koldfront

Goodbye usenet, hello olduse.net #usenet #pnx

🕝︎ - 2011-06-05

On May 31st I decided that 18+ years of usenet was enough for me, informed my peers in PNX and closed down news.koldfront.dk.

I used to enjoy discussing with people who were absolutely obviously wrong, and I used to do that at length. See xkcd.

I also used to enjoy asking and answering questions on usenet - which was one of the first places I knew where age, education and all sorts of superficial things didn't matter.

Sure, I was 16 and the person I was discussing with was the head of IT at a large institution - but my arguments made sense and his didn't; checkmate. That was exhilerating.

I have been holding on to usenet - fewer and fewer groups, but still - for years, not really agreeing with the people who claim that everything was better in the old days; usenet changes all the time, it is what you - and your friends - make it, was my mantra.

One and a half week ago I realized that the signal to noise ratio for me had reached 0, and that I have grown younger - I don't enjoy meaningless, endless arguments back and forth as much as I used to. It was a good time to draw the line.

Today Joey Hess announced olduse.net - where he is posting the archives of usenet in "real time", only delayed by 30 years.

So there is the chance to check out if it really was better on the old days.

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