I knew that IMDb had been around a long time but TIL it predates the World Wide Web, as it was initially launched as Usenet group rec.arts.movies in 1990 and moved to the web in 1993. And it's been owned by Amazon since 1998, because of course it has 🙄
Time to kill off one of my oldest subscriptions. Have been using a paid #Usenet provider for nearly 20 years. About 5-6 years ago I could upgrade to a yearly subscription for a big discount (compared to the prices they would introduce shortly after). But I haven't really used Usenet for anything at all in the last years.
Somehow cancelling the subscription gives me FOMO for some reason. Can never get it back for that price again. But then again, why would I want Usenet access again...
@amoroso To be totally honest I only used Usenet to download stuff (which I haven't done for years now, mind you :-)). Have never seen it being used as a discussion forum or sharing of info. But looks like Eternal September is a traditional Usenet server in that regard.
"Today, many folks look back with fondness on the early days of computer-based messaging. Depending on age, they may wax nostalgic for #bbses#Usenet, or #webforums. All these technologies still exist, although either barely used or are full of spam. It’s hard not to think that something may have been lost.
Perhaps the future isn’t one of endless growth for all-powerful corporations but a return to smaller, more personal “third spaces” where we can feel comfortable." https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/first-post-a-history-of-online-public-messaging/
#This is my #introduction post, Sharkey edition (it's basically the same one as I posted when I joined mastodon.me.uk).
I am, like many others here, a refugee from other social media sites. In my case, it all started way back in 1990 when I did the #OU DT200 information technology course. This gave me access to their CoSy based conferencing system. From there I explored various #BBSs before joining #CIX. From there I migrated to #Facebook and #Twitter via #Usenet and alt newsgroups.
My posts are likely to cover a variety of areas such as: #Cats, #Photography, #Cooking and #Running. Now that I've got a few more characters to play with I may also post the occasional #rant.
3D illustration for a 2006 issue of the Dutch ComputerTotaal magazine, about the SABNZBD tool, which was (is?) much-used for concatenating multi-part downloads from Usenet newsgroups.
in a bit of the usual #usenet humor, the hottest topic to discuss on usenet right now seems to be toast. someone created a free.toast group just a few days ago, and now everyone is discussing that topic into the smallest details
"#USENET, or NetNews, is a text-only social discussions forum, or rather a set of a great many forums, called "newsgroups," carried by multiple servers around the world. Although the original developers closed down their instance in 2010, that was just one server out of hundreds, and many are still running just fine. It never went away – it's still alive, you can get on it for free, and there is a choice of client apps for most OSes to help you navigate."
There was nothing wrong with the underlying technology and methodology of Usenet groups. The issue was unmoderated discussions leading to complete chaos. Arguably Reddit built on this model and attempted to address its shortcomings. Unfortunately the original designers of Reddit fell down the money hole and sold their soul to get rich. Time to bring back Usenet.
@HopelessDemigod I would say the federated model of usenet actually offers more resilience. I was always a bit wary of reddit's stranglehold on it's own space.
But that also is the issue with usenet. When Google hooked up Google Groups and flooded the whole system with both users and bot spam it became difficult to deal with. Cut out both users and spam, or try to handle spam one by one?
(A situation not dissimilar to the fediverse/threads situation)
@Methylcobalamin #GoogleGroups should still(*) have the messages up to the cut-off date, but it might be hard to browse the archive of affected groups because of all the spam.
(*) At least until it gets flagged for having spam and Google blocks it because it has spam — yes, Google blocks groups for having spam that was injected via Google, it has happened before, there are still groups affected by it, and probably will happen again until somebody finally fixes some internal process...
What platforms were used in the 80s up to about 1993 or 1994 for Internet servers? It can be #FTP, #Gopher, #telnet, #USENET, the #OldWeb, or anything else that was on the Internet in that era.
My research indicates Solaris was very popular for web servers until Linux took over, and so I suspect it (and SunOS before it) was very popular for the Internet in general, but I'd like to hear from anyone with this sort of experience.
@CodingItWrong haha i have a similar world wide web dating system - for me, it was Ultima VIII: Pagan in 1994. the first thing i did was use lynx to find a text walkthrough for the game, which progressed to searching for Ultima IX screenshots in Mosaic and Netscape a few months later.
@sinza During the 80s, likely VAXes running some BSD variety, also some Sun kit. Moving into the 90s, some sort of TCP/IP was available for more systems, but still BSDs or derivatives mostly. Linux only really started catching on later. And notably ft.cdrom.com, the download site back then, was one (rather beefy for its time) FreeBSD box.