Question:

They *do* carry alt.* groups. Not all of them, though. But alt.golf.forsale is there.

i have to agree with you,  i cant remember for sure, anyway they just dont carry any crap groups that are spam holes and any binaries regards            Mark Blake Fairway: [faer-wai] "An unfamiliar tract of mown grass running directly from tee to the green. Your ball can usually be found immediately to the left or right of it." RSG Roll Call: http://u1.netgate.net/~kirby34/rsg/blakem.htm

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –   I’ll take a shot Randy.  At this point in time, my ISP has seen fit not to renew their news server.  I search the internet for free servers so that I can use Outlook Express, but every time I seem to get set up with one, it works for a few days, and then the plug gets pulled.  I would certainly much rather use that method as there are ways of editing and setting up rules and such that Deja or Remarq do not allow.  But since I have to use this, it is better than nothing.   Satisfy your curiosity a little? Randy heres a free news server,  its reliable, run by a university or something, and it never misses any posts.  they just dont carry any alt* groups its secure, so you need a name and a password.  they do this so they can cancel any one who abuses http://news.cis.dfn.de/ sign up here glad you reminded me, becuase i need to go back to them regards            Mark Blake

They *do* carry alt.* groups. Not all of them, though. But alt.golf.forsale is there. — Ciao. Marcello RSG Roll Call: http://u1.netgate.net/~kirby34/rsg/franchim.htm Fairway: [faer-wai] "An unfamiliar tract of mown grass running directly

from tee to the green. Your ball can usually be found immediately to the left or right of it." – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – RSG Roll Call: http://u1.netgate.net/~kirby34/rsg/blakem.htm

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  I’ll take a shot Randy.  At this point in time, my ISP has seen fit not to renew their news server.  I search the internet for free servers so that I can use Outlook Express, but every time I seem to get set up with one, it works for a few days, and then the plug gets pulled.  I would certainly much rather use that method as there are ways of editing and setting up rules and such that Deja or Remarq do not allow.  But since I have to use this, it is better than nothing.   Satisfy your curiosity a little? Randy

heres a free news server,  its reliable, run by a university or something, and it never misses any posts.  they just dont carry any alt* groups its secure, so you need a name and a password.  they do this so they can cancel any one who abuses http://news.cis.dfn.de/ sign up here glad you reminded me, becuase i need to go back to them regards            Mark Blake Fairway: [faer-wai] "An unfamiliar tract of mown grass running directly from tee to the green. Your ball can usually be found immediately to the left or right of it." RSG Roll Call: http://u1.netgate.net/~kirby34/rsg/blakem.htm

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Webtv shows all the posts.  You would lose whatever status you might have in this newsgroup if you used it though as Webtvers are widely considered to be the scum of the earth.

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  I’ll take a shot Randy.  At this point in time, my ISP has seen fit not to renew their news server.  I search the internet for free servers so that I can use Outlook Express, but every time I seem to get set up with one, it works for a few days, and then the plug gets pulled.

You may already know about these sites, but: http://www.newzbot.com/ http://www.newsservers.net/ http://usenet.startshere.net/

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With the growing popularity of "Free" ISPs, a lot more people are hitting the "Free" new-servers like Remarq and Deja…This may be why Remarq’s buyers have ended the service.

The "free" services make money by selling ad space.  The more users they have, the more money they should be making.  I doub’t they shut it down because it had too many users.  It was probably because either 1), it wasn’t making money (most likely option), or 2) they felt they could make more money by shutting it down and forcing their users elsewhere (like to the regular supernews service). They are refering people to Supernews (I think) …who are offering a 30 day free trial.

Supernews started as an NNTP based service.  They then added they web based service later.  Then they changed their name to Remarq. But later, they decided to go back to the supernews name for the NNTP based service and keep the Remarq name for the web service. Supenews/Remarq was then sold to Critical path.  Critical path then decided to shut down the web based service it seems. — Curt Welch                                            http://CurtWelch.Com/

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Doughboy, I have designed a free golf forum on my site that hasn’t seen a lot of posts, but gets quite a bit of traffic.  People tend to read more than they post messages.  However, my forum allows you to utilize a number of features that you might find useful: – you can list new messages since your last visit – there are golf topics or categories that make finding the discussions that interest you that much easier (ie.  Golf in General, Golf Equipment, Golf Personalities etc.) – another feature that others on rec.sport.golf might take note of is a specific area to post golf advertisements, classified ads and website locations (no charge).  The ads in this area must be approved by moderators before they are posted. – moderated discussion.  Anyone who wishes to moderate a topic can apply. Moderators have the ability to delete any spam related or inappropriate posts. It’s a great way to read! There are a lot of other features that I could list, but for the sake of brevity I’ll stop here. Initially my site was a hobby, but then I considered making money from banner advertising.  I have not had the time to manage this aspect of the site since accepting a new job.  I am no longer accepting advertising anywhere on the site but will continue to keep it in operation for those that wish to use it.  It is no longer a commercial site. The best part is that the forum is free.  All it needs is a jump start.  You can take a peek at:  http://www.fairwayreview.com/discus Give it a try!  I hope others in this group do as well. Dave Ferguson – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Can anyone help me?  I was using Remarq.com to view and post messages and now they are sold to someone who wants to charge $$$.  Remarq was good because it displayed the whole string of messages at once, unlike deja which is very tedious. Is there another .com out there that does it like remarq? Doughboy

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One such mysterious area to me is how usenet and news servers in general work. Mindspring’s news server had almost triple the number of posts archived on their news server for RSG.  It was only then that I became aware that different ISPs made different numbers of posts available.  I guess I always just assumed that the posts were "out there (somewhere)" and all ISPs/news servers, just read "across the network."

It’s complex because there’s a lot of different ways news servers work these days, but the basic model is as follows… Each server has a lot of disk space, and receives copies of every article. How long the articles remain on the server is mostly a function of how much disk space the server has.  The disk space is always 100% used with old articles being removed when space is needed to store the new articles. But the news server software can allow the server to allocate the disk space differently for different groups, so it’s also a function of how the server is configured.  It’s common for example to config the space so text groups like rsg are saved much longer than the large binary groups. When a new article is posted on the server, it’s saved on that server and all users of that server will be able to see it.  A copy is also sent to all the peers of that server (you must have at least one peer, and most servers will have multiple peers — some have hundreds). For every article received by a server, it will be saved on that server, and then offered to all its peers.  The articles are offered using their unique Message-ID.  If the peer has already recieved a copy of that article, then it will tell the other server not to send it to prevent getting multiple copies of the same article. So new articles flood though the network of usenet servers until it has reached all servers that want it.  That flooding can happen quickly for small articles (less than 1 second per hop), but will take much longer for large binary posts.  When usenet first started, the normal way it worked was for the servers to exchange articles over night, so you expected articles to take a day or more to move though the net.  Things mostly happen a lot faster now. Usenet news volume is up around 130 GB of data per day now.  You need something close to 13 Mbit of bandwidth to receive a full feed.  If you want to archive all the news for 10 days, you need 1300 GB of disk space. News servers which receive full feeds are large beasts these days.  But you can still set up a small server (nothing more than a PC) to receive a few hundred groups like rsg without even breaking a sweat. And there are about 1,000,000 new articles posted every day.  That works out to about 12 articles per second 24×7 that a news server has to keep up with. Usenet volume has been doubling about every 10 to 12 months for the past 20 years.  It’s somewhat amazing that’s it’s still working … — Curt Welch                                            http://CurtWelch.Com/

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One such mysterious area to me is how usenet and news servers in general work.

Interesting you mention that… I hit the giganews site a few days a go and was REALLY impressed with their usenet FAQ…best I’ve ever seen…It explains the co-operative and non commerciality factors better and more understandably than I’ve ever been able to. They also have a FAQ about THEIR news-server buisness that explains a lot about how such a system works. http://www.giganews.com/info/usefaq.html With the growing popularity of "Free" ISPs, a lot more people are hitting the "Free" new-servers like Remarq and Deja…This may be why Remarq’s buyers have ended the service. They are refering people to Supernews (I think) …who are offering a 30 day free trial. ]]]Z[[[

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Randy, I access the web at work — a university system that is very fast. I don’t have a computer at home, and I don’t know if I could stand the relative snail’s pace, anyway. There may be a way for me to get newsgroups directly. But to find out, I’d have to talk to our server administrator, who — although a very nice fellow — usually tells me about ten times more than I need to know, and also mumbles in a thick Scottish brogue that is very hard to follow. Anyway, I don’t know what I’m missing out on, if anything, but I seem to be getting all the RSG messages just fine. I guess I’m not able to filter out certain threads or people with this system — so I just use the filter between my ears. — Jim Before you buy.

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Can anyone help me?  I was using Remarq.com to view and post messages and now they are sold to someone who wants to charge $$$.  Remarq was good  because it displayed the whole string of messages at once,

unlike deja which  is very tedious. Is there another .com out there that does it like remarq? Doughboy

Sigh…here you go… http://novell.remarq.com/novell/home.asp Critical Path purchased Remarq, and shut down their USENET services on August 15. What I liked about Remarq is their article count was more complete than my ISP newsserver, and the thread count was updated faster than any other newsserver out there,plus they carried binaries, and you can reply to a post for up to three months after the original date it was posted, unlike Deja which allows 30 days. * Sent from Novell Discussion Forums http://novell.remarq.com The Internet’s Discussion Network * The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet – Free!

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In rec.sport.golf Would someone care to satisfy my curiousity about something? This isn’t intended as a sarcastic comment at all.  I just don’t understand this… Why would anyone use DeJaNews (or Remarq, or whatever) to follow newsgroup threads when all you have to do is use your browser’s newsreader (mine is Outlook, though there’s Outlook Express, Netscape Communicator, and probably others I’m not familiar with)? Just wondering.  It seems much simpler just to browse off your ISP’s news server, rather than having to deal with multiple pages on a website. Could you explain, please?

At home, I use my ISP with Free Agent, which is the best IMHO.  At work, I have no news access so I have to access it on the web so I use Deja which sucks compared to Remarq.

Response:

Then when I moved to Atlanta and became a subscriber to Mindspring, I suddenly realized that I’d been missing out.  Mindspring’s news server had almost triple the number of posts archived on their news server for RSG.  It was only then that I became aware that different ISPs made different numbers of posts available.  I guess I always just assumed that the posts were "out there (somewhere)" and all ISPs/news servers, just read "across the network."  (I know, sort of naive thinking, but considering that I’ve never been a computer geek, it was as much sense as my little pea brain could make of it.)

Usenet is a not-very-rigidly controlled "offline" network of news servers. Servers do three things: accept postings from clients (nowadays mostly via NNTP = Netnews Transfer Protocol), send articles, headers, etc. to clients (again generally via NNTP), and exchange articles with other servers, yet again generally via NNTP.  However, Usenet isn’t NNTP.  In the good old days when I started using Usenet, a lot of traffic was carried by non connection oriented protocols like UUCP.  Servers would "call up" one another from time to time, every hour or day or whatever, and exchange articles, either singly or in various compressed "batch" forms.  Clients would often read articles directly from the news spool area on the server machine.  (You can still do this if you have an account on a machine running a news server and it’s not storing articles in a database.) Usenet is a spectacularly robust system that does a great job of propagating articles "good enough" around the world without achieving perfection.  You can still "connect" to Usenet by all manner of offline protocols. There is no overall "authority" that controls what newsgroups exist, what articles are carried, and so on.  These decisions are made first by the individual server operators, and secondarily by the various entities that "suggest" what’s proper.  In the case of the Big Seven newsgroup hierarchy, there are fairly well established guidelines for newsgroup creation, and somewhat formally maintained lists of what newsgroups currently exist. Other hierarchies are less formal or in many cases exist through cooperative anarchy. Everything about news servers is configurable.  What groups are carried (groups "exist" on a per-server basis and there is no such thing as a list of what groups "exist" in Usenet because any server can have any groups it wants–but other servers may or may not have the same ones), how many days/bytes/whatever of articles are kept (can be configured on a per-newsgroup basis), who is allowed to download or upload articles, what servers are allowed to peer (exchange articles), and so on. Usenet traffic is colossal these days.  A couple years back a T-1 could handle a full feed.  (A full T-1 is around 13 GB per day.)  Not a chance anymore.   -joseph — Joseph N. Hall … perl, golf, music, and so on Music          – http://www.digitalweapons.com Book           — http://www.effectiveperl.com The Usual Crap — http://www.5sigma.com/joseph

Response:

Thanks for the explanations, guys.  There are some things about the internet/usenet that have always been a mystery to me (unlike what seems to be about half of all online people, I’m not in a computer-related field). Since every ISP I’ve ever subscribed to has had a news server, I guess I assumed it was part of the service with all of ‘em.  I hadn’t considered how some might not have access at work (though I know I don’t either — I just never snapped to it). One such mysterious area to me is how usenet and news servers in general work.  I know that my first ISP, Flash.Net, had its own news servers (though the service overall was horrible).  I switched to SouthwesternBell.net, which was better service, and they had their own news server, too.  So I’ve always had RSG. Then when I moved to Atlanta and became a subscriber to Mindspring, I suddenly realized that I’d been missing out.  Mindspring’s news server had almost triple the number of posts archived on their news server for RSG.  It was only then that I became aware that different ISPs made different numbers of posts available.  I guess I always just assumed that the posts were "out there (somewhere)" and all ISPs/news servers, just read "across the network."  (I know, sort of naive thinking, but considering that I’ve never been a computer geek, it was as much sense as my little pea brain could make of it.) Then there was AOL (I’ve always had an account, though I seldom use it). Their news server has always been weird.  And the number of posts there don’t match up AT ALL with Mindspring. Very confusing. But I guess in the end, it just makes me wonder why someone who wants to use Usenet doesn’t just switch ISPs to one that makes it available. Randy My golf website:  http://wwwgolfer.home.mindspring.com My real-life website:  http://www.goldenbrownvo.com My RSG Roll Call profile:  http://u1.netgate.net/~kirby34/rsg/brownr.htm RSG FAQ:  http://ttsoft.com/thor/rsggolf.html

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Would someone care to satisfy my curiousity about something? This isn’t intended as a sarcastic comment at all.  I just don’t understand this… Why would anyone use DeJaNews (or Remarq, or whatever) to follow newsgroup threads when all you have to do is use your browser’s newsreader (mine is Outlook, though there’s Outlook Express, Netscape Communicator, and probably others I’m not familiar with)? Just wondering.  It seems much simpler just to browse off your ISP’s news server, rather than having to deal with multiple pages on a website. Could you explain, please? Some ISPs these days don’t provide news servers anymore. Some people access the net though places like work which have direct internet connections but no access to a news server. Almost everyone knows how to use the web and has a web server set up to work.  Setting up a newsreader is an extra step that some people haven’t figured out how to do (even when it is built into the browser). Web based newsreaders have the advantage of keeping your configuration and "read article" (i.e. newsrc) info on the web server and not on your local machine.  This enables you to read news from multiple locations (say home and work) and not have to read the same articles twice.  Any web browers you can find will work fine for sitting down and reading a few more rsg posts… BTW, I created and run NewsReader.Com, a subscription based web (and NNTP) news service. — Curt Welch

http://CurtWelch.Com/

http://NewsReader.Com/

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   I’ll take a shot Randy.  At this point in time, my ISP has seen fit not to renew their news server.  I search the internet for free servers so that I can use Outlook Express, but every time I seem to get set up with one, it works for a few days, and then the plug gets pulled.  I would certainly much rather use that method as there are ways of editing and setting up rules and such that Deja or Remarq do not allow.  But since I have to use this, it is better than nothing.    Satisfy your curiosity a little? Chris S. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Would someone care to satisfy my curiousity about something? This isn’t intended as a sarcastic comment at all.  I just don’t understand this… Why would anyone use DeJaNews (or Remarq, or whatever) to follow newsgroup threads when all you have to do is use your browser’s newsreader (mine is Outlook, though there’s Outlook Express, Netscape Communicator, and probably others I’m not familiar with)? Just wondering.  It seems much simpler just to browse off your ISP’s news server, rather than having to deal with multiple pages on a website. Could you explain, please? Randy My golf website:  http://wwwgolfer.home.mindspring.com My real-life website:  http://www.goldenbrownvo.com My RSG Roll Call profile:

http://u1.netgate.net/~kirby34/rsg/brownr.htm RSG FAQ:  http://ttsoft.com/thor/rsggolf.html

Before you buy.

Response:

Would someone care to satisfy my curiousity about something? This isn’t intended as a sarcastic comment at all.  I just don’t understand this… Why would anyone use DeJaNews (or Remarq, or whatever) to follow newsgroup threads when all you have to do is use your browser’s newsreader (mine is Outlook, though there’s Outlook Express, Netscape Communicator, and probably others I’m not familiar with)? Just wondering.  It seems much simpler just to browse off your ISP’s news server, rather than having to deal with multiple pages on a website. Could you explain, please?

Some ISPs these days don’t provide news servers anymore. Some people access the net though places like work which have direct internet connections but no access to a news server. Almost everyone knows how to use the web and has a web server set up to work.  Setting up a newsreader is an extra step that some people haven’t figured out how to do (even when it is built into the browser). Web based newsreaders have the advantage of keeping your configuration and "read article" (i.e. newsrc) info on the web server and not on your local machine.  This enables you to read news from multiple locations (say home and work) and not have to read the same articles twice.  Any web browers you can find will work fine for sitting down and reading a few more rsg posts… BTW, I created and run NewsReader.Com, a subscription based web (and NNTP) news service. — Curt Welch                                            http://CurtWelch.Com/

Response:

Would someone care to satisfy my curiousity about something? This isn’t intended as a sarcastic comment at all.  I just don’t understand this… Why would anyone use DeJaNews (or Remarq, or whatever) to follow newsgroup threads when all you have to do is use your browser’s newsreader (mine is Outlook, though there’s Outlook Express, Netscape Communicator, and probably others I’m not familiar with)? Just wondering.  It seems much simpler just to browse off your ISP’s news server, rather than having to deal with multiple pages on a website. Could you explain, please? Randy My golf website:  http://wwwgolfer.home.mindspring.com My real-life website:  http://www.goldenbrownvo.com My RSG Roll Call profile:  http://u1.netgate.net/~kirby34/rsg/brownr.htm RSG FAQ:  http://ttsoft.com/thor/rsggolf.html

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I used Remarq.com when I first started reading RSG. Then I got on Deja.com and I’ve stayed with it ever since — except on the few occassions Deja.com has had technical difficulties. I like Deja’s setup better because you can follow the thread in flow-chart fashion, seeing who responded to whom, and who started any subthread. With Remarq, you have to plough through all the messages in the order they are posted, which lots of times doesn’t make any sense. True, with Remarq you get the whole thread without having to click back and forth, but in the long run I prefer Deja. One thing I don’t like about the Deja setup is that — in the table of threads — you see the name of the last person to post on the thread, not the person who started it. There may be a way to change that with advanced settings, but I haven’t delved into it. Good luck, Jim Before you buy.

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Can anyone help me?  I was using Remarq.com to view and post messages and now they are sold to someone who wants to charge $$$.  Remarq was good because it displayed the whole string of messages at once, unlike deja which is very tedious. Is there another .com out there that does it like remarq? Doughboy

Response:

I used Remarq.com when I first started reading RSG. Then I got on Deja.com and I’ve stayed with it ever since — except on the few occassions Deja.com has had technical difficulties. I like Deja’s setup better because you can follow the thread in flow-chart fashion, seeing who responded to whom, and who started any subthread. With Remarq, you have to plough through all the messages in the order they are posted, which lots of times doesn’t make any sense. True, with Remarq you get the whole thread without having to click back and forth, but in the long run I prefer Deja. One thing I don’t like about the Deja setup is that — in the table of threads — you see the name of the last person to post on the thread, not the person who started it. There may be a way to change that with advanced settings, but I haven’t delved into it. Good luck, Jim Before you buy.

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