Ghost Town

This is becoming one.

 

As is the whole of Usenet.

 

As is the whole of Usenet.


Agreed, and it's been noted many other places that used to be high traffic sites. As this one never has been high traffic, the slowdown is not that much noticed. On the other hand, places like alt.machines.cnc have experienced a spike in traffic as the site's been highly politicized in this election year. This just reveals the inherent weakness of unmoderated news groups, i.e. they are completely prey to spamming, no mechanism at all to combat it. Among others, that's one of the most nauseating current features of the formerly "popular" news groups now driving people away. USENET, with all its stiff, semi-legalistic armor, has never come to terms with the modern Net, with GUI and its browsers, with 8/16/32/64-bit computing (yeah, they're in self-imposed exile in the 7-bit 70s), with the fact that the DOS/UNIX age has passed. It lives out its last days as a proud anachronism that refuses to die. A thousand years from now it could emerge, like the coelacanth from the deep, an ancient, long-thought-dead relic, a fossil of its heyday, still thinking it's a thousand years ago. We are lucky to be witnessing the dying of a species. Remember all those friends you hated to leave but, finally, were glad to be rid of? This is one of them.

David Janes

 

...You should follow some of those discussions.

See David Janes, he knows from experience.