Re: Microsoft Responds to the Evolution of Online Communities

I agree completely.

To me, it just makes sense to keep the support groups publi
on NNTP for several reasons - not the least of which is tha
the support tends to get spread out all over the world an
thus, reaches a lot more people.

That would require them to respond to evolving custome
trends however

Groups could be created to replace them. They would be like all the other
groups out on usenet,...they just wouldn't be hosted by MS Servers.

But someone would have to take up the torch to do that. That is beyond my
abilities or resources.


--
Phillip Windell

The views expressed, are my own and not those of my employer, or Microsoft,
or anyone else associated with me, including my cats.
-----------------------------------------------------


"Administrator" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I agree completely.
>
> To me, it just makes sense to keep the support groups public
> on NNTP for several reasons - not the least of which is that
> the support tends to get spread out all over the world and
> thus, reaches a lot more people.
>
> That would require them to respond to evolving customer
> trends however

Phillip Windell wrote on Wed, 05 May 2010 17:01
> Groups could be created to replace them. They would be
> like all the other groups out on usenet,...they just
> wouldn't be hosted by MS Servers.
>
> But someone would have to take up the torch to do that.
> That is beyond my abilities or resources.


Now that's a very interesting thought.... It's been eons
since I looked into what's required to start a usenet group
(or what gourps are already out there) but you're right -
that would work and wouldn't be difficult at all.

Why, we could use Microsoft's NNTP service to do just that!

In message <(E-Mail Removed)> Administrator
<(E-Mail Removed)> was claimed to have wrote:

>Phillip Windell wrote on Wed, 05 May 2010 17:01
>> Groups could be created to replace them. They would be
>> like all the other groups out on usenet,...they just
>> wouldn't be hosted by MS Servers.
>>
>> But someone would have to take up the torch to do that.
>> That is beyond my abilities or resources.
>
>
>Now that's a very interesting thought.... It's been eons
>since I looked into what's required to start a usenet group
>(or what gourps are already out there) but you're right -
>that would work and wouldn't be difficult at all.

It's worth noting that the Microsoft groups actually are propagated out
to usenet at large already, so for anyone with access to a reasonably
well maintained usenet server, there won't be too much of a transition
here.

The interesting part will be seeing how the usenet server operators
handle the hierarchy's transition from being formally managed to
completely unmanaged, getting new groups through will be nearly
impossible.

"Dave Warren" <dave-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed)...
> It's worth noting that the Microsoft groups actually are propagated out
> to usenet at large already, so for anyone with access to a reasonably
> well maintained usenet server, there won't be too much of a transition
> here.
>
> The interesting part will be seeing how the usenet server operators
> handle the hierarchy's transition from being formally managed to
> completely unmanaged, getting new groups through will be nearly
> impossible.

You would need one NNTP Server "human" owner somewhere to be the "owner" of
them and be the master NNTP Server that propagates out to the rest (like the
MS Servers do now). We would no longer be able to use MS's NNTP Server.

Without doing this, I'm afraid that if the "owner" servers stop handling the
groups,..then the others out in internet-land will just drop the groups or
they would just age-out and die as the time rolls past the message retension
period

They would have to be new groups with new names anyway,...they would not be
able to keep the prefix of "microsoft.public.*" I suspect,...or someone
would probably be sueing somebody if they did.

I'm not an expert on that of course,..but those are my thoughts/suspicions

--
Phillip Windell

The views expressed, are my own and not those of my employer, or Microsoft,
or anyone else associated with me, including my cats.
-----------------------------------------------------

In message <e#(E-Mail Removed)> "Phillip Windell"
<(E-Mail Removed)> was claimed to have wrote:

>"Dave Warren" <dave-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news(E-Mail Removed).. .
>> It's worth noting that the Microsoft groups actually are propagated out
>> to usenet at large already, so for anyone with access to a reasonably
>> well maintained usenet server, there won't be too much of a transition
>> here.
>>
>> The interesting part will be seeing how the usenet server operators
>> handle the hierarchy's transition from being formally managed to
>> completely unmanaged, getting new groups through will be nearly
>> impossible.
>
>You would need one NNTP Server "human" owner somewhere to be the "owner" of
>them and be the master NNTP Server that propagates out to the rest (like the
>MS Servers do now). We would no longer be able to use MS's NNTP Server.

You don't "need" anyone to be responsible for a group, unless anyone
changes "out there" the groups will still exist and all other servers
will still exchange articles just as they do now even if MS' NNTP
servers disappear off the face of the planet tomorrow.

There is no "Master NNTP server" of a usenet groups, usenet is a true
peer to peer "mesh", every peer flood every one of their peers with
every message, so once you have enough cross-peering between sites, you
get reasonably reliable delivery even if large portions of the network
disappear.

(Just to be clear, the users aren't the peers here. Usenet servers
distribute content among themselves in a peer-to-peer fashion)

Microsoft was just one server, and not a particularly efficient one in
terms of their peering capabilities. It's been a few years since I
looked at the stats, but even those that peered directly with MS
typically received articles from microsoft.public.* groups from another
server before MS' server attempted to deliver them. This is common,
it's a testimony to just how fast and effective NNTP peering really is.

>Without doing this, I'm afraid that if the "owner" servers stop handling the
>groups,..then the others out in internet-land will just drop the groups or
>they would just age-out and die as the time rolls past the message retension
>period

A lot of traffic will go away once Microsoft stops pushing people to
these groups, and more so because so many people won't know what to do
when msnews.microsoft.com stops responding. Doublely so because ISPs
don't grant free usenet access to their users anymore (although there
are both free and cheap options), but for anyone that chooses to
continue participating, these groups will continue to exist "out there"

>They would have to be new groups with new names anyway,...they would not be
>able to keep the prefix of "microsoft.public.*" I suspect,...or someone
>would probably be sueing somebody if they did.

There's no real solid concept of ownership on usenet, and lawsuits
wouldn't likely be effective since Microsoft would have to sue every
single NNTP operator across the planet individually. There's absolutely
no central authority or control for usenet.

Some hierarchies are managed, but in an interesting twist of fate,
Microsoft never figured out how to properly send control messages to
manage their hierarchy, so usenet server operators had to maintain their
group list manually (although most do refuse to create groups that don't
exist on MS' own NNTP out of courtesy), so although some managed
hierarchies would allow their central authority to remove the groups
across many servers worldwide, Microsoft bothered to send proper control
messages in the first place and as a result, control messages attempting
to drop microsoft.public.* would simply be ignored.

Ok.
Well, then, it doesn't seem as bleak as I thought.

Unfortuneately my ISP doesn't provide an NNTP Server. Is there any free
ones that I can use with OE that are worth messing with. I used to use
Giganew in the past but it got expensive.


--
Phillip Windell

The views expressed, are my own and not those of my employer, or Microsoft,
or anyone else associated with me, including my cats.
-----------------------------------------------------

Phillip Windell wrote:
> Ok.
> Well, then, it doesn't seem as bleak as I thought.
>
> Unfortuneately my ISP doesn't provide an NNTP Server. Is there any free
> ones that I can use with OE that are worth messing with. I used to use
> Giganew in the past but it got expensive.

You can sign up to Teranews for a one time setup fee of $3.95. The free
server has a limit of 50MB per day but that is no problem for text based
newsgroups. Others often suggest aieo.org but that one has a limit of
(I think) something like 25 messages per day.

John

Thanks John.

I build a list of them in a Doc that I can go back through later and check
out after the MS one goes down.


--
Phillip Windell

The views expressed, are my own and not those of my employer, or Microsoft,
or anyone else associated with me, including my cats.
-----------------------------------------------------


"John John - MVP" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:uNhHx$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Phillip Windell wrote:
>> Ok.
>> Well, then, it doesn't seem as bleak as I thought.
>>
>> Unfortuneately my ISP doesn't provide an NNTP Server. Is there any free
>> ones that I can use with OE that are worth messing with. I used to use
>> Giganew in the past but it got expensive.
>
> You can sign up to Teranews for a one time setup fee of $3.95. The free
> server has a limit of 50MB per day but that is no problem for text based
> newsgroups. Others often suggest aieo.org but that one has a limit of (I
> think) something like 25 messages per day.
>
> John

In message <ef$(E-Mail Removed)> "Phillip Windell"
<(E-Mail Removed)> was claimed to have wrote:

>Ok.
>Well, then, it doesn't seem as bleak as I thought.
>
>Unfortuneately my ISP doesn't provide an NNTP Server. Is there any free
>ones that I can use with OE that are worth messing with. I used to use
>Giganew in the past but it got expensive.

news.individual.net is around $12/year and provides a very clean well
maintained groups list.

eternal-september.org is a good choice for a completely free text
server, although they do require registration.