On Sat, 25 Feb 2006, Jack Taylor wrote, seen on uk.railway:

Aidan Stanger wrote:

BTW there are newsreaders out there which easily let you find the
unquoted context - you don't have to use google.

Irrelevant, the majority of users (like it or loathe it) use Outlook
Express.

Irrelevant. Good netiquette has been developed to work with any
newsreader client which approaches compatibility with usenet
guidelines. I'm told that even OE can be coaxed into working as a
reasonably usenet-compatible client, and there are FAQs about how to
do that; indeed you seem to have achieved it yourself.

If you (the generic "you") follow good netiquette, then it shouldn't
matter (minor niggles excepted), to anyone except yourself, *which*
news client you use.

If you're *developing* news client software, on the other hand, or
even if you're trying to decide which news client to use, you can
review its adequacy against the criteria in the good-netkeeping FAQ,
e.g http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/soft...tkeeping-seal/

Understandably, there are an increasing number of inexperienced
users who are now drawn to Google Groups but who are unaware of its
deficiencies.

GG purports to its users (and I suspect that many of its users believe
it) to be a web-based forum system that has been invented and is
supplied by Google; the fact that they are merely gatewaying to a
long-standing worldwide Usenet system is conveniently hidden. As
such, it's no surprise that GG's users, by and large, seem to imagine
that they can set their own rules of behaviour, ignoring the good
practice which has been developed over many years. (rfc1036 and its
several never-finished descendants, nowadays represented by the USEFOR
draft).

It's useful from time to time to alert them to the problems that
they are causing for others and to advise them where they are not
following the conventions of the group and to try and encourage them
to do so.

You're entitled to your opinions of course, but I reckon that's a
waste of time and effort, as well as creating significant quantities
of low-value noise on the groups.

If GG cared about the behaviour of its users, it would be offering
them better advice about how to participate (and about what it is that
they are participating in), and giving them better software for doing
it. Until they do, my default assumption is to ignore their users -
with a few honourable exceptions.

A pity, since Google's search engines are a valuable resource; but
their entry into usenet has been the worst thing to happen to usenet
for a long time - "Eternal September" with knobs on.

[f'ups narrowed. I suppose I really should have redirected further
discussion into the news.* hierarchy...]

best regards