The way usenet clients worked was when new message headers were downloaded, the client would highlight unread messages. It's pretty similar to email where when you receive new messages, you can tell that they haven't been read before you read them. Websites like Hacker News, Reddit, Facebook, etc lack this feature.
Facebook, for instance, does have a notification system, but makes it very difficult to find the specific reply to your post or comment because it frequently filters out comments from being displayed unless "all comments" is selected from the drop down. Once that selection is made, you have to expand every thread to find the reply to your comment.
> Usenet is a tried-to-be globally governed forum service
Globally governed by whom? The only real governance was the creation of new groups in the Big 8 hierarchy. And, unless the group was moderated, anyone could post or reply to a comment.
> Some server don't allow large attachments, some don't allow HTML message
Text groups had conventions disallowing HTML or attachments, so very few people used them (unless their client wasn't configured properly).
> The protocol don't really help it too. NNTP for example, is neither a high efficient nor resilient protocol. If your mail got too large, or your link is unstable, you'll have some nightmares trying to send it out.
Message size isn't an issue for plain text messages and all major usenet services have no issues handling articles up to 750 Kb in size (for binary groups).
> NNTP is also not a well-designed protocol
What specifically is not well designed?
> NNTP clients (Thunderbird and Outlook)
Outlook never supported NNTP
> will just let the user handle every error encountered
What errors are you specifically referring to?
> So for me, Usenet is just simply outdated. That's all there is to it.
Based on what you've posted, it doesn't seem like you have much if any first hand experience using a NNTP client or have read any of the related RFC documents documenting the NNTP application level protocol.
BTW: Since we're already here and I'm too nostalgic now and all, I Googled my old posts from back in time, and found a [post] that we wrote and posted on microsoft.public.cn.msn.messenger as the moderators of the group.
I'm pretty sure Alex Zhang, who's a rank higher up than us, was probably annoyed by all the request for guidance that we constantly need. But...still, good times.
I also remember how it ended: the moderator tool that Microsoft provided to us has stopped working one day, we queried and waited for a few months and it didn't come back. So we assumed that Microsoft has changed the plan.
Also, now that I got my timeline clear, my lunch money was not donated when I was 13 years old (and just to be clear, it was not to Microsoft newsgroup, of course), I would say much older than that. But I can't found any record of the action since the server is private, so, sad I guess :(
Reading the old posts now, judging by the words we wrote back then, we... were really acting like cooperate freaks. Glad I've grown more human since :)
> it doesn't seem like you have much if any first hand
Well, I didn't really setup any newsgroup server (other than the one in IIS for fun), if that's what you mean by "first hand". But I do donated to one out a week worth of my lunch money when I was 13 years old because I frequented there and they needs some funding for their broken RAID card + drives.
> Outlook never supported NNTP
If you know a bit more, you should know that Outlook Express does, then Windows Live Mail etc. The reason why I'm using Thunderbird as email client is probably because it got a (even through buggy but) functional NNTP support. I also know Thunderbird has a bug which prevents it from using the correct charset defined by the user, because I guess I've spent too much time on these news groups.
Also, reading your reply, I realized that you are putting a lots if not all of your own experience on "plain text messages", and you're thinking "this is fine"? Then wake up. On today's Internet, if your forum service cannot host memes and other types of rich multimedia, it's already out of public view. So,
> "have no issues handling articles up to 750 Kb in size"
Dude, really? Just 750 Kb? :)
> the client would highlight unread messages
It require some setup that most people don't know they can do. "Filter" in Outlook Express if I remembered it correctly gives you a different color when a matching mail is received. But guess what, it's not the default at least during the time I'm using it. If you don't do that, you'll only get "notification" (actually, just count refreshing) every time when new mails are downloaded, even if none of those mails are meant for you.
Your overall reply gives me a feeling that you're deep inside your own good-old-time memories, which let you to give out these apologetic words. It's reasonable if you are an user, after all, it's indeed a good time for many of us. But one should not be blind by nostalgia, because if they did, they running into the risk of degenerate their own creativity for something far better. Seeing flaws don't prevent you from loving something, you know?
> If you know a bit more, you should know that Outlook Express does
I know that Outlook Express does and it's a distinct product from Outlook.
> The reason why I'm using Thunderbird as email client is probably because it got a (even through buggy but) functional NNTP support. I also know Thunderbird has a bug which prevents it from using the correct charset defined by the user, because I guess I've spent too much time on these news groups.
I haven't used Thunderbird to post to newsgroups recently, but I'm pretty sure that it set the charset part of the MIME header to utf8. When I used to post regularly, it was set to us-ascii based on what I set in Thunderbird's, Seamonkey's, Mozilla Mail & News, and Netscape Communicator.
> Also, reading your reply, I realized that you are putting a lots if not all of your own experience on "plain text messages", and you're thinking "this is fine"?
It works for this forum.
> Then wake up. On today's Internet, if your forum service cannot host memes and other types of rich multimedia, it's already out of public view.
Practically every comment on this website is essentially in plain text. Even most comments on reddit stick to plain text and neither website is out of public view.
> Dude, really? Just 750 Kb? :)
None of the comments you or I have written here come anywhere close to 750 Kb in size. Most emails I type aren't anywhere near that either. In fact, if you look at mailing lists like the ones used for the Linux Kernel and various subsystems and the one used by git project, you'll see that their inline patch messages come nowhere near that size limit. So you can easily read through any of those mailing lists using a NNTP gateway.
> It require some setup that most people don't know they can do
Like what exactly? The default configuration[1] shows message subject, author and date in bold text in the message list pane if you haven't read it and in regular text if you have.
> every time when new mails are downloaded, even if none of those mails are meant for you.
Usenet messages formed a multi-threaded discussion per topic. Messages that are posted as direct replies to message you posted are meant for you and can be easily spotted by scrolling through the list of messages in the message list pane and seeing direct replies to messages you posted in bold text. Even in threads that had thousands of messages, I could find replies to messages I posted in less than a minute. In contrast, I have to click through several screens of my comments on this website to see if any of them have replies and then remember if I had already read them or not.
> Your overall reply gives me a feeling that you're deep inside your own good-old-time memories
I still occasionally use usenet today and frequently use NNTP gateway services to browse mailing lists. It's not recollection of "good-old-time memories". Given your remark about being 13 years of age and donating lunch money makes me think that your recollection isn't very precise given your young age. I started using usenet in the mid '90s when I was an adult in my 20s. I used it daily posting and reading groups up till around 2015 or so when the groups I posted in basically were abandoned by all the regulars I used to interact with.
The way usenet clients worked was when new message headers were downloaded, the client would highlight unread messages. It's pretty similar to email where when you receive new messages, you can tell that they haven't been read before you read them. Websites like Hacker News, Reddit, Facebook, etc lack this feature.
Facebook, for instance, does have a notification system, but makes it very difficult to find the specific reply to your post or comment because it frequently filters out comments from being displayed unless "all comments" is selected from the drop down. Once that selection is made, you have to expand every thread to find the reply to your comment.
> Usenet is a tried-to-be globally governed forum service
Globally governed by whom? The only real governance was the creation of new groups in the Big 8 hierarchy. And, unless the group was moderated, anyone could post or reply to a comment.
> Some server don't allow large attachments, some don't allow HTML message
Text groups had conventions disallowing HTML or attachments, so very few people used them (unless their client wasn't configured properly).
> The protocol don't really help it too. NNTP for example, is neither a high efficient nor resilient protocol. If your mail got too large, or your link is unstable, you'll have some nightmares trying to send it out.
Message size isn't an issue for plain text messages and all major usenet services have no issues handling articles up to 750 Kb in size (for binary groups).
> NNTP is also not a well-designed protocol
What specifically is not well designed?
> NNTP clients (Thunderbird and Outlook)
Outlook never supported NNTP
> will just let the user handle every error encountered
What errors are you specifically referring to?
> So for me, Usenet is just simply outdated. That's all there is to it.
Based on what you've posted, it doesn't seem like you have much if any first hand experience using a NNTP client or have read any of the related RFC documents documenting the NNTP application level protocol.