise since
the encrypted connection requirement was added. My objections to
unnecessary encryption in general were described here: gopher://aussies.space/0/~freet/phlog/2020-05-31The_Best_Thing_About_Gopher_is_that_its_Unencrypted.txt

I know the 'necessity' was for blocking troll/spam posts. I wasn't
concerned about that (I happily use Usenet after all). I am
concerned about encryption. Other people feel differently so this
server is for them then, like the other 99% of discussion platforms
on the internet which I object to for that reason and often many
others.
--

- The Free Thinker | gopher://aussies.space/1/~freet/
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I'm here.

I just have nothing really to say. My life's been pretty static for
most of my life and so other than general grumbling I haven't a lot to
say that I haven't already said.

And that frustrates the hell out of me.


--- Synchronet 3.20a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

keyboardan <keyboardan@tilde.club> wrote to yeti:

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...

I think it a good idea, too, especially because the article formats
and modes of communication (asynchornnous, many-to-many, plain-text)
are very similar.

Separation is natural, union is artificial.

I think a balance between separation and union is natural.

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.

We should not let spammers determine our decisions about communication.
During the SPAM infestation on Usenet, admins quickly adopted
SpamAssassin, originally meant for e-mail.
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Andrew Singleton:

I just have nothing really to say. My life's been pretty
static for most of my life and so other than general
grumbling I haven't a lot to say that I haven't already
said.

Who knows but someone would like to read your grumblings of
a rainy evening.
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ant <ant@~.club> wrote:

Andrew Singleton:

I just have nothing really to say. My life's been pretty
static for most of my life and so other than general
grumbling I haven't a lot to say that I haven't already
said.

Who knows but someone would like to read your grumblings of
a rainy evening.

Some groups are narrowly focused and some are for having digital
neighbours with all side effects. Grumble in the right place and then
it just is "life happens".
--
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\!/ To replicate it needs your help: \!/
_|_ Please copy it to your signature to ensure its survival. _|_
/ V \ _____ \\o o// \o/ _____ THANKS!! _____ \o/ \\o o// _____ / V \
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yeti to ant:

Who knows but someone would like to read your grumblings
of a rainy evening.

Some groups are narrowly focused and some are for having
digital neighbours with all side effects. Grumble in the
right place and then it just is "life happens".

I was thinking of the Everyting/Nothing concept:

<http://sawv.org/en.html>
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yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

I always was the sceptic one about this. We'll see what the future
may or may not change.

So where are they?
We've discovered a new Fermi paradox?
--
I do not bite, I just want to play.
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