What's Happened to Google Groups?

Google Groups has changed radically. I used to be able to do a search, find an indentured list of posts, navigate the posts, easily return to the search options page, modify the original search terms and begin a new search. I don't see how to do that now. It appears that Google Groups (once Deja.com) has been ruined by the "new" version.

Have you encountered the new Google Groups? If so, how have you dealt with it? Have you found a way to use it similarly to the way it was used before? If so, how?

Reply to
Bob Penoyer
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Pretty simple.

It's f***ed.

Google f***ed themselves up.

Reply to
Colin B.

I have heard many complaints, a lot of people are dissatisfied with the new system. We can only hope that it gets better in the future.

There is a lot of valuable content in usenet, buried under enormous amounts of crap. Good search, sort and retrieve features are essential to find the needles in such a haystack.

--
Roger J.
Reply to
Roger Johansson

Did you see

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I assume you're talking about the current version.

Cheers, Mike

Reply to
Mike

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Oddly it shows the latest post at May. They're probably still working kinks out; RCM shows up-to-date posts (latest 11:24am, two hours ago).

I don't get why people bitch about things that work. It must be they refuse to accept change and the hardship of getting there, but I'd think people doing something high level like electronics would be mature enough to accept it.

Tim

-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @

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Reply to
Tim Williams

That's the problem. They moved "beta" into service. That is the "improvement". They want the interface to be more like "yahoo groups", and they've succeeded at that. They've failed at keeping it useful.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Black

I would like to find all messages written by a certain person, during a certain time period, and download those messages as one long text file, with all the messages in chronological order. Can you use groups.google like that now?

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Roger J.
Reply to
Roger Johansson

search,

to

Google has changed the format of google usenet to better be able to insert more advertising onto the pages........its as simple as that.

Ive also noticed that googles search engine has changed too....I sometimes will search and the first "hits" will all be sites that are selling something...some not even remotely related to my search request.

Reply to
cornytheclown

Yes, you got that right. Pretty soon there will be a little skinney column to read in the center of the page with ads filling up both sides. But GOOG did pretty well going public. The stock price was 100 at the close of the first day and is something around

175 now. Who said advertising doesn't pay?

-Bill

Reply to
Bill Bowden

I can't say I've ever had a need nor want to do that so I'm not the one to ask.

Tim

-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @

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Reply to
Tim Williams

What's everyone on about? I've been using it for the past coupla days and I only get ads off to the right side - that's not as bad as it was before, either.

I think it's setting a cookie now so I don't have to click on the "tree view" link any more - or maybe they decided to default to that view.

Works for me but I'd like to know how (as another poster claimed) to download a pile of messages. IME, I've never been able to get more than 10 messages in the thread.

I also like the way the quoted text can be expanded and collapsed - and it even works with a saved page.

I don't have to select the "search in xxx.xxx.xxx only" radio button, either.

They do need to keep the search feature on every page, though.

What's all the whining about?

--
Best Regards,
Mike
Reply to
Active8

Chronological order sucks. It doesn't keep the thread in context.

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Best Regards,
Mike
Reply to
Active8

What? The Aussie Google hasn't redirected yet?

As for advanced search, I think it would be nice to be able to specify how close to each other certain specified search terms must appear in the text.

So if I want bjt RF amplifier, I might get:

"here's an RF amplifier for 40m band. It's designed around a xxxx bjt."

not:

"Here's a bjt audio amplifier... blah blah...

you can't use it for RF."

Not the best example. My first office suite was Corell Perfect Office. Word Perfect had an indexing app that let you control that kind of return relevance by specifying that it keep track of groups of words resolved to the sentence, paragraph, or document level.

--
Best Regards,
Mike
Reply to
Active8

All good things come to an end sooner or later. Being they're on the market now, the ads will have to pay off for the investors, while the informational use will become less and less, since that involves "work" or "desired" product which up til now, most likely hasn't paid them a dime. Ten to one, soon they offer searches on a "subscription" service. Any one care to bet?

There will be life "after" Google. There was before too, with a little leg work. Like many other things, many tend to put all their eggs in one basket, then BOOM... it is knocked over. Admit it, the ease of it all lured you in, now it is time for the kill.

MM

Reply to
Moneyman

search,

to

It's the single worst change I can ever remember seeing. I have used google since it's inception. I've especially come to depend on deja for researching issues and problems.

This is a COMPLETE (and I mean COMPLETE) disaster. It sucks BIG TIME. Google MOVE BACK TO THE OLD FORMAT. Some things are better left alone. Whomever cooked up this new recipe of a format needs to be fired.

Reply to
trichard

So start with:

January 1996 Roger Johansson

The engine and the generated page are two totally separate issues.

You think they should waste bandwidth and send you 1e12 returns when most searches are satisfied in the first few? I noticed the advanced search page allows for up to 100 returns per page. Will that do it for ya?

Google's ads are less obtrusive than a lot of pages I've seen; TV Guide for one. Even with small placeholders where my proxy filter hosed them, they move the content (i.e., the program listings grid) off the bottom of the window. And their webmaster is a f*cking moron.

--
Best Regards,
Mike
Reply to
Active8

Sounds like somebody is in the "stalker" mode. ;-)

Reply to
Si Ballenger

Excellant tip! I like the advanced setup below.

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Reply to
Si Ballenger

Like this?

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Al

Reply to
Al Borowski

The "kill" in my case being me not bothering to use Google anymore. That just means they won't get the ad revenue from my visits ticking up the counters, as well as me not giving them any subscription money. Simple enough, huh? Lycos, Excite, and more that I can't name right now, even Yahoo, not to mention the dozens (probably more like hundreds or thousands) of "niche" searchers, spiders, crawlers, indexers, etc will be able to take the place of google. As has been said, life after google will go on. It's just going to involve doing a little more leg-work for yourself.

I'd like to propose a new corrolary to the networking laws... As we all (should) know, there is great truth in the saying "The 'net interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it". In the case of something such as google going subscription, a slight change in the wording is needed: "The 'net interprets profiteering as damage, and routes around it."

In my eyes, it's OK to go the "OK, here's what you searched for - wanna buy a subscription for even fancier/better/faster ways to do it?" route, but something like google, which has always been a freebie, going purely "You aren't subscribed. I ain't tellin' you jack!" is just plain wrong. Never mind that it's entirely against the spirit of the internet, which is supposed to be a free-flowing exchange of information.

--
Don Bruder - dakidd@sonic.net - New Email policy in effect as of Feb. 21, 2004.
Short form: I\'m trashing EVERY E-mail that doesn\'t contain a password in the
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Reply to
Don Bruder

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