Is it me or is aus.electronics dying?

"Dennis"

The main reasons are masses of spam and an army of brain dead trolls that ruin intelligent discussion for everyone else.

The existence of Google Groups is responsible for most of both problems.

.... Phil

Usenet is dying due to lack of interest, it seems. Google did major harm by not bothering to improve their crappy web interface, and the newbies don't seem to have much of a clue what this place is?

And the spammers.

Always the total wackos and idiots here, I think many just give up and go over to web to fora where the idiots get banned, or something?

Is general conversion between people disappearing?

I've accessing usenet in various forms since '91, much has changed over the years.

Rejoined a.e only recently, it's a lot less active than it was a decade ago.

Grant.

Agree with you there. Are there any web based places taking up the slack? I only rejoined electronics groups recently.

Grant.

They don't even know it exists, Twitter has taken it's place for the new generation.

IF you consider Usenet and similar to be "conversation", then it's actually increasing due to Twitter being FAR more popular than usenet ever was. Not to mention email and SMS are more poular now than letter writing ever was. But IF you mean face to face conversation, then that's probably dropped markedly.

As are all newsgroups, but Twitter, MySpace, Blogs, YouTube, and a hundred other on-line fora are FAR more active.

MrT.

od

In the real world it is - without a doubt. Most people these days seem very dull and unable to hold much of an interesting convo - like they used to be able to. The other problem is that most I know in the real world who have ability in anything seem to have less time for socialising, from taking on more work, due to shortage of others who will or can do it (and not just in tech stuff either). As a result you dont seem to catch up that often.

A lot that you see when out and about will be texting on their mobiles rather than talking - especially young people. Probably sit for ages on Facebook etc rather than talk when at home too. In the virtual world, they probably talk many times more than in the real world.

You are not wrong with that one. I do miss the good ol' days I must admit. It was exciting and new back then.

Also, witness the slow death of newspapers and mainstream media. (not that its undeserved given the low quality and high quantity of propaganda and biased stories, not to mention horrid yank programs that are aimed at people with a mental age of 13 or so.)

I would suggest that radio probably still does ok, as you tend to listen to it in the car when driving, and often in workplaces and home as "background company".

Welcome back !

. . .

Earlier this year it was widely reported that American teenagers are sending over 100 text messages per day. At the rate I am going, it is quite likely I will not send that number in my lifetime.

Andy Wood snipped-for-privacy@trap.ozemail.com.au

It's a bit like a bakelite phone with a curly cord!

:On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:02:55 +1000, "Phil Allison" wrote: : :>

:>"Dennis" :>>

:>> It seems over many years that aus.electronics is carking it. :>>

:>> Apart from active input from Don McK, Dave LJ, its really quiet. :>

:>

:>** Nearly all usenet groups have faded or died in the last couple of years. :>

:>The main reasons are masses of spam and an army of brain dead trolls that :>ruin intelligent discussion for everyone else. :>

:>The existence of Google Groups is responsible for most of both problems. : :Agree with you there. Are there any web based places taking up the :slack? I only rejoined electronics groups recently. : :Grant. :>

:>

:>.... Phil :>

I find that a well designed kill filter for Forte Agent works wonders

for example;

message-id: {\$ec3e2dad\@news\.usenetmonster\.com}|{\$586e9bf6\@usenetnow\.com}|{\.googlegroups\.com}

You can remove the usenetmonster and the @usenetnow ones if you only want to eliminate all messages emanating from googlegroups.

Naah, just shows ho reliable usenet is that you don't need to keep reconfiguring it all the time.

Yep, but that would be top in *number* of posts only! (with apologies to Don McKenzie for him being included with the others)

MrT.

The fact that Phil and Rod are the top posters surely didn't help much either!

MrT.

In general I think you would be wrong there too with MP3 players being so ubiquitous. I for one listen to radio VERY rarely these days, and younger people do even less so IME. MTV drives record sales (MP3 downloads) now not radio, and how many intelligent people can stand the dribble on talk back radio I wonder?

MrT.

Astonishing isn't it, but that's what happens when you send a few characters at a time rather than a 10 minute phone call I guess. My bet is those 100 SMS are to only a handful of different people, NOT 100 different people.

But how many usenet posts, emails, phone calls etc? It's simply a choice of technologies.

MrT.

You are probably very right on that too, while I don't have the facility in my car, most cars over the last couple of years are being advertised as being "ipod compatible" or at very least will play MP3 CD's, or have a line level input.

The reason I probably didn't think of that is that I don't own a portable MP3 player and do have the radio on when driving around.

A lot of modern music is getting so bad - Im starting to prefer silence (IE: Im getting too old:)

ABC Classic FM? What I listen to most of the time in the car, or Radio National on AM if I'm too far away from FM stations.

Grant.

Personally I never listen to classical music in the car or on an MP3 player. For classical it MUST be live, on my HiFi system, or nothing, but each to their own I guess.

MrT.

Like others have said it's probably a natural decline due to alternative means of communication, but in my experience, the fact that asking a question (even a genuine one) usually includes a high likelihood of being flamed (often due to perceived lack of assumed knowledge), doesn't encourage one to participate in this particular newsgroup anymore.

Regards,

Ross..