No, I mean the vast majority of employers block 119 and do not offer news service. I realize you do not need a local server, but you have to be able to connect to pull it from somewhere...
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@caosity.org [mailto:centos-bounces@caosity.org] On Behalf Of Jim Zajkowski Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2005 4:06 PM To: CentOS discussion and information list Subject: Re: [Centos] NNTP versus web forums
On Jan 8, 2005, at 4:46 PM, Mark A. Lewis wrote:
The other big thing to remember is that many of us do not have NNTP feeds at work, where e-mail and the web are easy to get to.
You don't need a local nntp server to read news, any nntp client can connect to any other nntp server, assuming that that server lets you connect.
I'm not in favor of creating a CentOS topic under the usenet comp.sys hierarchy, I'm talking about running a private nntp server.
For example, Novell runs their forums over nntp, and people configure their clients to connect to news.novell.com. When I was a student we used a local nntp server for class forums and project help.
--Jim
On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 15:46:55 -0600, Mark A. Lewis mark@siliconjunkie.net wrote:
The other big thing to remember is that many of us do not have NNTP feeds at work, where e-mail and the web are easy to get to.
On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 16:39:43 -0600, Mark A. Lewis mark@siliconjunkie.net wrote:
No, I mean the vast majority of employers block 119 and do not offer news service. I realize you do not need a local server, but you have to be able to connect to pull it from somewhere...
If the web is easy to get to, but slrn isn't available because 119 is blocked:
I personally think that nntp is the best forum for these kinds of lists, but barring the list starting out on usenet I'd rather keep them in one place to prevent fragmentation.
Greg
I guess my problem with web forums is that I believe (a) nntp is already the best solution for discussion systems, and (b) I remember usenet when it was a more civilised place... before the dark times, before the spam.
--Jim
On Sun, 2005-01-09 at 00:40 -0500, Jim Zajkowski wrote:
I guess my problem with web forums is that I believe (a) nntp is already the best solution for discussion systems, and (b) I remember usenet when it was a more civilised place... before the dark times, before the spam.
the dark times will never go away. Web forums suck - but usenet is dead, long live email.
-sv
I'm not a fan of IRC too old and clunky(not to mention I find it extemely hard to follow multiple conversations. NNTP is old and outdated as well and I'm not a fan of subscribing to Yahoo Groups. And Maillists keep clogging up my mail box, but a lot of discussions go on there, so I use them. I believe the maillists were originally for users to communicate problems with the developers, which is the easiest way for developers to keep up.
Personally, I prefer WebForums, but their only downfall(which a lot of people don't like) is you have to keep checking the site for new posts, or set alerts to notify you of updates to topics or new topics.
I know the FedoraForum.org website has some way where they've incorporated a couple newgroups into their forum http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=50 They probably set a email address up to catch newgroup posts and filter them directly into the database.
On Jan 9, 2005, at 7:12 AM, Matt Shields wrote:
NNTP is old and outdated as well and I'm not a fan of subscribing to Yahoo Groups.
I think perhaps you misunderstand.
You use a client on your computer, for example Thunderbird, Sylpheed, slrn, Agent or Unison, to connect to an nntp server. Nothing with Yahoo Groups, or Google Groups, or any of that. Also note that there is a difference between usenet and nntp: while usenet is shared over nntp, not all nntp servers serve usenet groups; you can have a private nntp server that does not have any usenet groups on it.
As to being "old and outdated," that's pretty funny thing to say in a UNIX (1970) support forum. TCP/IP is "old," dating from 1974. SMTP (RFC 821) is from 1982. NNTP's is from 1986. HTTP isn't new either: Tim Berners-Lee says the first remote URL was hit toward the end of 1990. Linux was first distributed in late 1991. Old isn't so bad: it's well understood, it's been around the block long enough for broad adoption, and usually if it's that old it actually does the job. New and slick frequently means untested and buggy. Fine for video games and hobbyist systems, lousy for systems where outages mean money. At least that's my opinion.
--Jim
Yes, I've used NNTP before most people, even before that I ran BBS's and used FIDOnet for our discussions. The comment about Yahoo Groups was I didn't want to use Yahoo Groups as a newreader and we shouldn't expect our users to go to another website to particpate in our discussions. Maybe old and outdated was the wrong wording.
When you look at it, WebForums are the new NNTP. They just have a better interface to them. One thing to keep in mind is a simple interface like Xoops or any other forum software is to the benefit of a Linux newbie. You aren't asking them to install anything, and they can just go to our website and browse for more information or help.
I just think that all information should be easily available in 1 place (centos.org) through a common interface. And when you look at Xoops (or other content engines), it has forums, news management, and documentation built in.
On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 12:56:49PM -0500, Matt Shields wrote:
I just think that all information should be easily available in 1 place (centos.org) through a common interface. And when you look at Xoops (or other content engines), it has forums, news management, and documentation built in.
As someone who was also bothered by this webfora disease recently, i think this is an interesting thread. I also never understood what's so great about webfora. I still like 'nn' where I can use vim to edit my messages and where read posts are not shown again. So integrating NNTP and a webforum seems promising and I took a look at http://www.xoops.org/ Lots of informations. (it seems one of these CMS things, and ofcourse using that toy database instead of PostgreSQL)
Maybe I didn't look long enough but I can't find accurate information about the NNTP thing. Is there indeed a way to do both? And does that mean posts to either NNTP or the web are showing up in the other?
And how does this 'newbb' compare to phpbb or SMF which seems to be the two big webfora players at the moment?
Regards,
On Jan 8, 2005, at 5:39 PM, Mark A. Lewis wrote:
No, I mean the vast majority of employers block 119 and do not offer news service. I realize you do not need a local server, but you have to be able to connect to pull it from somewhere...
Oh I see.
Well it certainly is possible to run a NNTP web-based newsreader (gmane uses one, for instance).
Also NNTP can be gated to mailing lists, and vice versa.
--Jim
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Greg Knaddison -
Henk van Lingen -
Jim Zajkowski -
Mark A. Lewis -
Matt Shields -
seth vidal