Forum Moderators: open

Message Too Old, No Replies

Problems with Google Groups not adding new Usenet newsgroups.

And, how do they decide which to add?

         

rfgdxm1

12:49 am on Jan 2, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I am asking this because this question came up on alt.binaries.news-server.comparison, which is a newsgroup populated mostly by serious Usenet junkies, and professional Usenet server admins. A number of people have complained that for some time, Google has been ignoring requests for newsgroups to be added sent to the appropriate Google e-mail. And, nobody has ever got an answer on this from Google. Speculation has been made that it is based on crossposting to groups they already carry, which would mean new newsgroups that get few crossposts (this happens with many Usenet newsgroups.) However, I am hoping to get a definitive answer.

Dunno if anyone here knows, but I am hoping.

anallawalla

4:42 am on Jan 2, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



I haven't administered a news feed for some time now but at one time it became inadvisable to newgroup/rmgroup automagically because the kiddies found out how to send control messages. People were creating "newsgroups" whose name was made up of symbols and characters but when you saw them in a list and tilted your head, you could read some kewl word that was formed. Others started playing games with nonsensical newsgroup names.

Many newsadmins seem to have just given up and will only add newsgroups by hand after considerable nagging.

I didn't think Google carried binaries, but it seems it has only three binary hierarchies:
alt.binaries.gay.* (1 group)
alt.binaries.sounds.* (2 groups)
alt.binaries.multimedia.* (2 groups)