Iexplorer group abandoned?

[Iceman]

My apologies if this is OT here.

Has the microsoft.public.internetexplorer.general Usenet group been
abandoned? Neither my newsserver nor the Google archives showed anything
but spam there over the last two months or so.

If it is gone, is there any Usenet platform available for IE discussion?

 

[Carl Kaufmann]

My apologies if this is OT here.

Has the microsoft.public.internetexplorer.general Usenet group been
abandoned? Neither my newsserver nor the Google archives showed anything
but spam there over the last two months or so.

If it is gone, is there any Usenet platform available for IE discussion?

Basically the entire microsoft. hierarchy is gone. Microsoft has gone
to web-based forums.

Carl

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Basically the entire microsoft. hierarchy is gone. Microsoft has gone
to web-based forums.

Carl

Gone _as far as Microsoft are concerned_, that is. Many of them live on
quite happily on other servers; the above one for example seems to be
still there on eternal-september and teranews, though I can't speak for
the content.

 

[Iceman]

Gone _as far as Microsoft are concerned_, that is. Many of them live on
quite happily on other servers; the above one for example seems to be
still there on eternal-september and teranews, though I can't speak for
the content.

I use aioe.org and the content should be the same on all three servers.
This is rather strange, for most of the other microsoft.public.* groups are
still active.

 

[Ken Blake]

Basically the entire microsoft. hierarchy is gone. Microsoft has gone
to web-based forums.

Although it's unfortunately true that Microsoft has gone to web-based
forums, it is not true that the Microsoft newsgroup hierarchy is gone.
Although Microsoft no longer has anything to do with the newsgroups,
they almost all remain and are still carried by many news servers.

But how active each of those old newsgroups is is another story
entirely. Many have almost no activity, and this one is a rare
exception.

 

[Paul]

Basically the entire microsoft. hierarchy is gone. Microsoft has gone
to web-based forums.

Carl

The hierarchy microsoft.* was handled informally. If proper control messages
had been issued by Microsoft during the life of their tenure, then the
groups would have disappeared from *all* servers when Microsoft pulled the plug.

Without control messages, it was then left to individual operators, as to what
to do. And as a result, there are, like, 1700 groups still on a majority
of servers, from the microsoft.* hierarchy.

There was a guy, providing a service where he would "fake" control messages
for microsoft.* , for the convenience of individual server operators. (That was
used to do a group cleanup, before Microsoft pulled the plug.) But when
it came time to accept or reject his info, when Microsoft disconnected from USENET,
that was a call by each individual server operator.

Eventually, the groups could be pruned, by operators which watch for
zero activity in a group, and remove them as part of a "cleanup" operation.
There is one guy who runs a server, who likes to do things like that.
But otherwise, with so many groups to manage, many operators
rely on properly digitally signed (authentic) control messages,
to reduce the burden of managing groups.

And as a result, once Microsoft disconnects, the (N-1) other servers can
still continue to offer and accept messages from each other, for things
destined for microsoft.*. The groups still exist out in the wild,
and as long as Google does not accept non-official control messages,
Google will continue to archive messages in those groups as well.
Google doesn't archive (or rather acknowledge) all groups. For
example, *this* group is not available in Google, because this group
was added without official protocols. Alt.* is permanently broken,
so this is the "norm" for group handling in alt.*.

The presence of web forums on the Microsoft site, competes for
user mindshare, with USENET. For users who cannot stand the format
of such forums (the loser support guys who provide the answer to the
wrong question, the "answered" flag when a question hasn't been answered),
they come back here. Microsoft should have just bought third party
bulletin board software, without trying to "decorate" their forums
the way they did.

Paul

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Iceman.

Microsoft abandoned ALL their newsgroups in 2010. This was a hot topic of
discussion on all the NGs for much of the year, until...one by one...MS
turned out the lights on each one. The last big batch went dark in about
October 2010.

But many news servers continue to carry all or many of the groups. My own
ISP (Grande Communications, here in San Marcos, TX), using Giganews, still
carries over 4,000 of the microsoft.public.* NGs, including about 230 with
"inetexp" or "internet" and "explorer" in their names, most in languages
other than English.

THIS newsgroup did not get shut down because it was not started by Microsoft
and was not a part of the microsoft.public hierarchy. The shutdown by
Microsoft came at about the same time as Windows 7 was hitting the streets,
and Microsoft decided not to create a Windows 7 newsgroup at all. So this
NG was started independently by users who felt that it was needed, without
support from Microsoft.

On MY news server, the microsoft.public.internetexplorer.general newsgroup
is still alive and well. I have not been subscribed to it, but I just now
took a look. My "Get next 300 headers" got threads that started as far back
as 1/23/12. But from the Subject lines and the few contents that I looked
at, it seems the spammers have taken complete control of that NG in the last
couple of months. :>(

See if your ISP or your news server still carries the MS public NGs; if not,
Bingle for "free news servers" and you should find plenty to choose from.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010)
Windows Live Mail 2011 (Build 15.4.3555.0308) in Win7 Ultimate x64 SP1

"Iceman" wrote in message
My apologies if this is OT here.

Has the microsoft.public.internetexplorer.general Usenet group been
abandoned? Neither my newsserver nor the Google archives showed anything
but spam there over the last two months or so.

If it is gone, is there any Usenet platform available for IE discussion?

 

[Nil]

My apologies if this is OT here.

Has the microsoft.public.internetexplorer.general Usenet group
been abandoned? Neither my newsserver nor the Google archives
showed anything but spam there over the last two months or so.

On individual.net's server there have only been 176 posts this year in
that group. Almost 50 of those are spams trying sell lists of stolen
credit card numbers. Traffic is now almost at a standstill - there are
only three posts this month, and two of those are spams. It appears
that people have found somewhere else to go. Probably some web forum
<yuck, p'tui>.

 

[...winston]

*this one* isn't an exception.
It's not a previous MSFT newsgroup
-> alt.windows7.general


--
....winston
msft mvp mail


"Ken Blake" wrote in message

Although it's unfortunately true that Microsoft has gone to web-based
forums, it is not true that the Microsoft newsgroup hierarchy is gone.
Although Microsoft no longer has anything to do with the newsgroups,
they almost all remain and are still carried by many news servers.

But how active each of those old newsgroups is is another story
entirely. Many have almost no activity, and this one is a rare
exception.

 

[Stephen Wolstenholme]

My apologies if this is OT here.

Has the microsoft.public.internetexplorer.general Usenet group been
abandoned? Neither my newsserver nor the Google archives showed anything
but spam there over the last two months or so.

If it is gone, is there any Usenet platform available for IE discussion?

Microsoft has abandoned all involvement in Usenet because they could
not control the postings.

Steve

 

[nothing but net]

Microsoft has abandoned all involvement in Usenet because they could
not control the postings.

When Crusty Old Bastard made MVP, the writing was on the wall... next
up for consideration was Alias, so it was time to bail.

 

[Ken Blake]

*this one* isn't an exception.
It's not a previous MSFT newsgroup
-> alt.windows7.general

You are of course correct. My apologies. I was thinking of
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, which is immediately below this
one on my list of newsgroups in Forté Agent.

 

[Ken Blake]

Microsoft has abandoned all involvement in Usenet because they could
not control the postings.

It's really impossible for any of us to know for sure why Microsoft
did what it did regarding newsgroups. Like you, I think that was very
likely a major factor in their decision, but I doubt whether it was
the only one.

 

[Stephen Wolstenholme]

It's really impossible for any of us to know for sure why Microsoft
did what it did regarding newsgroups. Like you, I think that was very
likely a major factor in their decision, but I doubt whether it was
the only one.

Another possible reason is that the youngsters in Microsoft do not
understand Usenet and want everything on the WEB so that anyone can
run the show.

Steve

 

[Char Jackson]

Another possible reason is that the youngsters in Microsoft do not
understand Usenet and want everything on the WEB so that anyone can
run the show.

I don't know who "the youngsters" refers to, but it's doubtful that
they run any part of Microsoft.

 

[Ken Blake]

I don't know who "the youngsters" refers to, but it's doubtful that
they run any part of Microsoft.

I think "youngsters" is a good word to describe those who run
Microsoft. Steve Ballmer is 56, and he's one of the oldest of those
who run Microsoft. He became CEO when he was 43. Microsoft's
management is considerably younger than that of most firms. You may
not call a 56-year-old a "youngster," but he is to me. And for a CEO,
a 43-year-old is to almost everyone.

And go down a couple of levels from Ballmer, and there are those in
their 30s all over the place.

 

[Stephen Wolstenholme]

I don't know who "the youngsters" refers to, but it's doubtful that
they run any part of Microsoft.

I am being a bit skeptical but I was working with two young chaps who
moved to Microsoft about 15 years ago. They have both done very well
but I still think of them as youngsters! One of them runs quite a big
department.

Steve

 

[Char Jackson]

I think "youngsters" is a good word to describe those who run
Microsoft. Steve Ballmer is 56, and he's one of the oldest of those
who run Microsoft. He became CEO when he was 43. Microsoft's
management is considerably younger than that of most firms. You may
not call a 56-year-old a "youngster," but he is to me. And for a CEO,
a 43-year-old is to almost everyone.

And go down a couple of levels from Ballmer, and there are those in
their 30s all over the place.

I picture college interns when I hear the term youngsters. Anyway,
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook is, what, 28 or so? I think age is less of
a consideration for success than it used to be.

 

[Iceman]

I picture college interns when I hear the term youngsters. Anyway,
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook is, what, 28 or so? I think age is less of
a consideration for success than it used to be.

True.

Mark Zuckerberg, at 28: Billionaire.
Average Joe, at 70: Gold watch.