Jesus christ What's going on?

Post by Vanya
There is a work around Google's awful new usenet interface, at least
temporarily. Use Google.fr or Google.ru or probably any other foreign
Google domain. They still have the old interface up. Of course the
interface will mostly not be in Englsih.

Good point. And the language of the fields can be changed to English by
changing the last letters of the URL to "en", then bookmarking it.

I played for this a while and found it confusing as to what could do
what, but it looks like this gives me the old interface, with the
results in the old format (like threads in a chain diagram):

Old:
Google Groups -- Advanced Group Search
http://www.google.com/advanced_group_search?hl=en

and this gives me the new page, with new formats:

New:
Google Groups BETA -- Advanced Search
http://groups-beta.google.com/advanced_search

One striking difference is the new Beta form can't be restricted by
date, which was useful in searching for the earliest use of recent
words.

--
Best -- Donna Richoux

Peter Moylan

2004-12-03 03:32:46 UTC

For searching - which is all I ever use Google Groups for - the
following still works:

http://www.exit109.com/%7Ejeremy/news/deja.html

It's just the Google search with the advertising and graphics stripped
off, which speeds things up a bit. Originally designed as an
interface to DejaNews, but he kept it working after Google bought
the DejaNews database.

--
Peter Moylan peter at ee dot newcastle dot edu dot au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software)

Don Aitken

2004-12-03 04:57:44 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan

Or google.co.uk, which is in English. Although they seem to have taken
the new invention down for the moment.

Post by Peter Moylan
For searching - which is all I ever use Google Groups for - the
http://www.exit109.com/%7Ejeremy/news/deja.html
It's just the Google search with the advertising and graphics stripped
off, which speeds things up a bit. Originally designed as an
interface to DejaNews, but he kept it working after Google bought
the DejaNews database.

That's worth knowing about; thanks.

--
Don Aitken

Mail to the addresses given in the headers is no longer being
read. To mail me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com".

Pieter Z.

2004-12-03 14:11:52 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan
For searching - which is all I ever use Google Groups for - the
http://www.exit109.com/%7Ejeremy/news/deja.html

You might want to bookmark http://www.usenet4all.com/ as well, there are
similar others. It lacks some functionality, on the upside you don't
need to register to post there and there's hardly any lag for posts to
show up there.

Cheers,

P.

mensanator

2004-12-04 02:17:29 UTC

Post by Pieter Z.

Post by Peter Moylan
For searching - which is all I ever use Google Groups for - the
http://www.exit109.com/%7Ejeremy/news/deja.html

You might want to bookmark http://www.usenet4all.com/ as well, there are
similar others. It lacks some functionality, on the upside you don't
need to register to post there

Yes, you do. Otherwise you get "ACCESS DENIED".

Post by Pieter Z.
and there's hardly any lag for posts to
show up there.
Cheers,
P.

Pieter Z.

2004-12-05 12:28:56 UTC

Post by mensanator

Post by Pieter Z.
You might want to bookmark http://www.usenet4all.com/ as well, there
are similar others. It lacks some functionality, on the upside you
don't need to register to post there

Yes, you do. Otherwise you get "ACCESS DENIED".

Aww you're right. Oh well mostly of use for reading older posts anyway.

Cheers, P.

cycjec

2004-12-06 17:28:16 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan
For searching - which is all I ever use Google Groups for - the
http://www.exit109.com/%7Ejeremy/news/deja.html

Haven't tried that in years! I remember that! I'll give it a try.

Evan Kirshenbaum

2004-12-06 22:52:25 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by Vanya
There is a work around Google's awful new usenet interface, at least
temporarily. Use Google.fr or Google.ru or probably any other
foreign Google domain. They still have the old interface up. Of
course the interface will mostly not be in Englsih.

For searching - which is all I ever use Google Groups for - the
http://www.exit109.com/%7Ejeremy/news/deja.html
It's just the Google search with the advertising and graphics
stripped off, which speeds things up a bit. Originally designed as
an interface to DejaNews, but he kept it working after Google bought
the DejaNews database.

Unfortunately, I just tried it and got the results back in Beta
format.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |I value writers such as Fiske.
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |They serve as valuable object
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |lessons by showing that the most
|punctilious compliance with the
***@hpl.hp.com |rules of usage has so little to do
(650)857-7572 |with either writing or thinking
|well.
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | --Richard Hershberger

Wood Avens

2004-12-06 23:29:43 UTC

On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 14:52:25 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum

Post by Evan Kirshenbaum
Unfortunately, I just tried it and got the results back in Beta
format.

From another newsgroup:

"If you browse to "http://groups.google.com/" you get the old one; if
you go to www and then select the group option you get the new one."

(Haven't tried.)

--
Katy Jennison

spamtrap: remove the first two letters after the @

Skitt

2004-12-06 23:52:18 UTC

Post by Evan Kirshenbaum
Unfortunately, I just tried it and got the results back in Beta
format.

"If you browse to "http://groups.google.com/" you get the old one; if
you go to www and then select the group option you get the new one."
(Haven't tried.)

I just now tried -- not true.

--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

Rolleston

2004-12-06 23:57:58 UTC

Post by Evan Kirshenbaum
Unfortunately, I just tried it and got the results back in Beta
format.

"If you browse to "http://groups.google.com/" you get the old one; if
you go to www and then select the group option you get the new one."
(Haven't tried.)

I just now tried -- not true.

Curious. It works for me now.

R.

Phil Carmody

2004-12-07 02:11:34 UTC

Rolleston <***@onetel.net.uk> writes:
^^^^

Post by Evan Kirshenbaum
Unfortunately, I just tried it and got the results back in Beta
format.

"If you browse to "http://groups.google.com/" you get the old one; if
you go to www and then select the group option you get the new one."
(Haven't tried.)

I just now tried -- not true.

Curious. It works for me now.

Are you sure you're not getting google.co.uk doing the serving?

Phil

--
I used to have an interest in writing viral code and lost interest
quickly when Win95 came out. Hell how could any of us in the scene
write a more invasive program than Win95. It made us all obsolete.
-- Screaming Radish [NuKE] on alt.comp.virus.source.code

Rolleston

2004-12-07 02:19:55 UTC

Post by Phil Carmody
^^^^

Post by Evan Kirshenbaum
Unfortunately, I just tried it and got the results back in Beta
format.

"If you browse to "http://groups.google.com/" you get the old one; if
you go to www and then select the group option you get the new one."
(Haven't tried.)

I just now tried -- not true.

Curious. It works for me now.

Are you sure you're not getting google.co.uk doing the serving?

There's not a hint of the "google.co.uk" address anywhere.

R.

Theodore Heise

2004-12-07 02:22:04 UTC

["Followup-To:" header set to alt.usage.english.]
On 3 Dec 2004 03:32:46 GMT,

Post by Peter Moylan

For searching - which is all I ever use Google Groups for - the
http://www.exit109.com/%7Ejeremy/news/deja.html

I still get there with just:

http://www.deja.com

--
Theodore (Ted) Heise <***@heise.nu> Bloomington, IN, USA

Eric Behr

2004-12-07 06:52:59 UTC

Post by Theodore Heise
["Followup-To:" header set to alt.usage.english.]
On 3 Dec 2004 03:32:46 GMT,

Post by Peter Moylan
[...]
For searching - which is all I ever use Google Groups for - the
http://www.exit109.com/%7Ejeremy/news/deja.html

http://www.deja.com

No, www.deja.com redirects to groups.google.com at my end.

Why are we looking for tricks to get to what worked for us a day
ago? This is an utterly irresponsible move by Google. All Usenet
authors and readers should strongly object to their messing with
the content that was in a sense entrusted to them.

The big lesson here: never assume that a corporation (Netscape,
Qualcomm, Google, countless others) will forever be a benevolent
steward of something that was placed in their care. My exchanges
with Google can be summarized as "screw you, we are going ahead".
Is there an open source parallel of Google? I doubt that, and now
it may be too late to create one.

For those who "love the new interface": I don't care how fast are
the posts showing up, for posting and reading I use a newsreader.
But Google is simply invaluable as an archive, search tool, etc.
All that depends on the interface.

The new interface doesn't let me see the postings verbatim. It
cuts out things I want to see, and adds stuff to them that I don't
care to see. It presents them in proportional font, which ruins
the scores of posts which contain ASCII art or carefully aligned
math formulas (Usenet has always been and should be ASCII only for
maximum compatibility). The layout of the search results is awful,
wasting large amounts of screen space. The default view of a thread
(as a list in a frame on the left) is gone.

Setting all that aside, the big one for me is that right now all
functionality seems to require JavaScript to be turned on. I am
one of those masochists who keep it off normally. And guess what?
I don't need to turn it on more than once or twice a day, about 1
in 100 sites visited, to get all the content I need. The reason I
keep it turned off is that pretty much all the virus/spam/phishng/
/cross-site-scripting/spyware/intrusion problems rely on scripting
being turned on. And I preach this to all the users who still might
be listening to me, the dinosaur.

But if a major player like Google decides to require JavaScript,
then forget my preaching. Nobody will want to go through 3 or 4
extra steps 20 times a day just to see the results of their Google
search. I hope the cybersecurity folks at the DHS think about it
a bit, and then strongly encourage Google to change their ways. We
need less "active content" reliance, not more, to be a smaller
computer security joke than we are now.

Try doing a Usenet groups search and then click on the "Web" link
to repeat the search on Web pages. Without scripting, you can't
do that now. My email about that brought a reply that "scripting
is used to populate your search fields and we don't have an
alternative". Well, some Einstein figured out how to do that in
the Google-alpha, and it all worked perfectly well via the URL
query. Now it is impossible because some clueless script-crazed
high school dropout born 10 years after Usenet got going landed a
big contract to redesign Google, and all the Google pointy haired
bosses are even less clued-in than him.

Content is preserved only if its presentation is accessible.
Google is _the_ Library of Usenet. Librarians all over the world
struggle to restore documents to their original form, and to make
them available to the public. What Google librarians have done is
akin to painting some words of the Declaration of Independence
Day-Glo Pink, blacking out some others, and then saying that you
need an ID card to see the rest of it. Shame!!!

Please don't roll over and die. For the sake of all who posted
in the past 25 years, let Google know that we need to preserve
it in an unadulterated form for us and for the future. I haven't
heard any complaints about Google-alpha, have you? It worked just
fine for everyone I know. Do we need Google-beta? Thank you for
reading.

--
Eric Behr | NIU Mathematical Sciences | (815) 753 6727
***@math.niu.edu | http://www.math.niu.edu/~behr/ | fax: 753 1112

fishfry

2004-12-07 08:01:59 UTC

Post by Theodore Heise
["Followup-To:" header set to alt.usage.english.]
On 3 Dec 2004 03:32:46 GMT,

Post by Peter Moylan
[...]
For searching - which is all I ever use Google Groups for - the
http://www.exit109.com/%7Ejeremy/news/deja.html

http://www.deja.com

No, www.deja.com redirects to groups.google.com at my end.
Why All Usenet
authors and readers should strongly object

Bad logic. Most Usenet readers don't use Google. Many use standalone
newsreader software.

Don Aitken

2004-12-07 09:03:55 UTC

On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 08:01:59 GMT, fishfry

Post by fishfry

Post by Theodore Heise
["Followup-To:" header set to alt.usage.english.]
On 3 Dec 2004 03:32:46 GMT,

Post by Peter Moylan
[...]
For searching - which is all I ever use Google Groups for - the
http://www.exit109.com/%7Ejeremy/news/deja.html

http://www.deja.com

No, www.deja.com redirects to groups.google.com at my end.
Why All Usenet
authors and readers should strongly object

Bad logic. Most Usenet readers don't use Google. Many use standalone
newsreader software.

It may not be "most", but Google has been the single biggest source of
posts to text usenet for a couple of years now. Many of its users
think they are really "Google groups", and don't realise they are
available any other way. In any case, as Eric pointed out, even for
those sensible people who don't use it to post, it's the only archive
we've got.

Another of the delights of Google Beta, incidentally, is that you can
now post a reply to a message of any age. news.newsuers.questions has
had a rash of replies to posts seven or eight years old, and is
talking about hand-moderating all posts from Google.

At some times, although it keeps changing, the old interface is still
available via aliases such as http://google.co.uk and http://google.fr

--
Don Aitken

Mail to the addresses given in the headers is no longer being
read. To mail me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com".

Dave Rusin

2004-12-07 16:28:35 UTC

Post by Don Aitken
It may not be "most", but Google has been the single biggest source of
posts to text usenet for a couple of years now. Many of its users
think they are really "Google groups", and don't realise they are
available any other way. In any case, as Eric pointed out, even for
those sensible people who don't use it to post, it's the only archive
we've got.

Well, no; there are other archives, and anyone who wishes can start
an archive of his/her own. For example, all the math newsgroups have
been archived for quite some time at the Math Forum...

Post by Don Aitken
Another of the delights of Google Beta, incidentally, is that you can
now post a reply to a message of any age. news.newsuers.questions has
had a rash of replies to posts seven or eight years old

...which is just what the Math Forum has made possible for a long time.
The funny thing is, MF's quoting mechanism _begins_ its quote with a
line like,
On April 1, 1994, James Harris wrote ...
and people seem not to notice. (They just quote the whole old message
and add "me too!".) If Google is now doing this too, we're going to
see many more conversations among people from different decades.

Once again, imminent death of the net is predicted. Film at 11.

dave

Eric Behr

2004-12-07 17:47:49 UTC

Post by Dave Rusin

[...] In any case, as Eric pointed out, even for
those sensible people who don't use it to post, it's the only archive
we've got.

Well, no; there are other archives, and anyone who wishes can start
an archive of his/her own. For example, all the math newsgroups have
been archived for quite some time at the Math Forum...

I think it's fair to say that it's the only comprehensive archive
of _most_ Usenet material. It happened many times that a search
gave me an answer I needed in a rather unexpected place. So even
when I have a question about X, and there exists some specialized
archive of Usenet hierarchy that has to do with X, it won't be as
useful as Google. Plus Google is well established and hopefully
won't shut down overnight. I don't have the same confidence about
most of the other repositories out there.

As far as starting your own, sure - but it won't cover 1980(+/-)
to 2004. I doubt Google will happily provide you with a copy of
what they already have. I still remember the fears that Deja will
disappear, taking their archive into a black hole (thankfully, it
worked out, but it wasn't a sure thing).

--
Eric Behr | NIU Mathematical Sciences | (815) 753 6727
***@math.niu.edu | http://www.math.niu.edu/~behr/ | fax: 753 1112

Phil Carmody

2004-12-07 10:13:01 UTC

Post by fishfry

Post by Eric Behr
Why All Usenet
authors and readers should strongly object

Bad logic. Most Usenet readers don't use Google.

All usenet readers who don't actively use X-No-Archive _do_ use
google whether they know it or not, and whether they chose to or
not.

Phil

--
God was my co-pilot but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.

Phil Carmody

2004-12-07 10:02:54 UTC

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

***@asdf.ca
***@asdf.ca
***@asdf.ca
***@asdf.ca
***@asdf.ca
***@asdf.ca
***@asdf.ca

Hehheheheh, I wonder what that'll look like...

Ditto on J/S, for reference.

Phil

Jukka Aho

2004-12-07 11:50:25 UTC

Post by Eric Behr
Why are we looking for tricks to get to what worked for us a day
ago? This is an utterly irresponsible move by Google. All Usenet
authors and readers should strongly object to their messing with
the content that was in a sense entrusted to them.

[snip]

All valid points, and I wholeheartedly agree with you.

Post by Eric Behr
The new interface doesn't let me see the postings verbatim.

This is my biggest gripe. The old plain text view of the message
with all the original headers visible is gone; the new Google
Groups only has a mock-up imitation of that, which not only
deliberately messes up e-mail addresses (which is an exercise
in futility since spammers get the addresses from regular NNTP
servers, anyway) but also includes the Google logo and search bar
at the top, and other unnecessary HTML fluff around the message.

Post by Eric Behr
[Google's new interface] presents [messages] in proportional
font, which ruins the scores of posts which contain ASCII art
or carefully aligned math formulas (Usenet has always been and
should be ASCII only for maximum compatibility).

By "ASCII only" you surely must mean something akin to "non-HTML"
and "plain text only, without any special, distracting mark-up
tags which would mess up the display on any newsreader that does
not directly support them" rather than actually limiting the usable
character repertoire to ASCII only?

Post by Eric Behr
The layout of the search results is awful, wasting large amounts
of screen space.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why Google should keep track
of the newsgroups I have visited while _searching for messages_ and
_clicking the (mostly random) results_. (As of now, they seem to do
exactly that, and display this "Recently visited" groups history in
the very sidebar that wastes the space.)

Post by Eric Behr
What Google librarians have done is akin to painting some words
of the Declaration of Independence Day-Glo Pink, blacking out
some others, and then saying that you need an ID card to see the
rest of it. Shame!!!

Not only that but they also seem to want to change the way how
messages are indexed and referred to. In the old Google Groups
system, individual messages are referred to by their message-id's
in the URLs.

In other words, if you want to make a direct link to a message
archived by Google, it can be constructed as follows:

<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=message-id>

Alternatively, if you want to make the thread and context visible,
you can construct the URL in this way:

<http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=message-id>

This is a sensible system for linking to archived Usenet articles.
As everything is based on the message-id, and as you can extract
the message-id directly from the URL, you are still able to find
the same message from any _other_ Usenet archive (if any) in case
Google ever ceases to exist. (After all, that's what message-id's
are designed for: their very purpose is uniquely identifying any
Usenet article ever posted.)

The automatically generated, old Google Groups URLs are basically
of the variety shown above, even though they usually contain lots
of all kinds of unnecessary extra parameters. Once you strip down
the extraneous parameters, you get the simple format as above.

These kind of links still work in the new Google Groups system
(ah well, they originally _didn't_, but people complained and
they added it in.) However, the new Google Groups system does
not _generate_ those kind of URLs any longer. Instead, the
archive now employs some other kind of indexing system: one
which is not based on message-ids at all. The new direct
linking method seems to be based on some sort of running
number, internal to Google's database.

Of course you can still view the message source, look up the
message-id and construct a "selm" or "threadm" type manually,
but most people do not know how to do this, and do not _bother_
doing it.

What this means in practice is that most of the direct Google
Groups links - created from now on - do not any longer reveal
the one and only thing that uniquely identifies an Usenet
article across various servers (and makes it possible to
search the same message from elewhere) - the message-id. Instead,
they will have some arbitrary number that is only meaningful
within the context of Google's own database.

--
znark

Eric Behr

2004-12-07 17:54:21 UTC

Yes, of course, I used "ASCII" as a mental contraction meaning
more or less exactly what you describe. It wasn't the best choice
of terminology.

By the way, I'm suddenly seeing posts with uneven line lengths and
strange line breaks. I may be wrong, but I suspect this may be the
result of proportional fonts used for posting also (I haven't used
Google to post, so I don't really know whether that part has been
messed up also).

--
Eric Behr | NIU Mathematical Sciences | (815) 753 6727
***@math.niu.edu | http://www.math.niu.edu/~behr/ | fax: 753 1112

Jukka Aho

2004-12-07 20:29:39 UTC

Post by Eric Behr
By the way, I'm suddenly seeing posts with uneven line lengths and
strange line breaks. I may be wrong, but I suspect this may be the
result of proportional fonts used for posting also (I haven't used
Google to post, so I don't really know whether that part has been
messed up also).

I noticed the strange line breaks, too. It seems there is something
peculiar in the way how messages are displayed and formatted in the
normal thread view.

If I resize the browser window in the horizontal direction, I will get a
variable-width (!) right margin which appears to be knocking off the
last few words on the lines:

<http://www.saunalahti.fi/znark/gg/>

I can still view messages as the author intended - with their original
line breaks intact and without switching to "Show original" mode - but
only if I make the window wide enough, giving it a ridiculously wide
blank right margin (gg_wordrap_03.gif).

Both Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer behave this way. In case
you'd like to try it out yourself, the thread I was viewing in those
screenshots was
<http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/browse_thread/thread/bd0b95554c39ca66>.

--
znark

Eric Behr

2004-12-07 21:39:18 UTC

Post by Jukka Aho
I noticed the strange line breaks, too. It seems there is something
peculiar in the way how messages are displayed and formatted in the
normal thread view.

Yes, that's what I meant. You're right, it seems to be some huge
padding on the right. My Safari shows the same phenomenon.

On the up side, at least from my POV, sci.math articles are now
displayed in monospaced font. I haven't found any other group in
which this change was made. Oh, well, maybe there is hope.

--
Eric Behr | NIU Mathematical Sciences | (815) 753 6727
***@math.niu.edu | http://www.math.niu.edu/~behr/ | fax: 753 1112

Phil Carmody

2004-12-08 04:39:44 UTC

Post by Eric Behr
On the up side, at least from my POV, sci.math articles are now
displayed in monospaced font. I haven't found any other group in
which this change was made. Oh, well, maybe there is hope.

It still appears that alt.ascii-art is a total abomination when
viewed through google-tinted goggles.

I see some sci,math quoted material in <pre> tags, but not all.
This means that deeply quoted stuff can look a bit like

stuff

Which is even worse than if they insisted on using just proportional fonts.

Phil

--
God was my co-pilot but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.

don groves

2004-12-08 05:02:09 UTC

That abbreviation would be sweet talking to someone named Ray:
"From my POV Ray, ...", but I suppose it's already been done.

--
dg (domain=ccwebster)

Jukka Aho

2004-12-08 05:37:57 UTC

Post by Phil Carmody
I see some sci,math quoted material in <pre> tags, but not all.

Lines which begin with the dollar sign seem to get this special <pre>
treatment as well. For instance,

<http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sfnet.keskustelu.kieli/msg/c86ce99df8052cc0>

(near the end of the message, the last line of the paragraph above the
last quoted block. The line originally belongs to the preceding
paragraph, but the new Google Groups Beta displays it as if it didn't.)

--
znark

Phil Carmody

2004-12-08 11:08:42 UTC

Post by Phil Carmody
This means that deeply quoted stuff can look a bit like

stuff

Which is even worse than if they insisted on using just proportional fonts.

Which they just served to me as:
<<<
This means that deeply quoted stuff can look a bit like<br><p><div ID=qhide_10674 style="display:block;" class=qt>> > > X wrote:<br>> > > stuff<br>
i.e. They aren't just replacing characters in email addresses, message
ids, and similar with dots, but they are also mucking about with
whitespace characters too.

Great way to make PGP signatures practically useless.

Talking of signatures - has anyone seen the state of Evan's? Aiaiaiaiai.

Phil

--
God was my co-pilot but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.

Skitt

2004-12-07 18:20:25 UTC

Post by Eric Behr
No, www.deja.com redirects to groups.google.com at my end.
Why are we looking for tricks to get to what worked for us a day
ago? This is an utterly irresponsible move by Google. All Usenet
authors and readers should strongly object to their messing with
the content that was in a sense entrusted to them.

No reason to panic and do something silly.

[...]

Post by Eric Behr
The new interface doesn't let me see the postings verbatim. It
cuts out things I want to see, and adds stuff to them that I don't
care to see. It presents them in proportional font, which ruins
the scores of posts which contain ASCII art or carefully aligned
math formulas (Usenet has always been and should be ASCII only for
maximum compatibility). The layout of the search results is awful,
wasting large amounts of screen space. The default view of a thread
(as a list in a frame on the left) is gone.

The original format is still accessible by clicking "show options" in the
top line, and then "show original". The original appears just as it was
originally typed. The only thing that is partially deleted is the e-mail
address wherever it is mentioned.

The thread (on the left) can be seen by clicking "view as tree" at the top
of the message listings.

In short -- nothing has been lost, just the access procedure has been
modified.

<JavaScript discussion deleted, as I'm not concerned about JS effect on
anything.>

--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

Evan Kirshenbaum

2004-12-07 19:03:23 UTC

Post by Skitt
The original format is still accessible by clicking "show options" in
the top line, and then "show original". The original appears just as
it was originally typed. The only thing that is partially deleted is
the e-mail address wherever it is mentioned.

And they're really thorough about that. Looking at old postings of
mine, one of my email addresses appears to have been "***@csli.UUCP".
I'm really not worried about getting spam at that address anymore.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |It is one thing to be mistaken; it is
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |quite another to be willfully
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |ignorant
| Cecil Adams
***@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

Jukka Aho

2004-12-07 19:26:32 UTC

Post by Evan Kirshenbaum
And they're really thorough about that. Looking at old postings of
I'm really not worried about getting spam at that address anymore.

Ironically, the new Google Groups Beta also shortens the abuse
addresses,
("X-Complaints-To: ***@isp.example") so you cannot really see them
properly in case you would like to complain about spammers and such.

--
znark

Skitt

2004-12-07 20:03:53 UTC

Post by Evan Kirshenbaum
And they're really thorough about that. Looking at old postings of
mine, one of my email addresses appears to have been
address anymore.

Ironically, the new Google Groups Beta also shortens the abuse
addresses,
properly in case you would like to complain about spammers and such.

True, but it works when you click on the "Report Abuse" option.

Incidentally, now that I have previously been there and asked for it, the
tree shows on the left for me automagically.

I think that some here are complaining about a lot of non-problems. Cockpit
problems, mostly.

--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

Jukka Aho

2004-12-07 23:59:30 UTC

Post by Skitt
I think that some here are complaining about a lot of non-problems.

My opinion is that most of the problems and annoyances are real, and
they did not exist in the previous version of Google Groups.

--
znark

Skitt

2004-12-08 01:01:54 UTC

Post by Skitt
I think that some here are complaining about a lot of non-problems.

My opinion is that most of the problems and annoyances are real, and
they did not exist in the previous version of Google Groups.

Each to his own. I don't use Google all that often; I search their archives
now and then. In doing that, even with the new sustem, I haven't seen any
problem that I can't handle with ease. That may not be the case for
everybody, of course.

--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

Michael Hamm

2004-12-08 18:40:53 UTC

The only thing that is partially deleted is the e-mail address
wherever it is mentioned.

And they're really thorough about that. Looking at old postings of
I'm really not worried about getting spam at that address anymore.

Do those still work?

Michael Hamm
AM, Math, Wash. U. St. Louis
***@math.wustl.edu Standard disclaimers:
http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/ ... legal.html

Evan Kirshenbaum

2004-12-08 20:02:37 UTC

The only thing that is partially deleted is the e-mail address
wherever it is mentioned.

And they're really thorough about that. Looking at old postings of
I'm really not worried about getting spam at that address anymore.

Do those still work?

I don't know of anything that can handle .UUCP addresses anymore.
Even if there were still maps around. I'd be very surprised if
anybody was actually still *running* UUCP.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |There are two types of people -
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |those who are one of the two types
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |of people, and those who are not.
| Leigh Blue Caldwell
***@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

Michael Hamm

2004-12-09 14:13:27 UTC

Looking at old postings of mine, one of my email addresses appears

Do those still work?

I don't know of anything that can handle .UUCP addresses anymore.
Even if there were still maps around. I'd be very surprised if
anybody was actually still *running* UUCP.

What about other sorts of addresses I've seen (but never in use)? (I'm
not sure what sort I mean, as my memory fails me on this point, but I
think they looked something like ***@site.bitnet and like
***@site!bangpath.) Do those work?

Michael Hamm
AM, Math, Wash. U. St. Louis
***@math.wustl.edu Standard disclaimers:
http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/ ... legal.html

Evan Kirshenbaum

2004-12-09 18:07:27 UTC

Looking at old postings of mine, one of my email addresses appears

Do those still work?

I don't know of anything that can handle .UUCP addresses anymore.
Even if there were still maps around. I'd be very surprised if
anybody was actually still *running* UUCP.

What about other sorts of addresses I've seen (but never in use)? (I'm
not sure what sort I mean, as my memory fails me on this point, but I

I doubt it. BITNET, JANET, ChaosNet, and the like were all separate
networks from the ARPAnet, but there were machines that acted as
gateways, so the approach was to know one gateway for each and ask
them to forward the messages. I don't think the networks themselves
exist these days, or if they do, I suspect that they're part of the
Internet.

The last one you gave looks like an Internet version of a UUCP
address. A full address was A!B!C!D!user, which meant "when you talk
to A on the phone, ask it to forward the message to B!C!D!user". When
D got the message, it delivered it to "user". Of course, if I were
sending you a message (or you were looking up my address in my finger
plan), I wouldn't know what machines you talked to, so I couldn't give
you the full address. Instead I would give something like
"...{X,C}!D!user", which meant "assuming you know how to get to X or
C, ask them to forward it to D!user". Looking at some of my old
messages, I variously used

...!{ucbvax|decvax}!decwrl!glacier!evan
...!ucbvax!csli.stanford.edu!evan

To make it work for an Internet mailer, you could write the latter as

"csli!evan"@ucbvax.berkeley.edu

or for mailers that had UUCP maps available, you could simply write

***@csli.UUCP

and count on them being able to find a route to someone who knew how
to talk to it.

My first archived message (10/85) actually gives my email address as

***@SU-CSLI

and

***@SU-CSLI.ARPA

Looking at the headers, I see that ucbvax identified itself as
"ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU", so the domain names were in use, but obviously
they hadn't completely caught on yet. It would still have been
assumed that everybody on the network had a hosts file that listed
every other computer on the net.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |There is something fascinating
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |about science. One gets such
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |wholesale returns of conjecture out
|of such a trifling investment of
***@hpl.hp.com |fact.
(650)857-7572 | Mark Twain

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

Michael Hamm

2004-12-09 20:59:01 UTC

A full address was A!B!C!D!user, which meant "when you talk to A on the
phone, ask it to forward the message to B!C!D!user". <snip> I wouldn't
know what machines you talked to, so I couldn't give you the full
address. Instead I would give something like "...{X,C}!D!user", which
meant "assuming you know how to get to X or C, ask them to forward it to
D!user". Looking at some of my old messages, I variously used
...!{ucbvax|decvax}!decwrl!glacier!evan
...!ucbvax!csli.stanford.edu!evan
To make it work for an Internet mailer, you could write the latter as

Could or can? That is, can I *still* use (for myself)
"math.wustl.edu!msh210"@just.about.any.machine.on.the.Internet.example.com?

(Going now to try it....)

Michael Hamm
AM, Math, Wash. U. St. Louis
***@math.wustl.edu Standard disclaimers:
http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/ ... legal.html

Michael Hamm

2004-12-09 21:06:24 UTC

Post by Evan Kirshenbaum
...!{ucbvax|decvax}!decwrl!glacier!evan
...!ucbvax!csli.stanford.edu!evan
To make it work for an Internet mailer, you could write the latter as

Could or can? That is, can I *still* use (for myself)
(Going now to try it....)

Yep! Here's my message (some headers and parts of headers removed); it

Post by Michael Hamm
Received: from ascc.artsci.wustl.edu (ascc.artsci.wustl.edu
[128.252.93.1]) by math.wustl.edu (8.12.10+Sun/8.12.9) with
Received: from artsci.wustl.edu (artsci.wustl.edu [128.252.93.1])
by ascc.artsci.wustl.edu (8.12.11/8.12.11) with
testing

Michael Hamm
AM, Math, Wash. U. St. Louis
***@math.wustl.edu Standard disclaimers:
http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/ ... legal.html

Michael Hamm

2004-12-09 21:10:18 UTC

Post by Evan Kirshenbaum
...!{ucbvax|decvax}!decwrl!glacier!evan
...!ucbvax!csli.stanford.edu!evan
To make it work for an Internet mailer, you could write the latter as

Could or can? That is, can I *still* use (for myself)
(Going now to try it....)

Yep!

Not so fast. A machine at my school let it go through (although I don't
know whether they would have had it come from elsewhere), but when I tried
math.wustl.edu!***@hotmail.com, Hotmail told me there's no such
mailbox.

Michael Hamm
AM, Math, Wash. U. St. Louis
***@math.wustl.edu Standard disclaimers:
http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/ ... legal.html

Evan Kirshenbaum

2004-12-09 23:50:34 UTC

Post by Evan Kirshenbaum
...!{ucbvax|decvax}!decwrl!glacier!evan
...!ucbvax!csli.stanford.edu!evan
To make it work for an Internet mailer, you could write the latter as

Could or can? That is, can I *still* use (for myself)
(Going now to try it....)

Yep!

Not so fast. A machine at my school let it go through (although I don't
know whether they would have had it come from elsewhere), but when I tried
mailbox.

I suspect that you're seeing vestigial behavior. A sufficiently old
unix box (or a clone of one) probably has rewrite rules in its
sendmail.cf file that do those translations. The syntax for that file
is cryptic enough that people tended to try not to modify it unless
something broke, so I wouldn't expect rules like that to be dropped
simply because nobody had used them in a decade or so.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The skinny models whose main job is
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |to display clothes aren't hired for
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |their sex appeal. They're hired
|for their resemblance to a
***@hpl.hp.com |coat-hanger.
(650)857-7572 | Peter Moylan

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

stanislav shalunov

2004-12-09 22:03:21 UTC

Post by Michael Hamm
Could or can? That is, can I *still* use (for myself)

Why would just.about.any.machine.on.the.Internet.example.com relay
mail for math.wustl.edu? The era of open relays was ended by spam.

--
Stanislav Shalunov http://www.internet2.edu/~shalunov/

This message is designed to be viewed in boustrophedon.

Michael Hamm

2004-12-09 22:35:14 UTC

Post by stanislav shalunov

Post by Michael Hamm
Could or can? That is, can I *still* use (for myself)

Why would just.about.any.machine.on.the.Internet.example.com relay
mail for math.wustl.edu? The era of open relays was ended by spam.

Hm? If one machine won't relay mail for another, then any two machines
whose users wish to mail one another must be connected directly. No? And
certainly that's not the case. Or at least, not as far as I understand.
But, otoh, I don't know these things (as may be obvious already).

Michael Hamm
AM, Math, Wash. U. St. Louis
***@math.wustl.edu Standard disclaimers:
http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/ ... legal.html

stanislav shalunov

2004-12-09 23:04:17 UTC

Post by Michael Hamm
If one machine won't relay mail for another, then any two machines
whose users wish to mail one another must be connected directly.

First, the fact that just any machine is not going to relay your mail
does not mean that your department mail server won't. Contrariwise,
it most likely will; it might even use your university's mail server
as a relay, but probably not these days.

Second, any pair of machines on the Internet [1] is free to establish
a direct TCP connection [2] and run SMTP over it. (The mail server
will try these things called ``mail exchangers'' for the remote domain
first.)

(The purpose of mail relays that accept users' mail and queue it for
delivery and of mail exchangers -- similar mail servers -- is mostly
to deal with sporadically connected machines. Conceptually, the mail
system could work without the intermediaries, but delivery would not
be as reliable and timely.)

[1] For the purposes of this statement, hosts behind network address
translators with many-to-one mapping are not on the Internet but
rather on separate internets.

[2] The Internet design does not preclude them from establishing the
connection. Local policy (enforced by firewalls) might.

--
Stanislav Shalunov http://www.internet2.edu/~shalunov/

This message is designed to be viewed at 600dpi.

stanislav shalunov

2004-12-09 20:26:27 UTC

I'd be very surprised if anybody was actually still *running* UUCP.

I know of a few hundred sites that run UUCP to transfer production
mail. Of course, most mail at these sites is to or from the Internet,
so, in addition to UUCP, [E]SMTP is used at some point in the
transmission of most (but not all) messages. Even those messages that
never leave the UUCP network are typically addressed the Internet way
(with just an email terminus, a commercial at sign, and a FQDN that
actually exists in the DNS), but pure UUCP bang paths work, too. Most
users never see bang paths nor know that they would work.

--
Stanislav Shalunov http://www.internet2.edu/~shalunov/

Religion is the opium of them asses. --Karlm Arx

Theodore Heise

2004-12-10 02:52:10 UTC

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 12:02:37 -0800,

The only thing that is partially deleted is the e-mail address
wherever it is mentioned.

And they're really thorough about that. Looking at old postings of
I'm really not worried about getting spam at that address anymore.

Do those still work?

I don't know of anything that can handle .UUCP addresses anymore.
Even if there were still maps around. I'd be very surprised if
anybody was actually still *running* UUCP.

My ISP back in Iowa had UUCP service relatively recently for some
old systems, but I think they shut it down in 2000 or 2001.

--
Theodore (Ted) Heise <***@heise.nu> Bloomington, IN, USA

Rolleston

2004-12-07 19:21:28 UTC

Post by Skitt
The only thing that is partially deleted is the e-mail
address wherever it is mentioned.

Suppose you want your email address to be shown?

R.

Skitt

2004-12-07 19:53:19 UTC

Post by Skitt
The only thing that is partially deleted is the e-mail
address wherever it is mentioned.

Suppose you want your email address to be shown?

Why would you specifically want that in an open forum? In any case, the
address will work when you try to reply to sender. It is just not visible.

--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

Rolleston

2004-12-07 21:58:33 UTC

Post by Skitt
The only thing that is partially deleted is the e-mail
address wherever it is mentioned.

Suppose you want your email address to be shown?

Why would you specifically want that in an open forum?

Ever heard of the expression "take it to email"?

Post by Skitt
In any case, the
address will work when you try to reply to sender.

Only if you reply using Google.

Suppose you are looking through the archives. You find a 6
month old message about an unsolved maths problem. You have
some suggestions to make to the message author, but you do
not have a Google account. What to do?

R.

Skitt

2004-12-07 22:34:27 UTC

Post by Skitt
The only thing that is partially deleted is the e-mail
address wherever it is mentioned.

Suppose you want your email address to be shown?

Why would you specifically want that in an open forum?

Ever heard of the expression "take it to email"?

Post by Skitt
In any case, the
address will work when you try to reply to sender.

Only if you reply using Google.
Suppose you are looking through the archives. You find a 6
month old message about an unsolved maths problem. You have
some suggestions to make to the message author, but you do
not have a Google account. What to do?

Get a Google account. Obviously.

Next question.

--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

Eric Behr

2004-12-07 19:19:21 UTC

Post by Eric Behr
maximum compatibility). The layout of the search results is awful,
wasting large amounts of screen space. The default view of a thread
(as a list in a frame on the left) is gone.

Hmm, let's see.
0. Do a search.
1. Click on a search result. Bottom of thread is shown.
2. Scroll to top, click view as tree. Thread index shown, but blank
pane on the right.
3. Click on an article in the tree index. Articles are shown as in 1.
4. Click on "show options". Nothing happens. Aha, JavaScript.
5. Enable JavaScript.
6. Click on "show options". Nothing happens. Aha, reload the page.
7. Click on show options.
8. Click on "Show original". Plain text version shown in a new
window.
9. Close the new window.
10. To view another article in thread, repeat 7. and 8.
11. Remember to disable JavaScript.
12. Delete cookies (as I periodically do). To be fair, it's good
that at least the tree view preference seems to be stored in
a cookie.
13. Go back to 0.

Post by Skitt
In short -- nothing has been lost, just the access procedure has been
modified.

Thank you for the comforting words.

--
Eric Behr | NIU Mathematical Sciences | (815) 753 6727
***@math.niu.edu | http://www.math.niu.edu/~behr/ | fax: 753 1112

Evan Kirshenbaum

2004-12-07 19:58:13 UTC

Post by Eric Behr
12. Delete cookies (as I periodically do). To be fair, it's good
that at least the tree view preference seems to be stored in
a cookie.

If you're using IE, I'd recommend picking up a copy of GuardWall (used
to be GuardIE), which is now free.

http://www.guardwall.com/index.asp

Among other things it can do (or be asked not to do) is delete all
cookies except those from whitelisted sites on demand or whenever you
close the last browser window. (You manage the whitebox by means of
"let this one stay" checkboxes.) It also displays a count of the
number of non-whitelisted cookies you currently have.

This allows you to let sites you trust preserve information across
sessions and also allows sites you don't trust to use cookies within
the current session, so sites tend to work but not be able to build up
data on you. (Unfortunately, it doesn't also have a blacklist, so you
can't say "don't even accept cookies from this site". When I get
around to writing my plug-in that will be one of the options.)
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |A little government and a little luck
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |are necessary in life, but only a
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |fool trusts either of them.
| P.J. O'Rourke
***@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

Eric Behr

2004-12-07 20:24:58 UTC

Post by Eric Behr
12. Delete cookies (as I periodically do). To be fair, it's good
that at least the tree view preference seems to be stored in
a cookie.

If you're using IE, I'd recommend picking up a copy of GuardWall (used
to be GuardIE), which is now free.

Sounds like a great tool, thanks for the tip. I use mainly Firefox
on Solaris (which does have similar or even greater flexibility in
accepting/denying cookies), and Safari on OS X (which, alas, does
not).

--
Eric Behr | NIU Mathematical Sciences | (815) 753 6727
***@math.niu.edu | http://www.math.niu.edu/~behr/ | fax: 753 1112

Theodore Heise

2004-12-07 22:22:05 UTC

On 7 Dec 2004 19:19:21 GMT,

Post by Skitt
The original format is still accessible by clicking "show options" in the
top line, and then "show original". The original appears just as it was
originally typed. The only thing that is partially deleted is the e-mail
address wherever it is mentioned.

The "show original" option is available in Lynx, so I don't think
JavaScript is required.

--
Theodore (Ted) Heise <***@heise.nu> Bloomington, IN, USA

Eric Behr

2004-12-08 07:17:06 UTC

Post by Theodore Heise
On 7 Dec 2004 19:19:21 GMT,

Post by Eric Behr
Hmm, let's see.
0. Do a search.
1. Click on a search result. Bottom of thread is shown.
2. Scroll to top, click view as tree. Thread index shown, but blank
pane on the right.
3. Click on an article in the tree index. Articles are shown as in 1.
4. Click on "show options". Nothing happens. Aha, JavaScript.
5. Enable JavaScript.

The "show original" option is available in Lynx, so I don't think
JavaScript is required.

Interesting. You're right, lynx shows it all even when you don't
click "show options". But despite that, no GUI browser I tried
showed anything other than the "Reply" link with JS turned off,
nor did it do anything when I clicked "show options". When JS is
turned on, Safari and Netscape do show you the "show original"
etc. after you click on "show options".

I looked at the source of that frame, and even in my browsers
it has "show original", "print", "report abuse", etc. None of these
show up in normal browser view, and it's way past my beauty sleep
time to try and unravel the incredibly messy HTML that Google now
pumps in our direction. This may be what Dik Winter is seeing and
not just a JavaScript question - some browsers interpret the new
Google HTML differently than others.

I also saw a tree view in the left frame that made absolutely
no sense. Here goes:
search for "dik winter google"
switch to "sort by date"
choose his message from this thread, with tree view
The tree is divided into many segments, with different levels of
nesting, and I'd give my next cigar to whoever explains it to me
how it can be so discontinous.

Why the heck don't they put the old version back online? This is
all a huge cock-up that won't earn them much good will.

--
Eric Behr | NIU Mathematical Sciences | (815) 753 6727
***@math.niu.edu | http://www.math.niu.edu/~behr/ | fax: 753 1112

Jesse F. Hughes

2004-12-08 09:45:24 UTC

Post by Eric Behr
I looked at the source of that frame, and even in my browsers
it has "show original", "print", "report abuse", etc.

The "report abuse" button has me wondering. What the hell is it
supposed to do? Google provides an archive. Will they start removing
posts from their Usenet archive on the basis of abuse complaints?

Can James S. Harris get Google to remove posts that he finds abusive?

It seems to me that Google's beta is purposely blurring the
distinction between Usenet and Google. I think that adding "report
abuse" buttons furthers this aim. I am very dissatisfied with the new
changes.

--
"The papers are currently at journals. [When published,] make no
mistake, there will be no place on this planet where you can hide.
Remember, I'm not talking about something vague here. I'm talking
about publication in journals." James S. Harris. Wow. Journals.

Theodore Heise

2004-12-09 02:37:03 UTC

["Followup-To:" header set to alt.usage.english.]
On 8 Dec 2004 07:17:06 GMT,

Post by Theodore Heise
The "show original" option is available in Lynx, so I don't think
JavaScript is required.

Maybe you could set your browser to identify itself as Lynx? ;)

--
Theodore (Ted) Heise <***@heise.nu> Bloomington, IN, USA

Dik T. Winter

2004-12-08 02:41:54 UTC

In article <***@individual.net> "Skitt" <***@comcast.net> writes:
...

Post by Skitt
The original format is still accessible by clicking "show options" in the
top line, and then "show original". The original appears just as it was
originally typed. The only thing that is partially deleted is the e-mail
address wherever it is mentioned.

When I do show options nothing happens (and yes, I have set JavaScript as
available).

Post by Skitt
The thread (on the left) can be seen by clicking "view as tree" at the top
of the message listings.

When I do that I see the tree two times, and no messages at all.

Post by Skitt
In short -- nothing has been lost, just the access procedure has been
modified.

Something has been lost. As far as I see it is *not* possible to see
*all* messages that contain a particular text. You get only the threads
that contain the text.

--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

Skitt

2004-12-08 02:58:01 UTC

"Skitt" writes: ...

Post by Skitt
The original format is still accessible by clicking "show options"
in the top line, and then "show original". The original appears
just as it was originally typed. The only thing that is partially
deleted is the e-mail address wherever it is mentioned.

When I do show options nothing happens (and yes, I have set
JavaScript as available).

Post by Skitt
The thread (on the left) can be seen by clicking "view as tree" at
the top of the message listings.

When I do that I see the tree two times, and no messages at all.

Post by Skitt
In short -- nothing has been lost, just the access procedure has been
modified.

Something has been lost. As far as I see it is *not* possible to see
*all* messages that contain a particular text. You get only the
threads that contain the text.

You seen to have problems that are peculiar to you and your software. I
have none of the problems you mention. I wish I could help, but
unfortunately, I can't.

--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

Richard Maurer

2004-12-08 03:29:16 UTC

Skitt wrote:
The original format is still accessible by clicking
"show options" in the top line, and then "show original".
The original appears just as it was originally typed.
The only thing that is partially deleted is the e-mail
address wherever it is mentioned.

Dik T. Winter responded:
When I do show options nothing happens (and yes,
I have set JavaScript as available).

Skitt (continuing):
The thread (on the left) can be seen by clicking "view as tree"
at the top of the message listings.

Dik T. Winter responded:
When I do that I see the tree two times, and no messages at all.

I saw the same two flaws before. However, can't see them now
as the 'temporary fix' seems to have been to take away the tree
and 'show options'. The new trouble is that the main text
and the sponsored links text overwrite each other.
Perhaps it works only with the newest browsers.

-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Dylan Sung

2004-12-08 23:35:12 UTC

Sorry, just piggybacking onto DTW's message. I noticed today that messages
written by people who usually write their messages via google groups to
sci.lang etc, are not showing up on my server. Is anyone experiencing the
same problem?

The reverse isn't found though, as my messages have been appearing in
google.

Dyl.

Jesse F. Hughes

2004-12-09 12:01:55 UTC

Post by Dylan Sung
Sorry, just piggybacking onto DTW's message. I noticed today that messages
written by people who usually write their messages via google groups to
sci.lang etc, are not showing up on my server. Is anyone experiencing the
same problem?

No, I'm receiving two or more copies of posts from Google. You want
my spares?

--
Jesse F. Hughes
"My experience indicates that the people who post on this newsgroup
are about at the level of a 10 year old in the year 2060."
-- More wisdom from James Harris, time traveler

Van www

2004-12-09 13:16:19 UTC

Post by Jesse F. Hughes

experiencing the

Post by Jesse F. Hughes

Post by Dylan Sung
same problem?

No, I'm receiving two or more copies of posts from Google. You want
my spares?
--
Jesse F. Hughes
"My experience indicates that the people who post on this newsgroup
are about at the level of a 10 year old in the year 2060."
-- More wisdom from James Harris, time traveler

I just saw this thread. I have been complaining about all this
"prettying up" of usenet, which used to be good old ASCII, and
google, which used to be easy access, and with GG2 made it fast enough
to be usable, started messing around with formating, fonts, colors,
hiding quotes, etc.
Its like Microsoft or some other idiots took over a system that
functioned well and kept fooling with it till they completely
screwed it up.

I have had to leave google and use Outlook Express or some other
newsreader and other server for usenet, which is better, but
its a pain to have to go back and forth between a browser for WWW
and a newsreader for usenet.

I have written 30-50 letters to google and gotten various excuses,
but the upshot is they don't care what anyone says, they will do
as they please, so its useless to complain.

Van

Nigel Greenwood

2004-12-09 16:45:37 UTC

Post by Van www
I just saw this thread. I have been complaining about all this
"prettying up" of usenet, which used to be good old ASCII, and
google, which used to be easy access, and with GG2 made it fast enough
to be usable, started messing around with formating, fonts, colors,
hiding quotes, etc.
Its like Microsoft or some other idiots took over a system that
functioned well and kept fooling with it till they completely
screwed it up.

One way to revert to the old Google Groups is to select a language
other than English in Google Preferences. You cwould twy Elmew Fwudd!
Nwigel

j***@sagitta-ps.com

2004-12-10 10:40:31 UTC

It may be a trivial point, but I wouldn't say the summary
thread title display had been prettied up, what with the
author IDs column not being left-aligned. "uglied up" seems
a better description.

I reckon the only plus point to this rehash, from a user
standpoint, is the much faster time for a new post to reach
the list (down from several hours to a few minutes). So only
now, IMHO, is Google groups "fast enough to be usable", as
opposed to the former service, which was reminiscent of
punched card programming in the '70s requiring overnight
runs for each compile!

(Google still haven't fixed one problem that makes posting
extremely fraught - One spends ten minutes typing a reply,
only to get a posting failure when pressing "Post Message".
Lucky I copied it first!! ;-< )

Van www

2004-12-10 13:04:00 UTC

[snip]
(Google still haven't fixed one problem that makes posting
extremely fraught - One spends ten minutes typing a reply,
only to get a posting failure when pressing "Post Message".
Lucky I copied it first!! ;-< )

This is what drives me nuts. Why is it newsreaders have no problem
posting, but almost everytime I use google I get that
stupid "sorry, can't post your message" reply??

I am really unhappy with google. It just going on doing what
idiots who know nothing want (fonts, formatting, colors) jesus christ!!
Assholes!

Van

Ben Zimmer

2004-12-09 17:13:08 UTC

As has been mentioned elsethread, it's not just email addresses that get
munged but anything that *resembles* an email address (a string with an
at-sign in it). Annoyingly, this includes Message-IDs. I often include
the Message-ID of an old post as a kind of footnote, either freestanding
or in the <http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=message-id> format.
Either way, those Message-IDs are now rendered elliptically in the new
interface and are therefore useless, even when you ask Google to "Show
Original". Examples:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/ef09798e8d83e563?dmode=source
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/662aff2ec37e83f4?dmode=source
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/897fa12254ae2501?dmode=source

I'm guessing this is one reason why the "deep link" for a post now uses
a Google article number instead of the old Message-ID, so that the links
will not be munged when they appear in the archive. Still, hundreds of
my old posts are now mangled by this supposedly helpful email masking.

Also, as someone pointed out on Slashdot, there's no guarantee that
these Google article numbers will work in the future. DejaNews used to
use its own article numbers for URLs, and none of those work anymore. A
"deep link" that encodes the Message-ID in the URL is more likely to
remain useful in the future. For now, the only way to create such a
link is to find the Message-ID in the header of the original post and
then put it in the old <http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=message-id>
link format. This is a tremendous pain in the neck (especially since
those links are just going to get munged now anyway).

Ruud Harmsen

2004-12-09 17:33:48 UTC

Thu, 09 Dec 2004 12:13:08 -0500: Ben Zimmer

As has been mentioned elsethread, [....]

LOL. Creative language usage. Should be in the dictionaries.

--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com

Bob Cunningham

2004-12-09 19:07:28 UTC

On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 12:13:08 -0500, Ben Zimmer
<***@midway.uchicago.edu> said:

[...]

Post by Ben Zimmer
As has been mentioned elsethread, it's not just email addresses that get
munged but anything that *resembles* an email address (a string with an
at-sign in it). Annoyingly, this includes Message-IDs. I often include
the Message-ID of an old post as a kind of footnote, either freestanding
or in the <http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=message-id> format.

Here's the text of a message I've sent to Google Groups:

You've messed up what was a very convenient way to
use Google Groups. That is, I used to like to
refer to a Usenet posting by Message ID. I would
find the posting at Google Groups, then go to
"show original" and get the Message ID. Someone
could then use that Message ID to go directly to
that posting.

That no longer works. Instead of going to the
intended posting, it goes to the beginning of the
thread that contains that posting.

I'm greatly disappointed to find that I can no
longer use Message ID the way I used to use it.

Bob Cunningham

2004-12-09 19:29:09 UTC

On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 19:07:28 GMT, Bob Cunningham
<***@earthlink.net> said:

[...]

Post by Bob Cunningham
That no longer works. Instead of going to the
intended posting, it goes to the beginning of the
thre adthatcontainsthatposting.

I don't know what happened there. The message that I sent
to Google, which is still in my outbox, said (cutting and
pasting again)

[...] it goes to the beginning of the
thread that contains that posting.

Harvey Van Sickle

2004-12-09 19:34:47 UTC

Post by Bob Cunningham
On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 19:07:28 GMT, Bob Cunningham
[...]

Post by Bob Cunningham
That no longer works. Instead of going to the
intended posting, it goes to the beginning of the
thre adthatcontainsthatposting.

I don't know what happened there. The message that I sent
to Google, which is still in my outbox, said (cutting and
pasting again)
[...] it goes to the beginning of the
thread that contains that posting.

Are you running Zone Alarm? I think somebody established that the
"bunching" is a bug in it that happens when the word "begin" appears.
(It fires off some sort of programming/display instruction.)

--
Cheers, Harvey

Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years;
Southern England for the past 22 years.
(for e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van)

Paul Wolff

2004-12-09 22:53:11 UTC

Post by Harvey Van Sickle

Post by Bob Cunningham
On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 19:07:28 GMT, Bob Cunningham
[...]

Post by Bob Cunningham
That no longer works. Instead of going to the
intended posting, it goes to the beginning of the
thre adthatcontainsthatposting.

I don't know what happened there. The message that I sent
to Google, which is still in my outbox, said (cutting and
pasting again)
[...] it goes to the beginning of the
thread that contains that posting.

Are you running Zone Alarm? I think somebody established that the
"bunching" is a bug in it that happens when the word "begin" appears.
(It fires off some sort of programming/display instruction.)

It's fixed in the latest free version (5.062 or so).

--
Paul
In bocca al Lupo!

Bob Cunningham

2004-12-09 23:19:50 UTC

On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 22:53:11 +0000, Paul Wolff
[...]

Post by Paul Wolff

Post by Harvey Van Sickle

Post by Bob Cunningham
[...] it goes to the beginning of the
thre adthatcontainsthatposting.

It wasn't bunched when I read Harvey's posting, but it is
bunched above.

Post by Paul Wolff

Post by Harvey Van Sickle
Are you running Zone Alarm? I think somebody established that the
"bunching" is a bug in it that happens when the word "begin" appears.
(It fires off some sort of programming/display instruction.)

It's fixed in the latest free version (5.062 or so).

I'm running Zone Alarm 5.1.033.000, free version, so maybe
something else is doing it.

Bob Cunningham

2004-12-09 23:21:09 UTC

On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 19:34:47 GMT, Harvey Van Sickle

Post by Harvey Van Sickle

Post by Bob Cunningham
On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 19:07:28 GMT, Bob Cunningham
[...]

Post by Bob Cunningham
That no longer works. Instead of going to the
intended posting, it goes to the beginning of the
thre adthatcontainsthatposting.

I don't know what happened there. The message that I sent
to Google, which is still in my outbox, said (cutting and
pasting again)
[...] it goes to the beginning of the
thread that contains that posting.

Are you running Zone Alarm?

Yes, I am.

Post by Harvey Van Sickle
I think somebody established that the
"bunching" is a bug in it that happens when the word "begin" appears.
(It fires off some sort of programming/display instruction.)

Evan Kirshenbaum

2004-12-10 00:18:56 UTC

Post by Bob Cunningham
On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 19:07:28 GMT, Bob Cunningham
[...]

Post by Bob Cunningham
That no longer works. Instead of going to the
intended posting, it goes to the beginning of the
thre adthatcontainsthatposting.

I don't know what happened there. The message that I sent
to Google, which is still in my outbox, said (cutting and
pasting again)
[...] it goes to the beginning of the
thread that contains that posting.

It looks fine as I received it.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |_Bauplan_ is just the German word
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |for blueprint. Typically, one
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |switches languages to indicate
|profundity.
***@hpl.hp.com | Richard Dawkins
(650)857-7572

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

Rolleston

2004-12-09 20:58:31 UTC

Ben Zimmer wrote:
@As has been mentioned elsethread, it's not just email addresses that get
@munged but anything that *resembles* an email address (a string with an
@at-sign in it). Annoyingly, this includes Message-IDs. I often include
@the Message-ID of an old post as a kind of footnote, either freestanding
@or in the <http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=message-id> format.
@Either way, those Message-IDs are now rendered elliptically in the new
@interface and are therefore useless, even when you ask Google to "Show
@Original".

Terrible, isn't it? I guess we'll just have to put
up with it@ Oh, I almost forgot to say: I'm giving
my full stops and gt signs a rest@ Let's not wear
out those keys, eh? Hope it comes out just right@

R.

Van www

2004-12-10 12:56:32 UTC

Post by Ben Zimmer

As has been mentioned elsethread, it's not just email addresses that get
munged but anything that *resembles* an email address (a string with an
at-sign in it). Annoyingly, this includes Message-IDs.

Also, some people use @ (I hope this shows up) for partial deriv
or direct product or some special symbol in sci.math posts.
I have pointed this out the google in several letters, that
formating ruins sci.math posts which built up ASCII and TeX
notation long ago. I pointed out that these are some of the most
longtime and important, in several senses, users of usenet.
No reponse from google.

Post by Ben Zimmer
I often include
the Message-ID of an old post as a kind of footnote, either

freestanding

Post by Ben Zimmer
or in the <http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=message-id> format.
Either way, those Message-IDs are now rendered elliptically in the new
interface and are therefore useless, even when you ask Google to "Show

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/ef09798e8d83e563?dmode=source
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/662aff2ec37e83f4?dmode=source
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/897fa12254ae2501?dmode=source

Post by Ben Zimmer
I'm guessing this is one reason why the "deep link" for a post now uses
a Google article number instead of the old Message-ID, so that the links
will not be munged when they appear in the archive. Still, hundreds of
my old posts are now mangled by this supposedly helpful email

masking.

Post by Ben Zimmer
Also, as someone pointed out on Slashdot, there's no guarantee that
these Google article numbers will work in the future. DejaNews used to
use its own article numbers for URLs, and none of those work anymore.

Post by Ben Zimmer
"deep link" that encodes the Message-ID in the URL is more likely to
remain useful in the future. For now, the only way to create such a
link is to find the Message-ID in the header of the original post and
then put it in the old

<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=message-id>

Post by Ben Zimmer
link format. This is a tremendous pain in the neck (especially since
those links are just going to get munged now anyway).

Does google now "own" all the archives. Aren't they supposed to be
sort of held in trust for everybody.
I see the day coming when all will have to pay some fee to search the
archives.

Van

Ben Zimmer

2004-12-17 21:53:05 UTC

Post by Ben Zimmer

As has been mentioned elsethread, it's not just email addresses that get
munged but anything that *resembles* an email address (a string with an
at-sign in it). Annoyingly, this includes Message-IDs.

Just noticed yet another unintended consequence of Google Beta's "email
masking" that specifically affects alt.usage.english and sci.lang. Any
phone-m/t-ic representation in ASCII-IPA gets munged if it includes a
medial schwa [@]! Again, this is true in both the default setting and
the "Show Original" setting. See, for instance:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/5ca75db3a6ed49c3
(default setting -- note the mixed fonts!)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/5ca75db3a6ed49c3?dmode=source
("Show Original" setting)

That's a post of mine responding to Areff, in whose post /***@r&gju@/ is
rendered as /***@r&gju@/. In my post, [***@vOldi] is rendered as
[***@vOldi], and [***@v&ldi] as [v...@&ldi]. So the insertion of the
ellipsis and deletion of characters isn't even predictable, AFAICT.

What a mess! Interestingly, the original ASCII-IPA representations are
still visible on the search page if you search for nearby text, e.g.:

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=Italians-than-BrE

Pronunciation of Las Vegas (update)
... /A/ as [O] before /l/, so that "Vivaldi" (Italian [vivaldi])
ends up pronounced as [***@vOldi], which sounds much less Italian
(to Italians) than BrE [***@v&ldi]. ...
alt.usage.english - Feb 25 2002, 2:11 pm by Ben Zimmer

So it's all still there-- they just won't show it to us.

Aidan Kehoe

2004-12-17 22:27:11 UTC

Post by Ben Zimmer
So it's all still there-- they just won't show it to us.

I’m sure it’s been mentioned to you before, but just use one of the non-US
tlds;
http://groups.google.com.au/groups?selm=3C7AB632.E08FA3F1%40midway.uchicago.edu
displays fine, for example.

--
“Ah come on now Ted, a Volkswagen with a mind of its own, driving all over
the place and going mad, if that’s not scary I don’t know what is.”

Jukka Aho

2004-12-17 23:14:20 UTC

Post by Aidan Kehoe

Post by Ben Zimmer
So it's all still there-- they just won't show it to us.

I’m sure it’s been mentioned to you before, but just use one of the
non-US tlds; http://groups.google.com.au/groups?selm=3C7AB632.
E08FA3F1%40midway.uchicago.edu displays fine, for example.

It does now, but for how long it will?

--
znark

Aidan Kehoe

2004-12-17 23:55:15 UTC

Post by Aidan Kehoe
I’m sure it’s been mentioned to you before, but just use one of the
non-US tlds; http://groups.google.com.au/groups?selm=3C7AB632.
E08FA3F1%40midway.uchicago.edu displays fine, for example.

It does now, but for how long it will?

If they fuck it up like they’ve done to the .com interface, I certainly
can’t order them to change it back. So that’s a tangental point. Can you?

(This is the first action of Google’s, since I’ve become aware of their
existence, that I actively dislike, and that makes their tools less useful
to me. Six years is pretty long for this to happen, in comparative terms--ah
well, it was good while it lasted ;-)

--
“Ah come on now Ted, a Volkswagen with a mind of its own, driving all over
the place and going mad, if that’s not scary I don’t know what is.”

Peter T. Daniels

2004-12-18 03:20:09 UTC

Iâ*m sure itâ*s been mentioned to you before, but just use one of the
non-US tlds; http://groups.google.com.au/groups?selm=3C7AB632.
E08FA3F1%40midway.uchicago.edu displays fine, for example.

It does now, but for how long it will?

If they fuck it up like theyâ*ve done to the .com interface, I certainly
canâ*t order them to change it back. So thatâ*s a tangental point. Can you?
(This is the first action of Googleâ*s, since Iâ*ve become aware of their
existence, that I actively dislike, and that makes their tools less useful
to me. Six years is pretty long for this to happen, in comparative terms--ah
well, it was good while it lasted ;-)

Would it be too much to ask you to turn off Smart Quotes? They're the
only characters that are not properly rendered in your postings, and the
resulting hash makes your postings annoying to read.

--
Peter T. Daniels ***@att.net

Reinhold (Rey) Aman

2004-12-18 06:10:25 UTC

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Iâ*m sure itâ*s been mentioned to you before, but just use one of the
non-US tlds; http://groups.google.com.au/groups?selm=3C7AB632.
E08FA3F1%40midway.uchicago.edu displays fine, for example.

It does now, but for how long it will?

Would it be too much to ask you to turn off Smart Quotes? They're the
only characters that are not properly rendered in your postings, and the
resulting hash makes your postings annoying to read.

It's the unnecessary use of charset *UTF-8* that screws up his posts.
And he's not the only one.... Use *ISO-8859-1*, unless there's a good
reason not to.

--
Reinhold (Rey) Aman

Jukka K. Korpela

2004-12-19 09:49:32 UTC

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Would it be too much to ask you to turn off Smart Quotes? They're
the only characters that are not properly rendered in your
postings, and the resulting hash makes your postings annoying to
read.

It's the unnecessary use of charset *UTF-8* that screws up his
posts.

In a sense yes, but UTF-8 actually gets transmitted exactly the same
way as ASCII if no non-ASCII characters are used. In that sense, it's
the "smart quotes" that cause the problem.

Post by Reinhold (Rey) Aman
Use *ISO-8859-1*, unless there's a good reason not to.

In international and English groups, use ASCII (= US-ASCII), unless
there's a good reason not to.

Contrary to what your statements might seem to imply, ISO-8859-1
does _not_ contain "smart quotes". You might confuse it with
windows-1252. There's no way to use "smart quotes" in Usenet postings
without confusing _some_ people's newsreaders.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Reinhold (Rey) Aman

2004-12-19 11:09:49 UTC

[Petey Daniels wrote:]

Post by Jukka K. Korpela

It's the unnecessary use of charset *UTF-8* that screws up his posts.

In a sense yes, but UTF-8 actually gets transmitted exactly the same
way as ASCII if no non-ASCII characters are used. In that sense, it's
the "smart quotes" that cause the problem.

Post by Reinhold (Rey) Aman
Use *ISO-8859-1*, unless there's a good reason not to.

In international and English groups, use ASCII (= US-ASCII),
unless there's a good reason not to.

You may be in the minority if you use "US-ASCII" (unless that's the same
as "Western" and "Latin 1"). Your header shows that you're using
"charset=ISO-8859-1," the very same character set I recommended. So I
don't understand your problem or objection to my recommendation.

I often check the full header to see the character set used by the
poster, so that I can choose the corresponding one to be able to read
that gibberish produced by UTF-8 or ISO-8859-2 (e.g., for posts
containing Polish and Czech/Slovak words or Cyrillic text).

Post by Jukka K. Korpela
Contrary to what your statements might seem to imply, ISO-8859-1
does _not_ contain "smart quotes".

I implied nothing of that sort, sorry. I also would never use smart
(curly) quotes or *justified* monospace-font text (as a frequent
<sci.lang> poster does, whose posts look terrible because of those large
inter-word gaps and other foolishnesses).

Post by Jukka K. Korpela
You might confuse it with windows-1252.

Nope.

Post by Jukka K. Korpela
There's no way to use "smart quotes" in Usenet postings
without confusing _some_ people's newsreaders.

Smart quote marks & apostrophes and justified text simply suck and
demonstrate the incompetence or lack of consideration for their readers
by such posters.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BTW, Jukka, you snipped on top a portion with garbled text caused by

Post by Jukka K. Korpela

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Ar an t-ochtú lá déag de mÖ na Nollaig, scrÖobh....

*That's* what my post was mainly about, not the quote marks mentioned by Petey.

--
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
Emeritus & Eremitus

Charles Riggs

2004-12-19 12:05:29 UTC

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 11:09:49 GMT, "Reinhold (Rey) Aman"

Post by Reinhold (Rey) Aman
[Petey Daniels wrote:]

Post by Jukka K. Korpela

It's the unnecessary use of charset *UTF-8* that screws up his posts.

In a sense yes, but UTF-8 actually gets transmitted exactly the same
way as ASCII if no non-ASCII characters are used. In that sense, it's
the "smart quotes" that cause the problem.

Post by Reinhold (Rey) Aman
Use *ISO-8859-1*, unless there's a good reason not to.

In international and English groups, use ASCII (= US-ASCII),
unless there's a good reason not to.

You may be in the minority if you use "US-ASCII" (unless that's the same
as "Western" and "Latin 1"). Your header shows that you're using
"charset=ISO-8859-1," the very same character set I recommended. So I
don't understand your problem or objection to my recommendation.
I often check the full header to see the character set used by the
poster, so that I can choose the corresponding one to be able to read
that gibberish produced by UTF-8 or ISO-8859-2 (e.g., for posts
containing Polish and Czech/Slovak words or Cyrillic text).

Boooring. This is the sort of thing I was referring to, Areff:
detailed technical crap.

--
Charles Riggs

They are no accented letters in my email address

Rolleston

2004-12-09 20:23:38 UTC

Post by Skitt
In short -- nothing has been lost, just the access procedure has been
modified.

How do I get a list of all the messages I have
written (but no others) in a particular thread?

R.

Skitt

2004-12-09 21:06:29 UTC

Post by Skitt
In short -- nothing has been lost, just the access procedure has been
modified.

How do I get a list of all the messages I have
written (but no others) in a particular thread?

Could you do that before?

--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

Rolleston

2004-12-09 21:34:55 UTC

Post by Skitt
In short -- nothing has been lost, just the access procedure has been
modified.

How do I get a list of all the messages I have
written (but no others) in a particular thread?

Could you do that before?

Yes. I've just discovered how to do it with the new Google Groups:
You add "&filter=0" to the end of the URL.

Without: http://tinyurl.com/4c3vs (1)
With: http://tinyurl.com/3qt5f

Look at this old Google Groups page: http://tinyurl.com/43u54

See the link "repeat the search with the omitted results included"?
That's what adds the "&filter=0" bit. It's not on page (1) above.

R.

Ruud Harmsen

2004-12-10 07:29:47 UTC

Post by Skitt
In short -- nothing has been lost, just the access procedure has been
modified.

How do I get a list of all the messages I have
written (but no others) in a particular thread?

Use Google, set author:yourname

--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com

Bob Cunningham

2004-12-10 16:26:04 UTC

(A copy of this posting is being sent to Google.)

("Follow-up To" has been changed to alt.usage.english only.
sigh.lang and sci.math dropped.)

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 08:29:47 +0100, Ruud Harmsen

Post by Ruud Harmsen

Post by Skitt
In short -- nothing has been lost,

Unless I'm wrong, and I wish I were, what has been seriously
lost is the ability to go to a specific message by entering
its Message ID only.

Post by Ruud Harmsen

Post by Skitt
just the access procedure has been modified.

How do I get a list of all the messages I have
written (but no others) in a particular thread?

Use Google, set author:yourname

But there's more to it than that. Unless you have a very
unusual name, you should set newsgroup to the group you
want. For example, if I set author to my name, I find there
are more of them in all newsgroups than just me.

Also, if you just set author to your name, you'll first get
a short list, with the note that some results have been
omitted and the offer to repeat the search with those
omitted results included.

But after repeating the search, you indeed have a list of
all of your postings, but you can't click on any of them and
go directly to the corresponding posting (unless it's the
first posting in a thread). Instead, clicking on one of
them takes you to the start of a thread that contains the
clicked posting.

This is another giant step backward Google has committed.
One is removing the ability to go directly to a posting by
entering the Message ID only. The second is removing the
ability to click on a hit and go directly to the posting.

I wonder if the whizzes at Google know that some "threads"
can have hundreds of postings, especially when there's no
option to thread by subject line. (Maybe there is that
option now; I'll have to check.)

Richard Henry

2004-12-10 17:06:30 UTC

Post by Bob Cunningham
(A copy of this posting is being sent to Google.)
("Follow-up To" has been changed to alt.usage.english only.
sigh.lang and sci.math dropped.)

Why?

Bob Cunningham

2004-12-10 17:28:37 UTC

(Follow-up again changed to alt.usage.english.)

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 09:06:30 -0800, "Richard Henry"

Post by Bob Cunningham
(A copy of this posting is being sent to Google.)
("Follow-up To" has been changed to alt.usage.english only.
sigh.lang and sci.math dropped.)

Why?

I'm an occasional participant in alt.usage.english. I feel
no desire to communicate with sci.math or sci.lang readers.

Maria Conlon

2004-12-10 21:36:39 UTC

Post by Bob Cunningham
(A copy of this posting is being sent to Google.)

[.... see Bob's post]

I, too, have emailed Google about the Google Groups situation. I'm not
providing a copy of that email here, but only because it says much of
what has already been said in aue with regard to the flaws and
unnecessary changes.

They sent this reply:

=======quote=====

Thank you for your feedback on Google Groups Beta. Your input is very
important to us. If, at any point, you'd like to provide us with further
details, we encourage you to submit a 'Suggestion/Feature Request' at
http://groups-beta.google.com/support/bin/request.py. This allows us to
easily track which features are most important to Google Groups users.
After you click the 'Continue' button, you'll see a screen where you can
tell us exactly what improvements you want us to make to Google Groups
Beta.

We really appreciate your assistance and your suggestions.

Regards,
The Google Team
=============end quote========

I plan to use the Suggestion feature.

Hoping for a return to proper Archiving,
Maria ("Tootsie") Conlon

k***@yahoo.com

2004-12-11 07:26:44 UTC

Post by Bob Cunningham

Post by Ruud Harmsen

Post by Skitt
just the access procedure has been modified.

How do I get a list of all the messages I have
written (but no others) in a particular thread?

Use Google, set author:yourname

Right. The search screen in fact is unchanged.

Post by Bob Cunningham
Also, if you just set author to your name, you'll first get
a short list, with the note that some results have been
omitted and the offer to repeat the search with those
omitted results included.

I don't get this and I am using the new version.

Post by Bob Cunningham
But after repeating the search, you indeed have a list of
all of your postings, but you can't click on any of them and
go directly to the corresponding posting (unless it's the
first posting in a thread). Instead, clicking on one of
them takes you to the start of a thread that contains the
clicked posting.

I don't get this either. It does take me to the appropriate message -
including in threads >250 messages where it did not work before.

Post by Bob Cunningham
This is another giant step backward Google has committed.
One is removing the ability to go directly to a posting by
entering the Message ID only. The second is removing the
ability to click on a hit and go directly to the posting.
I wonder if the whizzes at Google know that some "threads"
can have hundreds of postings, especially when there's no
option to thread by subject line. (Maybe there is that
option now; I'll have to check.)

Yes, this apparently changed.

Andrew Usher

k***@yahoo.com

2004-12-12 05:03:11 UTC

Well, I can't post with the old version of Google anymore, apparently
because all the message IDs have changed.

I'm using the new version to post now, and I see that my name is gone
again.

Andrew Usher

Andrew Usher

2004-12-12 05:05:02 UTC