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