LeeCC said:
But I dont remember any announcements have been made on this change. The old
page is still there, but no messages.
It would be more user-friendly if MS could splash a message on the old page
to inform users of this change.
In the newsgroups that Microsoft announced their withdrawl from Usenet,
there were posts titled "Microsoft Responds to the Evolution of
Community". Rather than copy such a post, you can read this page:
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx
"Communities" is Microsoft's forum-to-Usenet gateway to provide a
webnews-for-dummies interface to Usenet (aka newsgroups). Microsoft is
scrambling away from their 4-year experiment in trying to usurp the
30-year old Usenet nad over which they could exercise no control. They
are pulling back to providing just their web-based forums (for which
there is NOT a 1-to-1 correspondence of microsoft.public.* newsgroups to
their web-based forums; i.e., there are more newsgroups for which there
is no matching forum).
If you want to continue using Usenet, and because Microsoft is dropping
their Communities via their webnews-for-dummies gateway to Usenet and
will eventually kill off their NNTP server, you will need to use a
newsreader to connect to a non-Microsoft NNTP server, like Albasani,
Eternal-September, individual.net, Giganews or another NSP (newsgroups
service provider). The microsoft.public.* newsgroups will continue to
exist despite Microsoft leaving Usenet. Volume has decreased in the
newsgroups but that does not equate to dead newsgroups. A newsgroup
becomes dead when you don't get responses.
You will be forced to stop using the webnews-for-dummies interface to
Usenet since Microsoft is leaving Usenet. Don't bother connecting a
newsreader (e.g., Outlook Express, Thunderbird, MesNews, Xnews, 40tude
Dialog, Xananews, etc) to Microsoft's NNTP server because Microsoft is
going to kill it off. Connect a newsreader to someone else's NNTP
server. There are plenty to pick from. Otherwise, enjoy the inane and
crippled interface afforded by Microsoft's withdrawl to web-based
forums.
