I'm curious. How is MS going to remove these newsgroups? The way I
was told, years ago, is that newsgroups CAN NOT be removed. Once
they're created, they're there forever. In some ways this is a good
thing. On the other hand there are many newsgoups that are completely
useless, something like alt.david.smith.sucks.his.mothers.tits. If
you look at the list, there are many such groups. So, I have often
wished they could be removed.
Anyhow, since MS can not remove newsgroups, what effect will that have
on these groups? Does MS ever really post to these groups? From what
I've seen, I can not recall even one time I saw a response from MS,
unless some MS employee replies to posts under their own handle. With
that in mind, what will stop any of us from continuing to use these
newsgroups?
I'll say this much, if I had to rely on web forums to communicate with
others about (any topic), I'd likely stop helping others, and only go
to these sites when I can not find help anywhere else. On newsgroups,
I can quickly go thru a list of posts, filtrer out the spam, and in
minutes, read the whole days posts that are interesting to me.
Try that on web forums. I signed up for some of those Yahoo Groups.
First, I need to give out personal info to sign up to use their
services at all. Then I have to enter a user name and password
everytime I want to use their groups. Even though I always click
"Keep me connected", it seems that I have to re-enter my user name and
password everytime I post a message. Then, to post the message, I
have to enter some string of characters, which is in graphic form, and
often unreadable, which means I have to enter it over and over. Then,
there's always a huge delay in sending my post, and another long delay
to read each and every message. The end result is this: I could have
read an entire newsgroup's weekly posts in the time it took to read
and respond to just one post on Yahoo or Google groups.
If this is what it comes to, I will have no part of these web based
groups. I'm too busy to spend a half hour on one post, and many hours
if I'm trying to get some information.
Finally, I wonder how much MS will charge for their groups? Will they
charge money, or just steal our identity which they can sell at a
profit so they can spam our email boxes with all sorts of junk
advertising.
No thanks. I'll stick here on the newsgroups, and will continue to
help others as well as ask questions. If the day ever comes where the
entire internet is web based, I'll likely cancel my internet account.
Personally, I strongly dislike the web in most cases. There was once
a time when the web was a valuable source of information, like an
encyclopedia. While some of those sites still exist, finding them is
only half the battle, since google caters to certain sites that pay
them big$. Then you get to these sites and get all the annoying
popups and ads, and flashing content and flash garbage which makes
some sites take forever to load. And if this is not bad enough, more
and more sites these days want you to register to even use their site.
Some even want money. How the hell anyone can register for all these
sites and remember all the passwords is beyond me. All I know, is
that when the day comes and all we have is the web, I'll save the $29
a month I pay my ISP and buy the "World Book" encyclopedia.
