Was interesting to find out about USENET, an early forum-like system which, by my understanding, predated the modern world wide web and used it's own custom protocols. Also, I somehow missed the...
Was interesting to find out about USENET, an early forum-like system which, by my understanding, predated the modern world wide web and used it's own custom protocols.
Also, I somehow missed the fact that "Discourse" is open-source. Now it makes sense why so many open-source communities use it... and it's pretty good and has A LOT of features.
Another cool aspect of USENET was that it was very distributed. People would use uucp to download news, discussion threads, and emails before responding to and resharing them on the peer-to-peer...
Another cool aspect of USENET was that it was very distributed. People would use uucp to download news, discussion threads, and emails before responding to and resharing them on the peer-to-peer chain.
Just responding to agree with this XD I read this line from OP: And made an audible HNNNGGGG sound as my soul departed the frail remains of body (to OP: I'm glad you're learning about this stuff!...
Just responding to agree with this XD I read this line from OP:
Was interesting to find out about USENET [...]
And made an audible HNNNGGGG sound as my soul departed the frail remains of body
(to OP: I'm glad you're learning about this stuff! Old people just occasionally get hit by the truck of time, and joking about the briefness of life helps with the 'ol existential dread. Please pay this no mind)
Don't feel bad. I'm a 2000s "kid" and even though not long ago I considered myself young, more and more things are reminding me the opposite these days. I still feel 18 inside :D The first forums...
Don't feel bad. I'm a 2000s "kid" and even though not long ago I considered myself young, more and more things are reminding me the opposite these days. I still feel 18 inside :D
The first forums I came across were gaming related (counter-strike, runescape ...) at around 2013-2014. I can't say for all of them, but phpBB rings a strong bell for me so at least some of them must have been that.
When did Usenet stop being a thing, by the way? Late 90's like the article mentioned? And how did it differ from modern forums?
I've never done Usenet, but have been aware of its existence since I started using computers as a kid in the late 90s. My understanding was it was a function of new groups of people getting online...
I've never done Usenet, but have been aware of its existence since I started using computers as a kid in the late 90s. My understanding was it was a function of new groups of people getting online and starting with something else...much like how many people now only use the Web on a smartphone and only come in contact with a handful of companies providing centralized services. It's just what they're familiar with.
In the 90s, people joining the Internet were doing so for the Web, because it was the hot new thing (even if they didn't necessarily grasp that distinction). They were there for Yahoo and eBay and Hotmail and such. They clicked the blue E on Windows and used the paved road of software directing them to what they actually wanted. The typical person wasn't thinking about how networks work or picking out software.
Also, we had ISPs like America On Line, which were trying to build a curated gated community. So many people's experience with the Internet then was through that. One stop for email, web browsing and chat functionality. AIM was huge. My grandma was able to use AIM and make voice calls.
Oh man, I just remembered a relative on my mom's side of the family had a Prodigy email back then. Now I'm trying to remember the other proto-ISP that had a closed network. They're where GIF...
Oh man, I just remembered a relative on my mom's side of the family had a Prodigy email back then. Now I'm trying to remember the other proto-ISP that had a closed network. They're where GIF originated.
Edit: CompuServe
I was too young for that stage of computing. My family got our first computer in 1998 and we started with Juno and moved on to AOL a little later. (Then ADSL from a local ISP around 2005.)
Compuserve, AOL, and Prodigy were all BBS systems that evolved into the first major ISPs. The loss of geographically-bound (due to long distance call rates) online spaces is bittersweet. I still...
Compuserve, AOL, and Prodigy were all BBS systems that evolved into the first major ISPs. The loss of geographically-bound (due to long distance call rates) online spaces is bittersweet.
I still vaguely remember browsing Cartoon Network stuff on the Prodigy BBS. It was considered the family-friendly option at the time, before my family switched to AOL, probably for price reasons.
Usenet didn't stop being a thing. It has a surprisingly large userbase in the Netherlands and there are plenty of providers available. Usually Usenet is presented as the alternative to torrents.
Usenet didn't stop being a thing. It has a surprisingly large userbase in the Netherlands and there are plenty of providers available. Usually Usenet is presented as the alternative to torrents.
It would be really cool to have something like Discourse, but less resource-hungry. Like a Go application that can be easily deployed to cheaper VPSes. A forum could even get away with an SQLite...
It would be really cool to have something like Discourse, but less resource-hungry. Like a Go application that can be easily deployed to cheaper VPSes. A forum could even get away with an SQLite database, since it's heavy read, low write and expected to only have one server instance.
Tbh, there is very little wrong with old fashioned LAMP based forums like phpBB (which is still getting updates) or more modern Flarum. These will run on a lot of webhosting offerings as that is...
Tbh, there is very little wrong with old fashioned LAMP based forums like phpBB (which is still getting updates) or more modern Flarum. These will run on a lot of webhosting offerings as that is still what a lot of them offer. Takes away the need for you to maintain the VPS as well.
If you don't like using the LAMP stack there are other alternatives out there (for which you will need a VPS I suppose) like NodeBB as well which is Node.JS based.
I am sure you can make a reasonable forum in GO as well if you set out to do so. But forums, even seemingly simple ones, are fairly complex. A lot of the lightweight solutions people start out with are also light weight because they lack (often decades) of accumulated features, spam handling, moderation tooling, etc.
Most of the alternatives I mentioned will be less resource hungry than Discourse anyway (Heck, phpBB hasn't changed that much and ran fine on hardware from decades ago). Discourse had made some design choices that simply make it resource hungry. Less to do with the language (Which is Ruby ) and more with architecture.
This is actually why I really love Tildes. I did dabble in USENET but other forums were soon more accessible (my go to was phpBB, which is only #4). It's possibly the closest thing since the...
This is actually why I really love Tildes. I did dabble in USENET but other forums were soon more accessible (my go to was phpBB, which is only #4).
It's possibly the closest thing since the "Llamas on Fire" board (which was the #1 for me back in the day, and also where I met my SO) today, with an adequate mix of Reddit's good bits.
Older doesn't necessarily mean better, but I suspect if the internet was thrust back to USENET times, a lot of shifts would be made in a more positive direction.
I always had a mildly-insane idea kicking around in the back of my head along the lines of a next-gen, but low-tech Usenet, fully broadcasted on HAM and/or LoRA frequencies instead of the...
I always had a mildly-insane idea kicking around in the back of my head along the lines of a next-gen, but low-tech Usenet, fully broadcasted on HAM and/or LoRA frequencies instead of the traditional channels.
Was interesting to find out about USENET, an early forum-like system which, by my understanding, predated the modern world wide web and used it's own custom protocols.
Also, I somehow missed the fact that "Discourse" is open-source. Now it makes sense why so many open-source communities use it... and it's pretty good and has A LOT of features.
Another cool aspect of USENET was that it was very distributed. People would use uucp to download news, discussion threads, and emails before responding to and resharing them on the peer-to-peer chain.
Having been involved in Usenet for a long long time, I now feel very, very old. The old uk.comp. Hierarchy is not what it was :(
Just responding to agree with this XD I read this line from OP:
And made an audible HNNNGGGG sound as my soul departed the frail remains of body
(to OP: I'm glad you're learning about this stuff! Old people just occasionally get hit by the truck of time, and joking about the briefness of life helps with the 'ol existential dread. Please pay this no mind)
Don't feel bad. I'm a 2000s "kid" and even though not long ago I considered myself young, more and more things are reminding me the opposite these days. I still feel 18 inside :D
The first forums I came across were gaming related (counter-strike, runescape ...) at around 2013-2014. I can't say for all of them, but phpBB rings a strong bell for me so at least some of them must have been that.
When did Usenet stop being a thing, by the way? Late 90's like the article mentioned? And how did it differ from modern forums?
I've never done Usenet, but have been aware of its existence since I started using computers as a kid in the late 90s. My understanding was it was a function of new groups of people getting online and starting with something else...much like how many people now only use the Web on a smartphone and only come in contact with a handful of companies providing centralized services. It's just what they're familiar with.
In the 90s, people joining the Internet were doing so for the Web, because it was the hot new thing (even if they didn't necessarily grasp that distinction). They were there for Yahoo and eBay and Hotmail and such. They clicked the blue E on Windows and used the paved road of software directing them to what they actually wanted. The typical person wasn't thinking about how networks work or picking out software.
Also, we had ISPs like America On Line, which were trying to build a curated gated community. So many people's experience with the Internet then was through that. One stop for email, web browsing and chat functionality. AIM was huge. My grandma was able to use AIM and make voice calls.
AOL actually predated the internet. It was originally an online network in the same general vein as prodigy and GEnie.
Oh man, I just remembered a relative on my mom's side of the family had a Prodigy email back then. Now I'm trying to remember the other proto-ISP that had a closed network. They're where GIF originated.
Edit: CompuServe
I was too young for that stage of computing. My family got our first computer in 1998 and we started with Juno and moved on to AOL a little later. (Then ADSL from a local ISP around 2005.)
Compuserve, AOL, and Prodigy were all BBS systems that evolved into the first major ISPs. The loss of geographically-bound (due to long distance call rates) online spaces is bittersweet.
I still vaguely remember browsing Cartoon Network stuff on the Prodigy BBS. It was considered the family-friendly option at the time, before my family switched to AOL, probably for price reasons.
Usenet didn't stop being a thing. It has a surprisingly large userbase in the Netherlands and there are plenty of providers available. Usually Usenet is presented as the alternative to torrents.
It would be really cool to have something like Discourse, but less resource-hungry. Like a Go application that can be easily deployed to cheaper VPSes. A forum could even get away with an SQLite database, since it's heavy read, low write and expected to only have one server instance.
Tbh, there is very little wrong with old fashioned LAMP based forums like phpBB (which is still getting updates) or more modern Flarum. These will run on a lot of webhosting offerings as that is still what a lot of them offer. Takes away the need for you to maintain the VPS as well.
If you don't like using the LAMP stack there are other alternatives out there (for which you will need a VPS I suppose) like NodeBB as well which is Node.JS based.
I am sure you can make a reasonable forum in GO as well if you set out to do so. But forums, even seemingly simple ones, are fairly complex. A lot of the lightweight solutions people start out with are also light weight because they lack (often decades) of accumulated features, spam handling, moderation tooling, etc.
Most of the alternatives I mentioned will be less resource hungry than Discourse anyway (Heck, phpBB hasn't changed that much and ran fine on hardware from decades ago). Discourse had made some design choices that simply make it resource hungry. Less to do with the language (Which is Ruby ) and more with architecture.
This is actually why I really love Tildes. I did dabble in USENET but other forums were soon more accessible (my go to was phpBB, which is only #4).
It's possibly the closest thing since the "Llamas on Fire" board (which was the #1 for me back in the day, and also where I met my SO) today, with an adequate mix of Reddit's good bits.
Older doesn't necessarily mean better, but I suspect if the internet was thrust back to USENET times, a lot of shifts would be made in a more positive direction.
I always had a mildly-insane idea kicking around in the back of my head along the lines of a next-gen, but low-tech Usenet, fully broadcasted on HAM and/or LoRA frequencies instead of the traditional channels.