Why not use a forum?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

This is probably a stupid question so I won't be suprised if I'm
flamed, but why not use a forum? It would be easier to find posts and
threads and you'd be able to catagorise all the threads ie Ascention
Forum, Help Forum, Tips Forum...

Is there something I've missed?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Fair enough.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

zxindustries@gmail.com wrote in news:1124506435.719013.254500
@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

> This is probably a stupid question so I won't be suprised if I'm
> flamed, but why not use a forum? It would be easier to find posts and
> threads and you'd be able to catagorise all the threads ie Ascention
> Forum, Help Forum, Tips Forum...
>
> Is there something I've missed?
>
>

http://groups.google.com performs the same task without buggy message board
code that's easily manhandled by script kiddies.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Michael Vondung wrote:
> Sebastian Hungerecker wrote:
>
> > 1) Strict netiquette enforcement (OK, this isn't exactly true for most
> > English newgroups anymore and it could be done in a webforum as well)
>
> Actually, the blessing and curse of usenet is that there is little to no
> enforcement of much of anything. The "rules" of a group are more or less
> established by its users, and people need the maturity to ignore trolls or,
> if someone doesn't get along, each other.

The fact that the rules can no longer be enforced does not
mean the rules do not exist. Real newsreaders did not used
to allow people to un-sub from news.announce.newusers and
the rules where posted regularly there until the early 1990s.
The difference between no-rules and non-enforcible-rules is
real but subtle. The rules require trimming in replies,
and the rules were written before the first top-post ever
happened anywhere on UseNet (really - search the archives
for the oldest rules on NAN and for the oldest top post)
and that's the source to flame wars between top posters
and folks who are not ignorant: The rules are silent about
top or bottom format but the rules mandate trimming. What
top poster ever trims?

The rules also account for differences between UseNet
and bulliten boards. Boards always display context,
most newsreaders do not. Some boards allow binaries,
few newsgroups do.

> In web forums you have
> moderation, which can sometimes be a Good Thing, but usually isn't, as it
> allows for censorship and one person deciding what everyone else may or may
> not view. I for one am willing to pay the price in form of trolls in
> exchange for everyone's right to express their opinions, no matter how off
> they are.

There are moderated newsgroups. Some have been created
because one dedicated lunatic kept at "trolling" for
many years. Such an obbessive is not a troll, just
someone who uses a newbie's natural reaction of ignoring
trolls against them. Very sad. Anyways, moderation has
its advantages.

> > 3) You don't need a webbrowser to read usenet.
>
> But a newsreader.

Either work now.

> > I'm sure there are more.
>
> - Messages are stored for many years in archives like Google Groups, and
> many users keep their own archives locally. ALL previous messages are lost
> if a web forum goes down, their owner loses interest, the hosting company
> closes, etc. Usenet is far more durable.

My oldest surviving post is from 1983. Just show me some
bulliten board that has that much background. It is almost
certain that UseNet posts today will survive decades. It is
extremely likely they will survive centuries. It would be
unsurprising they will survive millenia. Yet here I am
typing as fast as I can knowing people far in the future
will wonder at my spelling, missing words and such.

> - You need very little bandwidth to participate in newsgroups and can
> download headers/articles for offline reading. In many places people still
> pay for online connections by the minute. Participating in web forums can
> take quite a bit of time especially if you have to wade through megabytes
> of flashing ads, scripts, applets and photos of celebrities and models that
> people use as their forum avatars.
>
> - Usenet doesn't belong to anyone, person or organization. It just "is".But
> that's a meta category that some of the other things mentioned fall under.

This is a very important point. Newbies tend to think that
their server is "the" server for UseNet. That is no more
true than your ISP being "the" ISP for the Internet.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

zxindustries@gmail.com wrote:
> This is probably a stupid question so I won't be suprised if I'm
> flamed, but why not use a forum?

I don't know, since when this group exists, but I know nethack is there
since the 80s and if the group was created about the same time,
webforums (or the www in general) probably didn't exist yet. And I don't
think people would like switching to a webforum now, where this group
has been up for years.
Also there are certain advantages that a newgroup has over webforums:
1) Strict netiquette enforcement (OK, this isn't exactly true for most
English newgroups anymore and it could be done in a webforum as well)
2) There are a lot more intelligent people in usenet (OK, this might be
a little subjective...)
3) You don't need a webbrowser to read usenet.
4) You can make your newsreader not show signatures and/or x-faces - you
can only do that in webforums if the forum software supports this.
5) Most newsreaders have complex filter functions.
6) Usenet is plain text-only - no formating tags, no images etc. (OK,
some people would consider this a downside - but I don't)
7) You can fully customize how you want messages to be displayed
(foreground- and background-color (or even image). font(-size),
highlighting of certain words/phrases or posts/threads etc.) - in a
webforum most of this is often controlled by the forum software.

I'm sure there are more.


--
If geiger counter does not click,
the coffee, she is just not thick

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Doug Freyburger wrote:
>
> The fact that the rules can no longer be enforced does not
> mean the rules do not exist.

Building on this a bit:

If the police cease to exist, do laws stop existing or do
they merely become unenforcible? Does murder stop being
wrong, or does enforcement switch to the local neighborhood?
That is today's situation with UseNet amplified
tremendously for dramatic effect.

Consider that "ignorance" of the law is no excuse. Then
consider the difference between ignorance and stupidity:
Ignorance is cureable through education. I certainly do
not think newbies who aren't aware of the difference
between UseNet and web forums are stupid. Not until
attempts are made to education them and the attempts fail.

> Real newsreaders did not used
> to allow people to un-sub from news.announce.newusers and
> the rules where posted regularly there until the early 1990s.
> The difference between no-rules and non-enforcible-rules is
> real but subtle.

> > - Usenet doesn't belong to anyone, person or organization. It just "is".But
> > that's a meta category that some of the other things mentioned fall under.
>
> This is a very important point. Newbies tend to think that
> their server is "the" server for UseNet. That is no more
> true than your ISP being "the" ISP for the Internet.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

On Sat, 20 Aug 2005 08:44:06 +0200, Sebastian Hungerecker wrote:

> 1) Strict netiquette enforcement (OK, this isn't exactly true for most
> English newgroups anymore and it could be done in a webforum as well)

Actually, the blessing and curse of usenet is that there is little to no
enforcement of much of anything. The "rules" of a group are more or less
established by its users, and people need the maturity to ignore trolls or,
if someone doesn't get along, each other. In web forums you have
moderation, which can sometimes be a Good Thing, but usually isn't, as it
allows for censorship and one person deciding what everyone else may or may
not view. I for one am willing to pay the price in form of trolls in
exchange for everyone's right to express their opinions, no matter how off
they are.

> 3) You don't need a webbrowser to read usenet.

But a newsreader.

> I'm sure there are more.

- Messages are stored for many years in archives like Google Groups, and
many users keep their own archives locally. ALL previous messages are lost
if a web forum goes down, their owner loses interest, the hosting company
closes, etc. Usenet is far more durable.

- You need very little bandwidth to participate in newsgroups and can
download headers/articles for offline reading. In many places people still
pay for online connections by the minute. Participating in web forums can
take quite a bit of time especially if you have to wade through megabytes
of flashing ads, scripts, applets and photos of celebrities and models that
people use as their forum avatars.

- Usenet doesn't belong to anyone, person or organization. It just "is".But
that's a meta category that some of the other things mentioned fall under.

M.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Michael Vondung wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Aug 2005 08:44:06 +0200, Sebastian Hungerecker wrote:
>>1) Strict netiquette enforcement (OK, this isn't exactly true for most
>> English newgroups anymore and it could be done in a webforum as well)
>
> Actually, the blessing and curse of usenet is that there is little to no
> enforcement of much of anything. The "rules" of a group are more or less
> established by its users,

Yes - what I meant was, that people in Usenet are more strict about the
rules (i.e. more likely to annoy people not adhering to them to death
until they do)


> In web forums you have moderation

There are moderated newsgroups, too.


> which can sometimes be a Good Thing, but usually isn't, as it
> allows for censorship and one person deciding what everyone else may or may
> not view. I for one am willing to pay the price in form of trolls in
> exchange for everyone's right to express their opinions, no matter how off
> they are.

The same applies to moderates newsgroups, of course.


>>3) You don't need a webbrowser to read usenet.
>
> But a newsreader.

A newsreader is specifically designed to read usenet-articles while
webbrowsers are not primarily designed for webforums, thus most things
are handled by the forum software rather than the browser - and the user
doesn't have any choice regarding the forum software (i.e. if you don't
like the way you current newsreader works or the options it gives you,
you can just use another one, but you can't just use another forum
software if the current one doesn't suit your needs (except if you're
the forum's admin)), so you're probably better off with a newsreader.


--
If geiger counter does not click,
the coffee, she is just not thick

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

zxindustries@gmail.com wrote:

> This is probably a stupid question so I won't be suprised if I'm
> flamed, but why not use a forum? It would be easier to find posts and
> threads and you'd be able to catagorise all the threads ie Ascention
> Forum, Help Forum, Tips Forum...
>
> Is there something I've missed?

You would miss me: I hate web forums, and if everyone decided to use that
instead of the newsgroup I would simply stop participating.

Raisse, killed by a system shock

--
irina@valdyas.org LegoHack: http://www.valdyas.org/irina/nethack/
Status of Raisse (piously neutral): Level 8 HP 63(67) AC -3, fast.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Michael Vondung <mvondung@gmail.com> writes:
> On Sat, 20 Aug 2005 08:44:06 +0200, Sebastian Hungerecker wrote:

> > 3) You don't need a webbrowser to read usenet.
> But a newsreader.

Or a telnet or ssh client to connect to a machine where you can run a
newsreader.

--
Jukka Lahtinen

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

On 20 Aug 2005 07:56:40 -0700, Doug Freyburger wrote:

> The fact that the rules can no longer be enforced does not
> mean the rules do not exist.

I probably phrased that poorly. What I meant is that while usenet certainly
does have standards, it doesn't have "rules" that are enforced by an entity
(such as police or moderators). This makes usenet vulnerable to trolls and
generally unpleasant people, but also offers a great opportunity: free flow
of information.

There is also a great social dynamics here. If I quote 100-lines post and
add two words ("me too"), use flow-text that breaks at 255 characters and
have a signature consisting of fifty lines, no authority will stop me from
doing any of this. However, I will soon find myself being ignored by most
other participants of the newsgroup, which gets fairly boring quickly. Now,
if I acted like this in a web forum, I'd get "suspended" from the board,
have my name deleted or find myself of other types of *technical*
consequences. In usenet these consequences are always *social*, and that is
its strength.

> There are moderated newsgroups.

I've always experienced them as sort of "un-usenet'ish", but that's
probably just me. They work great for announcements, but for actual
discussions they are somewhat tedious, though I can see the advantages
here, too. One moderated group that I used to participate in a few years
back had the rule that your posts got auto-approved if you had more than
ten messages posted. That isn't so bad, but still, I generally prefer the
unrestricted access, even if that means that we sometimes have to deal with
idiots.

>> But a newsreader.
>
> Either work now.

Unfortunately! I have mixed feelings about Google Groups. Most trolls
seem to post from there, and Google allows all types of email addresses for
account setups, even free ones. Then again, if I'd have to choose between
unrestricted freedom and controlled access, I'd still opt for the former.
Perhaps I'm a little radical in that regard. I do acknowledge the influx of
trolls, but still think that it's possible to keep those in check by not
feeding them.

> This is a very important point. Newbies tend to think that
> their server is "the" server for UseNet. That is no more
> true than your ISP being "the" ISP for the Internet.

I've been online since 1986 or 1987, and usenet is the only "medium" that's
really endured all this time. I used to be "big" on CompuServe in 1990
through '95, but all of their forums are gone now ... and have been gone
for years, ever since AOL bought the whole thing in 1995. I lost a job back
then, so I still have little love for AOL. There also used to be many BB
systems, and various BBS networks. All gone now, and with them their data.
All of this makes me appreciate usenet and its durability even more.

That aside, I really like that I can use the same software with the same
interface for all of my "discussion needs", be it roguelikes, commercial
games, programming languages, chess, psychology, philosophy, and so on. Web
forums just don't offer the same level of convenience. Plus, they require
me to sign up, leave my email address and memorize yet another password.
Usenet is just more comfortable.

It's also refreshingly free of flashy ads!

M.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Sebastian Hungerecker <sepp00@web.de> wrote:
> Michael Vondung wrote:
>> On Sat, 20 Aug 2005 08:44:06 +0200, Sebastian Hungerecker wrote:
>>>1) Strict netiquette enforcement (OK, this isn't exactly true for most
>>> English newgroups anymore and it could be done in a webforum as well)
>>
>> Actually, the blessing and curse of usenet is that there is little to no
>> enforcement of much of anything. The "rules" of a group are more or less
>> established by its users,
>
> Yes - what I meant was, that people in Usenet are more strict about the
> rules (i.e. more likely to annoy people not adhering to them to death
> until they do)

This IMO is a good thing.


Keith
--
Keith Davies "Trying to sway him from his current kook-
keith.davies@kjdavies.org rant with facts is like trying to create
keith.davies@gmail.com a vacuum in a room by pushing the air
http://www.kjdavies.org/ out with your hands." -- Matt Frisch

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Michael Vondung wrote:
> There is also a great social dynamics here. If I quote 100-lines post and
> add two words ("me too"), use flow-text that breaks at 255 characters and
> have a signature consisting of fifty lines, no authority will stop me from
> doing any of this. However, I will soon find myself being ignored by most
> other participants of the newsgroup, which gets fairly boring quickly. Now,
> if I acted like this in a web forum, I'd get "suspended" from the board [etc]

I always thought acting like this was normal behavior in webforums ;-)


--
If geiger counter does not click,
the coffee, she is just not thick

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Sebastian Hungerecker wrote:

> Michael Vondung wrote:
>
>> There is also a great social dynamics here. If I quote 100-lines post
>> and
>> add two words ("me too"), use flow-text that breaks at 255 characters
>> and
>> have a signature consisting of fifty lines, no authority will stop me
>> from
>> doing any of this. However, I will soon find myself being ignored by
>> most
>> other participants of the newsgroup, which gets fairly boring
>> quickly. Now,
>> if I acted like this in a web forum, I'd get "suspended" from the
>> board [etc]
>
> I always thought acting like this was normal behavior in webforums ;-)

Me too!
'@'
'''
*protecting myself, I hope*

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

On Sun, 21 Aug 2005 03:18:54 +0000, Keith Davies wrote:

> Sebastian Hungerecker <sepp00@web.de> wrote:
>> Yes - what I meant was, that people in Usenet are more strict about the
>> rules (i.e. more likely to annoy people not adhering to them to death
>> until they do)
>
> This IMO is a good thing.

I'd agree. I've noticed the newsgroups that are the most like that (rgrn
in particular) tend to have a very high signal-to-noise ratio. I've
personally seen other newsgroups which let one "Who cares if it's in the
rules, I'm doing it this way anyway" guy slide and then proceed to
collapse into chaos as everyone else ignores all the group's rules. That's
when everybody gets to learn a few new words like "FAQ-thumper" and
"FAQ-nazi" and "STFU".
On web forums, the fight against trolls, morons, and sadly, noobs, often
leads to an empty forum since the moderators have a much nastier weapon at
their disposal. A newbie who gets barked at by the crotchety locals in a
NG is more likely to come back than the same newbie who gets silenced by
crotchety moderators in a forum.

--
- Mantar --- Drop YourPantiesSirWilliam to email me.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

On Sun, 21 Aug 2005 09:45:29 +0200, Sebastian Hungerecker wrote:

> Michael Vondung wrote:
>> There is also a great social dynamics here. If I quote 100-lines post
>> and add two words ("me too"), use flow-text that breaks at 255
>> characters and have a signature consisting of fifty lines, no authority

> I always thought acting like this was normal behavior in webforums ;-)

Nah, in a webforum the signature would exceed 500 kilobytes.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

zxindustries@gmail.com writes:

> This is probably a stupid question so I won't be suprised if I'm
> flamed, but why not use a forum?

Well, make a forum, adevertise it here, and we'll see what
the majority will find more convenient to use. (I don't
say that the forum will lose, though I would feel like that,
usenet is so nethackish in many ways..)

Best,
Jakob

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Quoting <zxindustries@gmail.com>:
>This is probably a stupid question so I won't be suprised if I'm
>flamed, but why not use a forum?

Because Web fora have such godawfully crude interfaces compared with good
newsreaders.
--
David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is First Monday, August.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

On 23 Aug 2005 13:13:25 +0100 (BST), David Damerell
<damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

>Quoting <zxindustries@gmail.com>:
>>This is probably a stupid question so I won't be suprised if I'm
>>flamed, but why not use a forum?
>
>Because Web fora have such godawfully crude interfaces compared with good
>newsreaders.

And fora are ephemeral compared to Usenet. It's not just that
the Web is relatively young, but that fora tend to come and go,
or appear but then stop being updated, abandoned by the
maintainers or their contributors. (Thank ghod for Google
groups.)



Fora also have censorship problems.

Jove

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

On 23 Aug 2005 13:13:25 +0100 (BST), David Damerell
<damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

>Quoting <zxindustries@gmail.com>:
>>This is probably a stupid question so I won't be suprised if I'm
>>flamed, but why not use a forum?
>
>Because Web fora have such godawfully crude interfaces compared with good
>newsreaders.

But that's not the problem. The real issue is that it mist be done in a
web-browser that hsn't known for keeping track of what you woro typing.
(e.g. hit back and your post gets wiped.)

There is also no spell check, and a massivly undersized text entry form,
making it difficult to correct mistakes.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 23:51:07 -0400,
bk039@ncf.ca (Raymond Martineau) wrote:

> On 23 Aug 2005 13:13:25 +0100 (BST), David Damerell
> <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

>> Quoting <zxindustries@gmail.com>:
>>> This is probably a stupid question so I won't be suprised if I'm
>>> flamed, but why not use a forum?
>>
>> Because Web fora have such godawfully crude interfaces compared with good
>> newsreaders.

> But that's not the problem. The real issue is that it mist be done in a
> web-browser that hsn't known for keeping track of what you woro typing.
> (e.g. hit back and your post gets wiped.)

> There is also no spell check, and a massivly undersized text entry form,
> making it difficult to correct mistakes.

And which part of that is *not* a user interface issue?

Regards,
Dan

--
Dan Sommers
<http://www.tombstonezero.net/dan/>

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Raymond Martineau wrote:

[web forum instead of newsgroup]

> But that's not the problem. The real issue is that it mist be done in a
> web-browser that hsn't known for keeping track of what you woro typing.
> (e.g. hit back and your post gets wiped.)
>
> There is also no spell check, and a massivly undersized text entry form,
> making it difficult to correct mistakes.

And it doesn't remember what you read, so you either get all messages
every time, or it marks everything read as soon as you exit.

Raisse, killed by a newt

--
irina@valdyas.org LegoHack: http://www.valdyas.org/irina/nethack/
Status of Raisse (piously neutral): Level 8 HP 63(67) AC -3, fast.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Quoting Raymond Martineau <bk039@ncf.ca>:
><damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Quoting <zxindustries@gmail.com>:
>>>This is probably a stupid question so I won't be suprised if I'm
>>>flamed, but why not use a forum?
>>Because Web fora have such godawfully crude interfaces compared with good
>>newsreaders.
>But that's not the problem.

Well, I find that *is* a problem. In particular, Web forums nearly all
handle "show me the stuff I haven't read yet" very badly compared to
Usenet newsreaders.

>The real issue is that it mist be done in a
>web-browser that hsn't known for keeping track of what you woro typing.
>(e.g. hit back and your post gets wiped.)

Well, text Web browsers typically let you use your choice of editor, but
Web fora tend to be steaming masses of nasty formatting and Javascript
that doesn't work too well with text browsers.
--
David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is First Tuesday, August.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Jove <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> On 23 Aug 2005 13:13:25 +0100 (BST), David Damerell
> <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>
> >Quoting <zxindustries@gmail.com>:
> >>This is probably a stupid question so I won't be suprised if I'm
> >>flamed, but why not use a forum?
> >
> >Because Web fora have such godawfully crude interfaces compared with good
> >newsreaders.
>
> And fora are ephemeral compared to Usenet.

Not to mention being essentially useless to someone on a pay-per-second
line, as quite a few of us in Europe are.

> (Thank ghod for Google groups.)

Er. You worship Mammon?

Richard

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 23:51:07 -0400, Raymond Martineau wrote:

> (e.g. hit back and your post gets wiped.)

Depends a little on the forum software and your choice of browser. Firefox
is pretty good at remembering the content of previous forms, though some
forum scripts interferre with that.

But yes, web browsers don't have an outbox.

M.