December 06, 2012
On 12/06/2012 02:41 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 12/7/2012 6:20 AM, 1100110 wrote:
>> On 12/05/2012 09:38 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
>>> On 12/6/2012 1:09 PM, Rob T wrote:
>>>> On Thursday, 6 December 2012 at 00:33:23 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Take a look at this forum. No spam.
>>>>
>>>> Well not exactly ...
>>>> http://forum.dlang.org/thread/k8afao$b29$2@digitalmars.com
>>>
>>> Those posts do not appear if you're using an NNTP reader. It's not a
>>> fault with using NNTP.
>>
>>
>> Not true. They do appear on NNTP as well.
>
> Direct your newsreader at them. They won't be there. They don't exist on
> the NNTP server, because I removed them.
>
Ok, so they *did* appear on the NNTP server at one point in time.
I remember seeing the one entitled "Rape is Rape" in my newsreader.

Which means my statement is correct.  Once posted, they appear.

Whether or nor you or someone else removes them is irrelevant.
That is just marking spam as spam, no different than a BBS, or email for that matter.

We'd have the exact same problem with any other methods of communication(Except for the system in place to deal with it.).  NNTP seems to be snake oil.

(Don't take my original post as antagonistic, much more of a Hands-in-the-air I want no part of any argument.)
>
>> As well as the thread breakage
>
> That's the fault of the mailman software, not NNTP.

I understand. That should be fixed, but until it is it affects *all* methods of viewing the forums, does it not?
December 06, 2012
On 12/06/2012 03:29 PM, Simen Kjaeraas wrote:
> Formatting of text... If ever I meet the person who decided HTML in
> email was a good idea, I'll make sure he will stay away from computers
> until long after he's dead.

If *I* ever meet him I'll send him your way.
December 06, 2012
On Thursday, 6 December 2012 at 20:37:03 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 12/7/2012 5:01 AM, deed wrote:
>> If all posts at D Learn could have been tagged by subject and easily
>> looked up in a structured subject tree, as in the language reference, I
>> belive it could complement the documentation in a useful manner.
>
> There is immense value in these ng postings, but absent a human curator for it, the best that can be done is use google to search them.

Someone would have to set up the subject structure under D.Learn. Then a possibly required input field (thinking web interface) could specify the subject the question belongs to. A voting system would then sort the responses after relevance and usefulness. It would help building useful, easy accessible and comprehensive documentation.

Also, language and library debates could be tagged by subject and the posts could be rated by votes in order to organize and extract key points out of long threads.
December 06, 2012
On 12/06/2012 04:16 PM, deed wrote:
> On Thursday, 6 December 2012 at 20:37:03 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 12/7/2012 5:01 AM, deed wrote:
>>> If all posts at D Learn could have been tagged by subject and easily
>>> looked up in a structured subject tree, as in the language reference, I
>>> belive it could complement the documentation in a useful manner.
>>
>> There is immense value in these ng postings, but absent a human
>> curator for it, the best that can be done is use google to search them.
>
> Someone would have to set up the subject structure under D.Learn. Then a
> possibly required input field (thinking web interface) could specify the
> subject the question belongs to. A voting system would then sort the
> responses after relevance and usefulness. It would help building useful,
> easy accessible and comprehensive documentation.
>
> Also, language and library debates could be tagged by subject and the
> posts could be rated by votes in order to organize and extract key
> points out of long threads.

....So basically Stack Exchange.

Why not simply point people to stackoverflow tag [d]?

The infrastructure is already in place for pretty much exactly what you are talking about, and several of the people here have accounts there.
December 06, 2012
>> Someone would have to set up the subject structure under D.Learn. Then a
>> possibly required input field (thinking web interface) could specify the
>> subject the question belongs to. A voting system would then sort the
>> responses after relevance and usefulness. It would help building useful,
>> easy accessible and comprehensive documentation.
>>
>> Also, language and library debates could be tagged by subject and the
>> posts could be rated by votes in order to organize and extract key
>> points out of long threads.
>
> ....So basically Stack Exchange.
>
> Why not simply point people to stackoverflow tag [d]?

Since this is the D site and lots of useful information is exchanged here and expected to be found here.

> The infrastructure is already in place for pretty much exactly what you are talking about, and several of the people here have accounts there.

December 06, 2012
On 12/06/2012 04:43 PM, deed wrote:
>>> Someone would have to set up the subject structure under D.Learn. Then a
>>> possibly required input field (thinking web interface) could specify the
>>> subject the question belongs to. A voting system would then sort the
>>> responses after relevance and usefulness. It would help building useful,
>>> easy accessible and comprehensive documentation.
>>>
>>> Also, language and library debates could be tagged by subject and the
>>> posts could be rated by votes in order to organize and extract key
>>> points out of long threads.
>>
>> ....So basically Stack Exchange.
>>
>> Why not simply point people to stackoverflow tag [d]?
>
> Since this is the D site and lots of useful information is exchanged
> here and expected to be found here.

This is the internet.  There is no functional difference between having forums.dlang.org redirect to Stack Exchange. (aside from legality, of course.) "Here" and "there" are directional concepts that do not translate well.

If there is a link on dlang.org that points to stackexchange.com/d (or whatever format they use) then "there" is suddenly "here".

This feels very NIH-ish.
>
>> The infrastructure is already in place for pretty much exactly what
>> you are talking about, and several of the people here have accounts
>> there.
>
December 06, 2012
On Thursday, 6 December 2012 at 22:59:04 UTC, 1100110 wrote:
> On 12/06/2012 04:43 PM, deed wrote:
>>>> Someone would have to set up the subject structure under D.Learn. Then a
>>>> possibly required input field (thinking web interface) could specify the
>>>> subject the question belongs to. A voting system would then sort the
>>>> responses after relevance and usefulness. It would help building useful,
>>>> easy accessible and comprehensive documentation.
>>>>
>>>> Also, language and library debates could be tagged by subject and the
>>>> posts could be rated by votes in order to organize and extract key
>>>> points out of long threads.
>>>
>>> ....So basically Stack Exchange.
>>>
>>> Why not simply point people to stackoverflow tag [d]?
>>
>> Since this is the D site and lots of useful information is exchanged
>> here and expected to be found here.
>
> This is the internet.  There is no functional difference between having forums.dlang.org redirect to Stack Exchange. (aside from legality, of course.) "Here" and "there" are directional concepts that do not translate well.
>
> If there is a link on dlang.org that points to stackexchange.com/d (or whatever format they use) then "there" is suddenly "here".
>
> This feels very NIH-ish.
>>
>>> The infrastructure is already in place for pretty much exactly what
>>> you are talking about, and several of the people here have accounts
>>> there.

My point is not how this is implemented, just that it could be useful to enable sorting of the posts, mainly with D.Learn in mind.
December 07, 2012
On Wednesday, 5 December 2012 at 18:28:04 UTC, js.mdnq wrote:
> I have a lot of trouble with the forum. Many times a msg will not post as it sits in a cycle waiting for the nntp server to get the message or for it to be announced.
>
> IMO there are much better forum software out there that would make it easier to communicate about D than the current method.
>
> http://www.mybb.com/ is free, pretty good, and relatively easy to setup.
>
> The ability to edit a post makes life much easier too!

Well my anecdotal story comes as one who never knew of NNTP until D.

I've found it really nice. I've not found a perfect client and had issue which I do not know if where blame would lie (like your cycle waiting for announcement).

This was some time ago now and I don't really participate in sites with BBs anymore. I find reddit to be the best visual threading interface, but it is read once (I don't have gold to show unread).

Anyway your listed great improvements over NNTP aren't very convincing. Of course we can replicate the great stuff of NNTP and provide standard BB features, but it isn't trivial work.

Some history, there is a D phpBB, it is rotting on and along with dsource.org. It is mainly for projects, but has some general D discussion boards.
December 07, 2012
On Thu, 06 Dec 2012 16:06:22 -0600
1100110 <0b1100110@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 12/06/2012 03:29 PM, Simen Kjaeraas wrote:
> > Formatting of text... If ever I meet the person who decided HTML in email was a good idea, I'll make sure he will stay away from computers until long after he's dead.
> 
> If *I* ever meet him I'll send him your way.

http://www.jwz.org/about.html

Check the "1995" entry on that page.

December 07, 2012
On Thursday, 6 December 2012 at 19:43:15 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Rob T" <rob@ucora.com> wrote:
>> Many ISP's have dropped usenet services completely,
>
> Doesn't matter since we use a dedicated server

If memory serves, I need an address to the dedicated server, and I need to know where in the hierarchy this newsgroups sits.

Maybe there are instructions buried away somewhere, but I didn't see them.

> Also: http://www.eternal-september.org/

I searched for "programming", "dlang" and a few other terms, but no luck finding this newsgroup.

At this point, I'm still stuck with the web interface.

--rt