What Ever Happened to Usenet?

In these times of sophisticated and well indexed internet forums it is easy to forget the mother of them all - Usenet, or newsgroups. Usenet is a message board system first created in 1979. Initially, Usenet was used at a few universities across America as a means of sharing news and information. It began as a few sites on a network and expanded to millions by the year 2003. Before web-based forums, newsgroups were the way to go if you wanted to post and share information with the online community.

Early users of Usenet gathered to freely discuss opinions and information on a broad range of topics. As time passed, the functionality of Usenet was improved to allow users to share software, music and pictures.

If you think some internet forums out there are harsh and strongly opinionated, they pretty much pale in comparison to Usenet in its prime. Largely unmoderated, Usenet was the place where you could post uncensored text freely and many did. Communities were just as tightly bonded as the new forums but many users were open to new members. After all, you couldn't be banned, kicked, censored or blocked in any way so they might as well welcome you.

Google eventually acquired Usenet and all its archives. Google then utilized an easy to use newsgroup reader called Google Groups, making all the information on Usenet easy to search for. I can still find posts I made over ten years ago. While at the moment I posted never thought that Usenet would be made searchable, I wouldn't take back any of those old newsgroup posts. They offer an insight to the old me and are quite entertaining to read from time to time.

So while the bells and whistles of new age internet forums are certainly nice, why has everyone abandoned them? Anyone with a little forum experience knows that members often feel censored and arguments between people can lead to bans. These rules make for a more smoothly operating community system but often take candid remarks away that may or may not have been helpful in the long run. You don't have to worry about any of this with Usenet. It's still there, waiting. Whenever I browse over newsgroups I often find very outdated material and I feel this is a shame. While it is great that the archives are there to offer a glimpse into the world of the old internet, it would be even better if more people would contribute new material to this magnificent messaging system.

The next time you post a lengthy informative message on your favorite message board, consider throwing some of that information into a relative group on Usenet. The data will be preserved and found by people all over the internet looking for relevant information. Do it for old times' sake.