digitalmars.D - Re: TDPL a bad idea?

Nick Sabalausky Wrote:

 "TDPL: we want money"? Msg me when it is "TDPL: the well-oiled machine". 
 (Note I didn't say "the well-oiled MONEY machine).


 Ordinarily I wouldn't think much of this, but considering some of this guy's 
 most recent postings over in "Google's Go", I'd say it's about time to 
 consider instituting a NG ban system. We were (maybe) able to chase away 
 superdan, but who knows how persistent other such trolls like this one will 
 prove to be.
 
Nick, that's censorship, and I don't  think the group should go there (for
there, but for the grace of god, go I.).


And I can speak from bitter personal experience about books that were
prematurely published (although I don't think that's what Mr D is talking
about).

I think there is a case for saying that maybe D2 should be frozen first, and
then, 6 months later, after the show-stopping issues had been sorted, the book
could be published.

I agree that a book that you can read while you are sitting with the family
watching TV has advantages over an on-line document.

Feb 01 2010

"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:

"Steve Teale" <steve.teale britseyeview.com> wrote in message 
news:hk6u43$1gqp$1 digitalmars.com...
 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:

 "TDPL: we want money"? Msg me when it is "TDPL: the well-oiled 
 machine".
 (Note I didn't say "the well-oiled MONEY machine).


 Ordinarily I wouldn't think much of this, but considering some of this 
 guy's
 most recent postings over in "Google's Go", I'd say it's about time to
 consider instituting a NG ban system. We were (maybe) able to chase away
 superdan, but who knows how persistent other such trolls like this one 
 will
 prove to be.

Nick, that's censorship, and I don't  think the group should go there (for 
there, but for the grace of god, go I.).




Banning trolls is no more censorship than filtering spam.

Feb 01 2010

BCS <none anon.com> writes:

Hello Steve,

 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:
 
 "TDPL: we want money"? Msg me when it is "TDPL: the well-oiled
 machine". (Note I didn't say "the well-oiled MONEY machine).
 


 this guy's most recent postings over in "Google's Go", I'd say it's
 about time to consider instituting a NG ban system. We were (maybe)
 able to chase away superdan, but who knows how persistent other such
 trolls like this one will prove to be.
 


 (for there, but for the grace of god, go I.).


Anything a group does to it's self is not censorship. Censorship is where 
someone from the outside imposes controls. Also for any group to work, it 
needs to be able to exercise control over it's own membership.

--

<IXOYE><

Feb 01 2010

Rainer Deyke <rainerd eldwood.com> writes:

BCS wrote:
 Anything a group does to it's self is not censorship. Censorship is
 where someone from the outside imposes controls.


By that definition, there is no censorship in China, because it's
something the group (i.e. China) does to itself.


-- 
Rainer Deyke - rainerd eldwood.com

Feb 01 2010

Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmail.com> writes:

Rainer Deyke wrote:

 BCS wrote:
 Anything a group does to it's self is not censorship. Censorship is
 where someone from the outside imposes controls.


 By that definition, there is no censorship in China, because it's
 something the group (i.e. China) does to itself.
 
 


Except that you could argue that the government is censoring it for the 
people, thereby making it an outside force imposing control on the inside. 
Merriam-Webster's online definition would tend to go with the whole "outside 
force" idea: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censor . Generally 
speaking, censorship refers to one group cutting out or blocking material 
from coming into contact with another group, but you might be able to argue 
that it doesn't _have_ to be an outside force. Still, in any kind of normal 
use, it would be.

- Jonathan M Davis

Feb 01 2010

Bane <branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com> writes:

 
 Except that you could argue that the government is censoring it for the 
 people, thereby making it an outside force imposing control on the inside. 
 Merriam-Webster's online definition would tend to go with the whole "outside 
 force" idea: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censor . Generally 
 speaking, censorship refers to one group cutting out or blocking material 
 from coming into contact with another group, but you might be able to argue 
 that it doesn't _have_ to be an outside force. Still, in any kind of normal 
 use, it would be.
 
 - Jonathan M Davis


Legal/moral mumbo jumbo. There are group with resources to provide/deny
something to other groups, and there are those without that power. Reason for
first to do it at first place? Same why dog licks his ass - because he can.

So if admin of his mailing list can exercise his power to make it more useful
to majority of readers on expense of few (troublesome) individuals, the better.
Its not like anyone is going to gulag if placed on ban list, for fucks sake.

Feb 02 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

retard wrote:
 At least in this newsgroup it's easy to get into peoples' killfile.


You're not in mine, obviously!

Feb 02 2010

Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:

On 02/02/2010 21:47, retard wrote:
 Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:20:19 -0500, Bane wrote:


 Except that you could argue that the government is censoring it for the
 people, thereby making it an outside force imposing control on the
 inside. Merriam-Webster's online definition would tend to go with the
 whole "outside force" idea:
 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censor . Generally speaking,
 censorship refers to one group cutting out or blocking material from
 coming into contact with another group, but you might be able to argue
 that it doesn't _have_ to be an outside force. Still, in any kind of
 normal use, it would be.

 - Jonathan M Davis


 Legal/moral mumbo jumbo. There are group with resources to provide/deny
 something to other groups, and there are those without that power.
 Reason for first to do it at first place? Same why dog licks his ass -
 because he can.

 So if admin of his mailing list can exercise his power to make it more
 useful to majority of readers on expense of few (troublesome)
 individuals, the better. Its not like anyone is going to gulag if placed
 on ban list, for fucks sake.


 At least in this newsgroup it's easy to get into peoples' killfile. Just
 disagree with your beloved deitys, Andrei and W. A good way to piss them
 off is to mention dmd's broken support for tuples or .stringof, critizise
 the featuritis and language inconsistency, support Tango, or know
 something about functional languages.


Walter is a very reasonable person to talk with whether you agree or 
disagree with his point of view. He never gets angry at anyone and he'll 
have a discussion even with the worst troll if he's got a tiny potential 
of an interesting point to make in the discussion.
That's my experience at least.
He wouldn't even ban superdan, which frankly I would had i been in 
Walter's shoes.

Feb 02 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

Yigal Chripun wrote:
 He wouldn't even ban superdan, which frankly I would had i been in 
 Walter's shoes.


superdan was harmless. I enjoyed his rants, and underneath it he did 
know what he was talking about.

Feb 02 2010

Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:

On 03/02/2010 00:41, Walter Bright wrote:
 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 He wouldn't even ban superdan, which frankly I would had i been in
 Walter's shoes.


 superdan was harmless. I enjoyed his rants, and underneath it he did
 know what he was talking about.


As I said before, you must be a much more tolerant person than I am :)

What bothered me the most about his language was not the fact the it was 
insulting but rather that it reduces the readability which is even more 
so for non native speakers (which I am).
I mean, it isn't that hard to using the correct spelling (even in curse 
words) so that others can understand you. using bad spelling 
intentionally like that is plain inconsiderate.

This especially irks me every time I see a post that boils down to 
demeaning a non-native English speaker about using "your" instead of 
"you're" or nit-picking on tiny differences of a meaning of a word.

Feb 02 2010

=?UTF-8?B?QWxpIMOHZWhyZWxp?= <acehreli yahoo.com> writes:

Yigal Chripun wrote:
 This especially irks me every time I see a post that boils down to
 demeaning a non-native English speaker about using "your" instead of
 "you're"


I think that one is totally subconscious... For me at least... :)

As my native alphabet is phonetic, I used to read "your" and "you're" 
differently. (Actually, I still do pronounce them like "your" and "yoor" 
most of the time. :) )

I used to never mistype those words until I learned that they were 
pronounced differently. Since then I started making typos of that sort.

The same happens with "should've" vs. "should of". *Some* people make 
those mistakes not because they don't know. It happens subconsciously as 
they type fast.

Ali

Feb 02 2010

=?UTF-8?B?QWxpIMOHZWhyZWxp?= <acehreli yahoo.com> writes:

Ali Çehreli wrote:
 I used to never mistype those words until I learned that they were 
 pronounced differently.


Argh! I meant "... until I learned that they were pronounced _the_same_."

Ali
"maker of all mistakes"

Feb 02 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

Yigal Chripun wrote:
 As I said before, you must be a much more tolerant person than I am :)


I have long experience with online flame wars. The only way to "win" at 
them is to not play.


 What bothered me the most about his language was not the fact the it was 
 insulting but rather that it reduces the readability which is even more 
 so for non native speakers (which I am).
 I mean, it isn't that hard to using the correct spelling (even in curse 
 words) so that others can understand you. using bad spelling 
 intentionally like that is plain inconsiderate.


I agree that using obscure idioms or creative spelling can make life 
hell for non-native speakers. Most posters' english is so darn good it's 
easy to forget english may be their second language.


 This especially irks me every time I see a post that boils down to
 demeaning a non-native English speaker about using "your" instead of
 "you're" or nit-picking on tiny differences of a meaning of a word.


Since "your" and "you are" are quite distinct, it is fair to criticize 
misuse of it, if you're going to be a grammar nazi anyway. It's less 
fair to criticize misuse of "who" and "whom".

I've lived in foreign countries, and spent enough time overseas to be 
very tolerant of non-native english, especially because I need plenty of 
forgiveness for my mangling of their tongues.

Feb 02 2010

Mike Parker <aldacron gmail.com> writes:

Walter Bright wrote:
 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 As I said before, you must be a much more tolerant person than I am :)

 I have long experience with online flame wars. The only way to "win" at 
 them is to not play.

 What bothered me the most about his language was not the fact the it 
 was insulting but rather that it reduces the readability which is even 
 more so for non native speakers (which I am).
 I mean, it isn't that hard to using the correct spelling (even in 
 curse words) so that others can understand you. using bad spelling 
 intentionally like that is plain inconsiderate.

 I agree that using obscure idioms or creative spelling can make life 
 hell for non-native speakers. Most posters' english is so darn good it's 
 easy to forget english may be their second language.

  > This especially irks me every time I see a post that boils down to
  > demeaning a non-native English speaker about using "your" instead of
  > "you're" or nit-picking on tiny differences of a meaning of a word.

 Since "your" and "you are" are quite distinct, it is fair to criticize 
 misuse of it, if you're going to be a grammar nazi anyway. It's less 
 fair to criticize misuse of "who" and "whom".

 I've lived in foreign countries, and spent enough time overseas to be 
 very tolerant of non-native english, especially because I need plenty of 
 forgiveness for my mangling of their tongues.

I've been teaching English in Korea for 16 years. I frequently make 
mistakes on my blogs, but the majority of them are typos (I'm a horrid 
typist). Even so, I do admit to a large amount of frustration reading 
some of the more common English mistakes on the internet (/loose/ 
instead of /lose/, /amount/ instead of /number/ for countable nouns, and 
such). If I know for sure it is written by a native speaker, it takes a 
lot of self-control not to email the author the corrected text.

The ironic thing is that I couldn't graduate high school with my friends 
because I failed a term of English my senior year. I had to go back for 
one more term the following school year. If only Ms. Wendelken could see 
me now!

Feb 03 2010

Patrick Byrne <pbyrne frontier.co.uk> writes:

On 03/02/2010 01:06, Walter Bright wrote:
 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 As I said before, you must be a much more tolerant person than I am :)


 I have long experience with online flame wars. The only way to "win" at
 them is to not play.


You are a webbudhist, Walter.

Feb 03 2010

BCS <none anon.com> writes:

Hello Rainer,

 BCS wrote:
 
 Anything a group does to it's self is not censorship. Censorship is
 where someone from the outside imposes controls.
 


 something the group (i.e. China) does to itself.
 


Group = citizens of china
controller = government of china

for the case in question (this NG)

group = people posting on NG
controller = people in NG wanting someone banned.

I see a difference

--

<IXOYE><

Feb 02 2010

dsimcha <dsimcha yahoo.com> writes:

== Quote from BCS (none anon.com)'s article
 Hello Rainer,
 BCS wrote:

 Anything a group does to it's self is not censorship. Censorship is
 where someone from the outside imposes controls.


 something the group (i.e. China) does to itself.


 controller = government of china
 for the case in question (this NG)
 group = people posting on NG
 controller = people in NG wanting someone banned.
 I see a difference


By that logic censorship would be ok in a democracy then.

Feb 02 2010

BCS <none anon.com> writes:

Hello dsimcha,

 == Quote from BCS (none anon.com)'s article
 
 Hello Rainer,
 
 BCS wrote:
 
 Anything a group does to it's self is not censorship. Censorship is
 where someone from the outside imposes controls.
 


 something the group (i.e. China) does to itself.
 


 controller = government of china
 for the case in question (this NG)
 group = people posting on NG
 controller = people in NG wanting someone banned.
 I see a difference


 


It wouldn't be censorship, but to answer your question; in a real democracy, 
yes. But in a real democracy, everyone votes on everything and in reality 
that doesn't work. Heck, even in the US, lots of people don't vote and most 
people can't vote on most things.

--

<IXOYE><

Feb 02 2010

Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:

On 02/02/2010 21:09, dsimcha wrote:
 == Quote from BCS (none anon.com)'s article
 Hello Rainer,
 BCS wrote:

 Anything a group does to it's self is not censorship. Censorship is
 where someone from the outside imposes controls.


 something the group (i.e. China) does to itself.


 controller = government of china
 for the case in question (this NG)
 group = people posting on NG
 controller = people in NG wanting someone banned.
 I see a difference


 By that logic censorship would be ok in a democracy then.


Absolutely true.
case in point is my country, Israel. we have "military censorship" where 
any security related info does in fact need to be approved by the army 
before it is published. unlike china it is OK since it is accepted by 
the nation (we are a democracy after all) and we all realize that for a 
country surrounded by enemies this is acceptable approach in order to 
protect ourselves.
In fact, the army censor has very little work to do, mainly with regards 
to the media. We all serve in the army and understand the importance of 
this issue so there's little need to have an outside censorship police.

Based on my personal experience, this self imposed censorship is 
misunderstood by other people which shows in the way foreign media 
misjudges us on many occasions.

To conclude, It is perfectly fine to have self imposed censorship.

Feb 02 2010

Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org> writes:

BCS wrote:
 
 Group = citizens of china
 controller = government of china
 
 for the case in question (this NG)
 
 group = people posting on NG
 controller = people in NG wanting someone banned.
 
 I see a difference


The government of China are Chinese people. I see no difference. Once 
you create a "controller" class in the newsgroup, they become the 
government.

Feb 02 2010

Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:

On 02/02/2010 23:05, Jeff Nowakowski wrote:
 BCS wrote:
 Group = citizens of china
 controller = government of china

 for the case in question (this NG)

 group = people posting on NG
 controller = people in NG wanting someone banned.

 I see a difference


 The government of China are Chinese people. I see no difference. Once
 you create a "controller" class in the newsgroup, they become the
 government.


As others tried to explain regrading china - that's not the same thing.
regarding this newsgroup and online communities in general - have you 
ever heard of the debian project? nothing prevents us from establishing 
similar mechanisms such that all active and registered posters in this 
group will have a say regarding policies and policing of those policies. 
Since this NG is on Walter's servers and belongs to him, nothing 
prevents doing the above on different community servers if Walter 
disagrees with this.

I'm not saying we should do this, btw. I'm perfectly fine with the 
current scheme of things where I need to filter superdan in my own 
news-reader instead of having him banned from the NG. other people might 
find his posts amusing and they have the right to read them.

IMO, we should have a registration system for regular people, not for 
censoring purposes but for keeping track.
there are many posts by different people that call themselves with the 
same name and it seems confusing and unproductive to me. people don't 
have to register with their real names if they don't want to but at 
least I could tell the difference between john and john1 when I'm 
answering to john.
Also, regular folks can ensure by registering that no-one else can reply 
to posts in their names.

Feb 02 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

Yigal Chripun wrote:
 IMO, we should have a registration system for regular people, not for 
 censoring purposes but for keeping track.
 there are many posts by different people that call themselves with the 
 same name and it seems confusing and unproductive to me. people don't 
 have to register with their real names if they don't want to but at 
 least I could tell the difference between john and john1 when I'm 
 answering to john.
 Also, regular folks can ensure by registering that no-one else can reply 
 to posts in their names.



I've thought about building such a system for these forums many times. 
Registration would not be required to post, but registering would enable 
features like voting on posts, establishing a profile, preferences, etc.

Feb 02 2010

Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:

On 03/02/2010 00:44, Walter Bright wrote:
 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 IMO, we should have a registration system for regular people, not for
 censoring purposes but for keeping track.
 there are many posts by different people that call themselves with the
 same name and it seems confusing and unproductive to me. people don't
 have to register with their real names if they don't want to but at
 least I could tell the difference between john and john1 when I'm
 answering to john.
 Also, regular folks can ensure by registering that no-one else can
 reply to posts in their names.



 I've thought about building such a system for these forums many times.
 Registration would not be required to post, but registering would enable
 features like voting on posts, establishing a profile, preferences, etc.


That sounds awesome. Another useful feature would be storing session 
info in the profile such that if I read a post at work the post will be 
marked as such when I use a different computer/news-reader like my home PC.

wouldn't it be easier to just use web forums (there are many existing 
system with all the bells and whistles) and write a news-gateway for it 
than to implement all the features for the current news-server? it'll 
also fix the currently broken web interface for the NG.

Feb 02 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

Yigal Chripun wrote:
 I've thought about building such a system for these forums many times.
 Registration would not be required to post, but registering would enable
 features like voting on posts, establishing a profile, preferences, etc.


 That sounds awesome. Another useful feature would be storing session 
 info in the profile such that if I read a post at work the post will be 
 marked as such when I use a different computer/news-reader like my home PC.


Yup. What I hate about reddit/slashdot/ycombinator is there's no way to 
mark ones I've read as read. On a long thread, it's really hard to see 
if there's anything new.


 wouldn't it be easier to just use web forums (there are many existing 
 system with all the bells and whistles) and write a news-gateway for it 
 than to implement all the features for the current news-server? it'll 
 also fix the currently broken web interface for the NG.


They all suck. Sorry.

Most use far too much vertical space, spreading the thread out over 
multiple pages, or don't indent a threaded view. And *none* of them have 
the ability to mark what you've read.

Feb 02 2010

Lutger <lutger.blijdestijn gmail.com> writes:

On 02/03/2010 02:42 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 I've thought about building such a system for these forums many times.
 Registration would not be required to post, but registering would enable
 features like voting on posts, establishing a profile, preferences, etc.


 That sounds awesome. Another useful feature would be storing session
 info in the profile such that if I read a post at work the post will
 be marked as such when I use a different computer/news-reader like my
 home PC.


 Yup. What I hate about reddit/slashdot/ycombinator is there's no way to
 mark ones I've read as read. On a long thread, it's really hard to see
 if there's anything new.


 wouldn't it be easier to just use web forums (there are many existing
 system with all the bells and whistles) and write a news-gateway for
 it than to implement all the features for the current news-server?
 it'll also fix the currently broken web interface for the NG.


 They all suck. Sorry.

 Most use far too much vertical space, spreading the thread out over
 multiple pages, or don't indent a threaded view. And *none* of them have
 the ability to mark what you've read.


I know that at least vBulletin and phpBB can do mark-as-read, it's just 
that not everybody uses it. Most of the more 'advanced' forum software 
like this however, is stacked with community features and geared towards 
markup heavy posting. They would require extensive hacking to adapt to a 
more efficient system.

vBulletin also has a (sucky) threaded view btw.

Feb 02 2010

Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:

On 03/02/2010 09:19, Lutger wrote:
 On 02/03/2010 02:42 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 I've thought about building such a system for these forums many times.
 Registration would not be required to post, but registering would
 enable
 features like voting on posts, establishing a profile, preferences,
 etc.


 That sounds awesome. Another useful feature would be storing session
 info in the profile such that if I read a post at work the post will
 be marked as such when I use a different computer/news-reader like my
 home PC.


 Yup. What I hate about reddit/slashdot/ycombinator is there's no way to
 mark ones I've read as read. On a long thread, it's really hard to see
 if there's anything new.


 wouldn't it be easier to just use web forums (there are many existing
 system with all the bells and whistles) and write a news-gateway for
 it than to implement all the features for the current news-server?
 it'll also fix the currently broken web interface for the NG.


 They all suck. Sorry.

 Most use far too much vertical space, spreading the thread out over
 multiple pages, or don't indent a threaded view. And *none* of them have
 the ability to mark what you've read.


 I know that at least vBulletin and phpBB can do mark-as-read, it's just
 that not everybody uses it. Most of the more 'advanced' forum software
 like this however, is stacked with community features and geared towards
 markup heavy posting. They would require extensive hacking to adapt to a
 more efficient system.

 vBulletin also has a (sucky) threaded view btw.


that's the beauty of the proposal, you don't have to use the web forum 
interface. you'll continue using your favorite news-reader which will 
use the forum back-end to store the messages. all those dis-advantages 
both you and Walter mention are in the web forum's UI, not their back-end.

also, I found http://pessoal.org/papercut/ which implements a NTTP 
server gateway to phpBB and other back-ends. it's written in python and 
would be easy to enhance.

also, I want to emphasize, you can also post with that gateway and it is 
not only for reading.

Feb 03 2010

Mike Parker <aldacron gmail.com> writes:

Walter Bright wrote:
 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 I've thought about building such a system for these forums many times.
 Registration would not be required to post, but registering would enable
 features like voting on posts, establishing a profile, preferences, etc.


 That sounds awesome. Another useful feature would be storing session 
 info in the profile such that if I read a post at work the post will 
 be marked as such when I use a different computer/news-reader like my 
 home PC.


 Yup. What I hate about reddit/slashdot/ycombinator is there's no way to 
 mark ones I've read as read. On a long thread, it's really hard to see 
 if there's anything new.
 
 
 wouldn't it be easier to just use web forums (there are many existing 
 system with all the bells and whistles) and write a news-gateway for 
 it than to implement all the features for the current news-server? 
 it'll also fix the currently broken web interface for the NG.


 They all suck. Sorry.
 
 Most use far too much vertical space, spreading the thread out over 
 multiple pages, or don't indent a threaded view. And *none* of them have 
 the ability to mark what you've read.


Most of the web forums I use can be configured per user to determine how 
many threads to show on one page, or how many posts to show in the 
thread per page. All of the popular forums these days have features to 
mark posts as read, mark all read, show posts since last visit, and so 
on. My particular favorite is SMF[1].

FWIW, this is the only set of newsgroups I read. In fact, I thought I 
had unsubscribed from my last newsgroup in the late 90s, and was a bit 
miffed to see that D didn't have a mailing list when I first stumbled 
across it. All of the other development communities I'm interested in 
offer mailing lists or web forums. I particularly like mailing lists, 
since I use GMail. It makes a world of difference. Searching through 
these newsgroups can be aggravating. If we could get on Google Groups 
I'd have less to gripe about.

IMO, newsgroups should just die. But I seem to be in the minority here.

Feb 03 2010

"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:

"Mike Parker" <aldacron gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:hkbc7f$2b8$1 digitalmars.com...
 Walter Bright wrote:
 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 I've thought about building such a system for these forums many times.
 Registration would not be required to post, but registering would 
 enable
 features like voting on posts, establishing a profile, preferences, 
 etc.


 That sounds awesome. Another useful feature would be storing session 
 info in the profile such that if I read a post at work the post will be 
 marked as such when I use a different computer/news-reader like my home 
 PC.


 Yup. What I hate about reddit/slashdot/ycombinator is there's no way to 
 mark ones I've read as read. On a long thread, it's really hard to see if 
 there's anything new.


 wouldn't it be easier to just use web forums (there are many existing 
 system with all the bells and whistles) and write a news-gateway for it 
 than to implement all the features for the current news-server? it'll 
 also fix the currently broken web interface for the NG.


 They all suck. Sorry.

 Most use far too much vertical space, spreading the thread out over 
 multiple pages, or don't indent a threaded view. And *none* of them have 
 the ability to mark what you've read.


 Most of the web forums I use can be configured per user to determine how 
 many threads to show on one page, or how many posts to show in the thread 
 per page. All of the popular forums these days have features to mark posts 
 as read, mark all read, show posts since last visit, and so on. My 
 particular favorite is SMF[1].

 FWIW, this is the only set of newsgroups I read. In fact, I thought I had 
 unsubscribed from my last newsgroup in the late 90s, and was a bit miffed 
 to see that D didn't have a mailing list when I first stumbled across it. 
 All of the other development communities I'm interested in offer mailing 
 lists or web forums. I particularly like mailing lists, since I use GMail. 
 It makes a world of difference. Searching through these newsgroups can be 
 aggravating. If we could get on Google Groups I'd have less to gripe 
 about.

 IMO, newsgroups should just die. But I seem to be in the minority here.


About 95% of the time I come across something where the only community 
option is a mailing list, I just flat-out refuse to bother. The few times 
I've caved were when I really, truly *needed* to. I have no problem with 
newsgroups or web forums, they both have their pros and cons IMO. But I 
absolutely can't tolerate mailing lists, they're so absolutely horrid.

Feb 03 2010

Gareth Charnock <gareth oerc.ox.ac.uk> writes:

Mike Parker wrote:
 Walter Bright wrote:
 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 I've thought about building such a system for these forums many times.
 Registration would not be required to post, but registering would 
 enable
 features like voting on posts, establishing a profile, preferences, 
 etc.


 That sounds awesome. Another useful feature would be storing session 
 info in the profile such that if I read a post at work the post will 
 be marked as such when I use a different computer/news-reader like my 
 home PC.


 Yup. What I hate about reddit/slashdot/ycombinator is there's no way 
 to mark ones I've read as read. On a long thread, it's really hard to 
 see if there's anything new.


 wouldn't it be easier to just use web forums (there are many existing 
 system with all the bells and whistles) and write a news-gateway for 
 it than to implement all the features for the current news-server? 
 it'll also fix the currently broken web interface for the NG.


 They all suck. Sorry.

 Most use far too much vertical space, spreading the thread out over 
 multiple pages, or don't indent a threaded view. And *none* of them 
 have the ability to mark what you've read.


 Most of the web forums I use can be configured per user to determine how 
 many threads to show on one page, or how many posts to show in the 
 thread per page. All of the popular forums these days have features to 
 mark posts as read, mark all read, show posts since last visit, and so 
 on. My particular favorite is SMF[1].
 
 FWIW, this is the only set of newsgroups I read. In fact, I thought I 
 had unsubscribed from my last newsgroup in the late 90s, and was a bit 
 miffed to see that D didn't have a mailing list when I first stumbled 
 across it. All of the other development communities I'm interested in 
 offer mailing lists or web forums. I particularly like mailing lists, 
 since I use GMail. It makes a world of difference. Searching through 
 these newsgroups can be aggravating. If we could get on Google Groups 
 I'd have less to gripe about.
 
 IMO, newsgroups should just die. But I seem to be in the minority here.


Just a quick perspective from someone new here. The fact that things 
were done though newsgroups did put me off for a while (I read the 
though the website and tried the language - D is a fantastic idea BTW - 
but I didn't look at the newsgroups for quite a while because newsgroups 
were before my time).

I actually like the newsgroup format (more than modern web forums) now 
that I've gone to the trouble of setting up Thunderbrid but I guess they 
did put me off initially.

Well, that's one data point for you.

Feb 05 2010

BCS <none anon.com> writes:

Hello Gareth,


 I actually like the newsgroup format (more than modern web forums) now
 that I've gone to the trouble of setting up Thunderbrid but I guess
 they did put me off initially.
 
 Well, that's one data point for you.
 


I've said it before, but I might as well say it again; I'm of the same opinion, 
News groups are my first choice for online communities. I think the primary 
reasons for this is that it 1) doesn't require me to keep hitting refresh, 
2) works offline and 3) allows me to use whatever interface I darn well choose.

If D were to quit providing a NNTP interface, I'd loose interest in
participating 
in these discussions. Heck, (HINT, HINT, HINT) the fact that Tango has a 
forum rather than a news group is half or more of the reason I don't use it.

--

<IXOYE><

Feb 05 2010

"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:

"BCS" <none anon.com> wrote in message 
news:a6268fffef38cc745343a814d6 news.digitalmars.com...
 Hello Gareth,


 I actually like the newsgroup format (more than modern web forums) now
 that I've gone to the trouble of setting up Thunderbrid but I guess
 they did put me off initially.




I had the same exact experience. Initially put off, but then learned to love 
it.


 Well, that's one data point for you.


 I've said it before, but I might as well say it again; I'm of the same 
 opinion, News groups are my first choice for online communities. I think 
 the primary reasons for this is that it 1) doesn't require me to keep 
 hitting refresh, 2) works offline and 3) allows me to use whatever 
 interface I darn well choose.


As much as I love newsgroups, and agree with their definite advanages, there 
are a few areas where I think web forums do still have an advantage:

- Private messaging without the bother of first having to request or offer a 
real email address, and then post it publicly.

- Actual user accounts. Anonymous reading/posting is great, and many web 
forums can still do that anyway, but they can also have real user accounts 
to, for example, prevent posters from pretending to be someone else. I 
rather like user profiles, too (although they're certainly not strictly 
necessary).

- Anonymous posting restricted by CAPTCHA.

- No standard URI system for individual newsgroup threads or postings. Best 
that can be done is to go find a web-reader, search for the post you were 
already on in your regular newsgroup reader, and post that link, then the 
people who come across it have to look at it and then search for the same 
post in their own reader (or put up with using something other than their 
normal reader). With web forums, it's easy to have plain old URL bookmarks 
for each post.

- A lot of times when people point others to a newsgroup, they fail to 
mention what server it's on.

Many of the above things can't be done with the current newsgroup protocol.

Feb 05 2010

=?UTF-8?B?IkrDqXLDtG1lIE0uIEJlcmdlciI=?= <jeberger free.fr> writes:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Nick Sabalausky wrote:
 - Actual user accounts. Anonymous reading/posting is great, and many we=


 forums can still do that anyway, but they can also have real user accou=


 to, for example, prevent posters from pretending to be someone else. I =


 rather like user profiles, too (although they're certainly not strictly=


 necessary).
=20


*do* have user accounts and require a valid account either only for
posting or for posting and reading...

		Jerome

PS: Plus, if everybody signed their messages, there would be no
chance of someone impersonating someone else...
--=20
mailto:jeberger free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger jabber.fr

Feb 05 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

BCS wrote:
 If D were to quit providing a NNTP interface, I'd loose interest in 
 participating in these discussions. Heck, (HINT, HINT, HINT) the fact 
 that Tango has a forum rather than a news group is half or more of the 
 reason I don't use it.


I love the news interface, too, and see no reason to give it up. But the 
web forums have their advantages, too. That's why I'd like to have a 
system that is accessible from both. Post on the web forum, and it is 
also posted to NNTP, and vice versa.

Feb 05 2010

dsimcha <dsimcha yahoo.com> writes:

== Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article
 I love the news interface, too, and see no reason to give it up. But the
 web forums have their advantages, too. That's why I'd like to have a
 system that is accessible from both. Post on the web forum, and it is
 also posted to NNTP, and vice versa.


Doesn't your web-based PHP news reader pretty much fill this void?

Feb 05 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

dsimcha wrote:
 == Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article
 I love the news interface, too, and see no reason to give it up. But the
 web forums have their advantages, too. That's why I'd like to have a
 system that is accessible from both. Post on the web forum, and it is
 also posted to NNTP, and vice versa.


 Doesn't your web-based PHP news reader pretty much fill this void?


Yes, except that it sucks.

Feb 05 2010

Bane <branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com> writes:

Walter Bright Wrote:

 dsimcha wrote:
 == Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article
 I love the news interface, too, and see no reason to give it up. But the
 web forums have their advantages, too. That's why I'd like to have a
 system that is accessible from both. Post on the web forum, and it is
 also posted to NNTP, and vice versa.


 Doesn't your web-based PHP news reader pretty much fill this void?


 Yes, except that it sucks.


FWIW, I like how it sucks.

Feb 05 2010

dsimcha <dsimcha yahoo.com> writes:

== Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article
 dsimcha wrote:
 == Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article
 I love the news interface, too, and see no reason to give it up. But the
 web forums have their advantages, too. That's why I'd like to have a
 system that is accessible from both. Post on the web forum, and it is
 also posted to NNTP, and vice versa.


 Doesn't your web-based PHP news reader pretty much fill this void?




What sucks about it?  It's what I use because I'm too lazy to set up a real news
reader.  I have no issues with it.

Feb 06 2010

Roman Ivanov <isroman-del ete-km.ru> writes:

On 2/6/2010 10:21 AM, dsimcha wrote:
 == Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article
 dsimcha wrote:
 == Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article
 I love the news interface, too, and see no reason to give it up. But the
 web forums have their advantages, too. That's why I'd like to have a
 system that is accessible from both. Post on the web forum, and it is
 also posted to NNTP, and vice versa.


 Doesn't your web-based PHP news reader pretty much fill this void?




 What sucks about it?  It's what I use because I'm too lazy to set up a real
news
 reader.  I have no issues with it.


It doesn't do a good job of keeping all messages in a thread together.
And it's extremely slow sometimes.

Feb 06 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

dsimcha wrote:
 == Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article
 dsimcha wrote:
 == Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article
 I love the news interface, too, and see no reason to give it up. But the
 web forums have their advantages, too. That's why I'd like to have a
 system that is accessible from both. Post on the web forum, and it is
 also posted to NNTP, and vice versa.






 What sucks about it?  It's what I use because I'm too lazy to set up a real
news
 reader.  I have no issues with it.



It doesn't take advantage of being a web based interface.

Feb 06 2010

Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:

On 06/02/2010 05:11, Walter Bright wrote:
 BCS wrote:
 If D were to quit providing a NNTP interface, I'd loose interest in
 participating in these discussions. Heck, (HINT, HINT, HINT) the fact
 that Tango has a forum rather than a news group is half or more of the
 reason I don't use it.


 I love the news interface, too, and see no reason to give it up. But the
 web forums have their advantages, too. That's why I'd like to have a
 system that is accessible from both. Post on the web forum, and it is
 also posted to NNTP, and vice versa.


Walter, Please take a look at FUDForum. It's a web forum with NNTP 
support built in.
all you need to do is to add a cron job and it'll keep the forum 
synchronized with NNTP. the cron job imports from NNTP to the forum and 
updates it and the forum will post to NNTP on behalf of the forum users.

I've tried it on my PC and it works great. I've imported everything from 
news.digitalmars.com and when I posted to my local forum, it immediately 
also showed my message with my e-mail on the NG.

Also, I've found a simple NNTP server written in python that has modular 
back-end support so it can be set-up to provide a bi-directional NNTP 
interface for various web forums.

Feb 06 2010

Lutger <lutger.blijdestijn gmail.com> writes:

On 02/06/2010 01:58 PM, Yigal Chripun wrote:
...
 Also, I've found a simple NNTP server written in python that has modular
 back-end support so it can be set-up to provide a bi-directional NNTP
 interface for various web forums.


What is the name / link?

Thanks

Feb 06 2010

Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:

On 06/02/2010 15:23, Lutger wrote:
 On 02/06/2010 01:58 PM, Yigal Chripun wrote:
 ...
 Also, I've found a simple NNTP server written in python that has modular
 back-end support so it can be set-up to provide a bi-directional NNTP
 interface for various web forums.


 What is the name / link?

 Thanks


Papercut -  http://pessoal.org/papercut/

Feb 06 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

Yigal Chripun wrote:
 Walter, Please take a look at FUDForum.


I did, thanks for the reference. I think reddit blows it away for user 
interface. Fudforum has the usual problem with web forums of using too 
much vertical space, meaning you have a hard time keeping track of where 
you are in a thread.

Feb 06 2010

Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:

On 06/02/2010 23:42, Walter Bright wrote:
 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 Walter, Please take a look at FUDForum.


 I did, thanks for the reference. I think reddit blows it away for user
 interface. Fudforum has the usual problem with web forums of using too
 much vertical space, meaning you have a hard time keeping track of where
 you are in a thread.


Did you try switching to the tree view? It looks almost like reddit, IMO.
Also, you can't really evaluate a web-forum by just looking at their 
online forum, Did you try installing a local copy and experiment with it?
all modern web forums are completely customizable via template systems 
and themes, but you need to be an admin to see that. Basically you can 
change the entire UI by changing the template.

Feb 06 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

Yigal Chripun wrote:
 On 06/02/2010 23:42, Walter Bright wrote:
 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 Walter, Please take a look at FUDForum.


 I did, thanks for the reference. I think reddit blows it away for user
 interface. Fudforum has the usual problem with web forums of using too
 much vertical space, meaning you have a hard time keeping track of where
 you are in a thread.


 Did you try switching to the tree view? It looks almost like reddit, IMO.


I'm looking at it now. It looks nothing like reddit, to me. Reddit shows 
all the post contents in a threaded, indented manner.


 Also, you can't really evaluate a web-forum by just looking at their 
 online forum, Did you try installing a local copy and experiment with it?
 all modern web forums are completely customizable via template systems 
 and themes, but you need to be an admin to see that. Basically you can 
 change the entire UI by changing the template.


Spending many hours working adminning it is a problem for me, as I need 
to prioritize my time to get D2 done.

Basically, I think reddit has the best forum interface, by far, except 
that you cannot mark posts as "read", meaning you cannot quickly scan 
for new posts. The other problem reddit has is no NNTP interface. If it 
had those two features, I'd think it was worth the effort to install it 
on the Digital Mars server.

Reddit has very efficient use of vertical space, meaning I can fit a lot 
on one page, which is very nice for extensive threads. I like the voting 
on various messages, meaning I can do a quick scan for the important ones.

For another example, a simple two word message on FUDForum consumes 2 
inches of vertical space. The same on Reddit consumes 3/4 inch.

Feb 06 2010

Roman Ivanov <isroman-del ete-km.ru> writes:

On 2/6/2010 5:33 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 On 06/02/2010 23:42, Walter Bright wrote:
 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 Walter, Please take a look at FUDForum.


 I did, thanks for the reference. I think reddit blows it away for user
 interface. Fudforum has the usual problem with web forums of using too
 much vertical space, meaning you have a hard time keeping track of where
 you are in a thread.


 Did you try switching to the tree view? It looks almost like reddit, IMO.


 I'm looking at it now. It looks nothing like reddit, to me. Reddit shows
 all the post contents in a threaded, indented manner.


There is a lot of wisdom in linear threads. In my experience they work
better than tree-like interfaces for larger discussions.

Here is why. A linear thread extends only at one point - messages are
added at the end. So when you try to keep track of some discussion, you
only need to keep track of one thing: the last message you have read.

In a tree-like forum, a discussion can be extended at any point, and the
bigger the thread grows, the more points there are. It's more difficult
to keep track of, and it's /much/ more difficult to see the "current"
state of an entire discussion that you haven't read from the start. You
can't just read the last 10-20 messages, because they could be from
entirely different, unrelated branches. Linear threads insure that users
are on the same page of a topic, both figuratively and literally.

Also, with a threaded interface topic indexes are much less useful. You
can't just look at topic titles and say "ah-ha, that interesting
conversation I've read yesterday has more replies," because a topic can
be bumped by any of its branches.

 For another example, a simple two word message on FUDForum consumes 2
 inches of vertical space. The same on Reddit consumes 3/4 inch.


This can be tweaked, usually. I agree that a forum shouldn't have a lot
of useless fluff around messages (like image signatures), but it works
only up to a certain limit. I mean, cramming 200 posts onto one page is
not a very good idea either.

Besides, reddit doesn't seem to be a place for in-depth discussions with
long posts and some kind of common "topic state" that changes over time.
Its interface is customized for short comments that are both quickly
posted and quickly forgotten. Or am I wrong about this one?

Feb 06 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

Roman Ivanov wrote:
 In a tree-like forum, a discussion can be extended at any point, and the
 bigger the thread grows, the more points there are. It's more difficult
 to keep track of, and it's /much/ more difficult to see the "current"
 state of an entire discussion that you haven't read from the start. You
 can't just read the last 10-20 messages, because they could be from
 entirely different, unrelated branches. Linear threads insure that users
 are on the same page of a topic, both figuratively and literally.



With a competent newsreader, this is no trouble at all. Read message 
subjects are greyed, so there's no problem seeing the current state. 
With the linear ones, I often have trouble figuring out what people are 
replying to.

Feb 06 2010

Roman Ivanov <isroman-del ete-km.ru> writes:

On 2/6/2010 10:33 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
 Roman Ivanov wrote:
 In a tree-like forum, a discussion can be extended at any point, and the
 bigger the thread grows, the more points there are. It's more difficult
 to keep track of, and it's /much/ more difficult to see the "current"
 state of an entire discussion that you haven't read from the start. You
 can't just read the last 10-20 messages, because they could be from
 entirely different, unrelated branches. Linear threads insure that users
 are on the same page of a topic, both figuratively and literally.


 With a competent newsreader, this is no trouble at all. Read message
 subjects are greyed, so there's no problem seeing the current state.


Still, every time two or more people decide to answer to the same
message, they inadvertently create new thread branches. To read new
replies (which are usually all over the place) you need to keep
switching contexts. I'd say the only reason it's manageable is because
of massive embedded quotes.

With a linear thread, you can respond to several posts with just one
message. Even better, you can respond to an entire thread without using
quotations at all, so it is possible to have something akin to a
real-life conversation with several people.

Feb 07 2010

BCS <none anon.com> writes:

Hello Roman,

I guess you and I have massively different opinions on this because I see 
it exactly the other way.

 Still, every time two or more people decide to answer to the same
 message, they inadvertently create new thread branches.


The linear mode prevents each reply from becoming it's own branch.

 To read new
 replies (which are usually all over the place) you need to keep
 switching contexts.


The linear model presents replies in such an order that more often than not 
sequential posts are not on the same context so I have to, more often than 
not, switch contexts for every single reply.

 I'd say the only reason it's manageable is because
 of massive embedded quotes.


In a tree mode, quoting is only *needed* indicating what part of a post you 
are replying to. In the linear mode quoting is *needed* just to give context 
if you reply to anything BUT the tail end of the thread.

What people actually *do* is a social problem, not a technical one.

 
 With a linear thread, you can respond to several posts with just one
 message. Even better, you can respond to an entire thread without
 using quotations at all,


OK, I'll give you that one.

 so it is possible to have something akin to a
 real-life conversation with several people.
 


One of the things I LIKE about NGs are that they DON'T have that aspect
(anything 
said is implicitly in reply to only the most recent context) of real-life 
conversations. Unless you are trying to prevent long detailed dialog (and 
there are good reasons to do that in some contexts), intentionally bringing 
that in is just stupid.




As a side note, I see an interesting analogy between this conversation and 
memory models in CPUs: IIRC, the older CPUs enforced a total order on memory 
operations but as the latency on operations grew relative to the latency 
on local operations, the models started refusing to enforce a total order 
but rather only enforced a partial order. I see a similar situation here. 
Chat protocols (IRC) expect near-real-time response loops out of the user 
and can get away with a nearly pure linear model. offline protocols like 
newsgroups and e-mail expect that some users might not even see a post before 
others have cycled several times through their response loop. Those protocols 
generally present only a partial order.


--
<IXOYE><

Feb 07 2010

BCS <none anon.com> writes:

Hello Roman,

I disagree:

 Here is why. A linear thread extends only at one point - messages are
 added at the end.


I see this as a down side. That is because having messages only added at 
the end means that the only information I get aside from the content is
chronological 
order. I can't see what stuff is in reply to.

 So when you try to keep track of some discussion,
 you only need to keep track of one thing: the last message you have
 read.


My NG reader (and every non-web interface I've ever seen) keeps track of 
what I've read for me. That is not a problem that I care about.

 
 In a tree-like forum, a discussion can be extended at any point, and
 the bigger the thread grows, the more points there are.


I see this as a good thing.

 It's more
 difficult to keep track of, and it's /much/ more difficult to see the
 "current" state of an entire discussion that you haven't read from the
 start. 


You may be right about see the current state but I think this is because 
a tree thread system doesn't have *A* current state, it has many. And despite 
mental overhead I, again, think that is a good thing

 You can't just read the last 10-20 messages, because they could
 be from entirely different, unrelated branches. Linear threads insure
 that users are on the same page of a topic, both figuratively and
 literally.


Why would I want to artificially constrain a discussion (one that involves 
up to dozens of people and response loops >24hr long) to a single line of 
thought? I like the tree model /because/ it allows "entirely different,
unrelated 
branches". (Keep in mind that the 4-6 most interesting threads I can remember 
on this NG where not on the original topic of the thread)

 
 Also, with a threaded interface topic indexes are much less useful.
 You can't just look at topic titles and say "ah-ha, that interesting
 conversation I've read yesterday has more replies," because a topic
 can be bumped by any of its branches.


I see the issue you cite as more of a problem in the linear model because 
I can't tell what conversation in a thread has new replies. I have a view 
that shows only the portions of the trees that are unread By looking at the 
author and the root unread post I can decide if I care about that subtree. 
If not I can mark it as read and go on to the next subtree. 

I'll grant that for some of that, you /might/ have a point for pure web based 
forums. But that's like complaining that a steering wheel is a miserable 
way to use your feet to steer a car. Newsgroups were not and are not intended 
for use from a web browser. If someone can replicate the intended interface 
in a browser, all the better but please don't complain that it does a bad 
job of something it isn't supposed to be good at.


--
<IXOYE><

Feb 06 2010

BCS <none anon.com> writes:

Hello Walter,

 BCS wrote:
 
 If D were to quit providing a NNTP interface, I'd loose interest in
 participating in these discussions. Heck, (HINT, HINT, HINT) the fact
 that Tango has a forum rather than a news group is half or more of
 the reason I don't use it.
 


 the web forums have their advantages, too. That's why I'd like to have
 a system that is accessible from both. Post on the web forum, and it
 is also posted to NNTP, and vice versa.
 


Re cast that a bit and I'll agree; I have never seen anything I like in a 
web forum that wouldn't also be in a well done web front end to a newsgroup. 
(In other words, the only thing that forums have over basic newsgroups that 
I see as an advantage, is the fact they don't /require/ a thick client.)

--
<IXOYE><

Feb 06 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

retard wrote:
 It's interesting to see that even though modern web page/app developers 
 have spent enormous effort on usability issues, techies still don't like 
 it. The sad fact is that web forums are more or less a poor copy of the 
 good old usenet newsgroups. The new format requires more bandwidth and 
 server capacity, has more security holes, and all kinds of other issues 
 (larger latencies, all kinds of retards posting spam, the apps don't 
 appear in my start menu). Almost all network capable applications I use 
 deal with other protocols than the web 2.0 crap - irc, nntp, torrent, 
 rtsp, sip, smtp/imap, ssh, nx, etc.



NNTP isn't new or sexy or "web 2.0". It is very utilitarian, though. 
That aspect appeals to techies.

I like that in cars, too <g>. I like the old cars with no options.

I had a car once with modern, computer-controlled heater system in it. 
The damn thing was a nuisance, as it was always overriding my commands. 
I took it to the dealer because it simply wouldn't blow hot air out the 
vents, regardless of how hot the engine was. The dealer said the system 
wouldn't do that because it would make the driver sleepy. 
Gawddammittohell, the reason I wanted it to blow hot air was to keep the 
windshield free of condensation.

I no longer have that car, and don't miss it. My old truck blows hot air 
when I need it to. The hand-cranked windows go up and down, too, unlike 
the gawddammed electric ones which always fail in the down position. 
I've had 4 cars with electric windows and 3 of them failed.

Oh yeah, and the brakes work, too, instantly when I push on them, unlike 
the current <cough cough> computer controlled ones in the news. And if 
the throttle got stuck, I just step on the clutch & brake. BFD. I can't 
believe Toyota's engine off switch takes 3 seconds to respond. Off 
switches must work instantly.

Okay, enough of the old guy rant!

Feb 05 2010

BCS <none anon.com> writes:

Hello Walter,

 And if the throttle got stuck, I just step on the clutch & brake. BFD.


I was once chatting with some guys building a race car: in that class you 
were required to have a gas peddle that had a toe strap and a push/pull cable 
so, even if the throttle return spring got stuck, you could still close it. 
There is something to be said for belt and suspenders approaches to safety!

--
<IXOYE><

Feb 06 2010

BCS <none anon.com> writes:

Hello Walter,

 And if the throttle got stuck, I just step on the clutch & brake. BFD.


I was once chatting with some guys building a race car: in that class you 
were required to have a gas peddle that had a toe strap and a push/pull cable 
so, even if the throttle return spring got stuck, you could still close it. 
There is something to be said for belt and suspenders approaches to safety!

--
<IXOYE><

Feb 06 2010

Roman Ivanov <isroman-del ete-km.ru> writes:

On 2/5/2010 11:52 AM, retard wrote:
 The sad fact is that web forums are more or less a poor copy of the 
 good old usenet newsgroups. The new format requires more bandwidth and 
 server capacity


That's a questionable statement. Yes, in a forums you re-download the
same posts several times. However, in a newsgroup you download them as
well - inside quotes.

Web forums also much more flexible, and have many more features than
news groups. You can do formatting, post inline images and proper
hyperlinks for starters. You can easily access them from public
computers. Also, the developers can extend their functionality based on
the topic, like adding tags for code folding and laguage-specific
highlighting. People can edit their posts if they make a mistake.
Administrators can delete messages. I can go on and on with this list.

In short, if the forum is properly designed, the difference in bandwidth
is small, while the difference in functionality is enormous.

I'd probably agree if you said that HTML and HTTP should be replaced
with better, more modern and efficient protocols _with the same general
idea behind them_.

, has more security holes


That is not self-evident either. Unless I'm missing something, anyone
can post under anyone's name here.

 , all kinds of retards posting spam


I don't think the software is to blame for that. I mean, yes, software
does have an effect on the kind of people who use it, but there is
nothing inherent to web forums that attracts the lower grade of users.

Feb 06 2010

"Lars T. Kyllingstad" <public kyllingen.NOSPAMnet> writes:

Roman Ivanov wrote:
 On 2/5/2010 11:52 AM, retard wrote:
 The sad fact is that web forums are more or less a poor copy of the 
 good old usenet newsgroups. The new format requires more bandwidth and 
 server capacity


 That's a questionable statement. Yes, in a forums you re-download the
 same posts several times. However, in a newsgroup you download them as
 well - inside quotes.
 
 Web forums also much more flexible, and have many more features than
 news groups. You can do formatting, post inline images and proper
 hyperlinks for starters. You can easily access them from public
 computers. Also, the developers can extend their functionality based on
 the topic, like adding tags for code folding and laguage-specific
 highlighting. People can edit their posts if they make a mistake.
 Administrators can delete messages. I can go on and on with this list.


The best thing about the newsgroup interface is the lack of formatting 
and inline images!

-Lars

Feb 06 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

retard wrote:
 Any hacker can write a bot that posts spam on net. So they invented 
 CAPTCHA. Agreed, there's spam on newsgroups, too. I guess the largest 
 reason why these newsgroups have avoided all that is because Walter has 
 his private nntp server and nntp isn't widely used anymore.


We get spammed now and then, but it hasn't been unmanageable. One reason 
I stopped trying to get google to pick up the n.g. is because doing so 
would, I suspect, make us a spam magnet.

Feb 06 2010

Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:

retard wrote:
 Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:20:51 +0000, BCS wrote:
 
 Hello Gareth,


 I actually like the newsgroup format (more than modern web forums) now
 that I've gone to the trouble of setting up Thunderbrid but I guess
 they did put me off initially.

 Well, that's one data point for you.


 opinion, News groups are my first choice for online communities. I think
 the primary reasons for this is that it 1) doesn't require me to keep
 hitting refresh, 2) works offline and 3) allows me to use whatever
 interface I darn well choose.

 If D were to quit providing a NNTP interface, I'd loose interest in
 participating in these discussions. Heck, (HINT, HINT, HINT) the fact
 that Tango has a forum rather than a news group is half or more of the
 reason I don't use it.


 It's interesting to see that even though modern web page/app developers 
 have spent enormous effort on usability issues, techies still don't like 
 it. The sad fact is that web forums are more or less a poor copy of the 
 good old usenet newsgroups. The new format requires more bandwidth and 
 server capacity, has more security holes, and all kinds of other issues 
 (larger latencies, all kinds of retards posting spam,


Wait, what?

Andrei

Feb 06 2010

retard <re tard.com.invalid> writes:

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:20:51 +0000, BCS wrote:

 Hello Gareth,
 
 
 I actually like the newsgroup format (more than modern web forums) now
 that I've gone to the trouble of setting up Thunderbrid but I guess
 they did put me off initially.
 
 Well, that's one data point for you.
 
 


 opinion, News groups are my first choice for online communities. I think
 the primary reasons for this is that it 1) doesn't require me to keep
 hitting refresh, 2) works offline and 3) allows me to use whatever
 interface I darn well choose.
 
 If D were to quit providing a NNTP interface, I'd loose interest in
 participating in these discussions. Heck, (HINT, HINT, HINT) the fact
 that Tango has a forum rather than a news group is half or more of the
 reason I don't use it.


It's interesting to see that even though modern web page/app developers 
have spent enormous effort on usability issues, techies still don't like 
it. The sad fact is that web forums are more or less a poor copy of the 
good old usenet newsgroups. The new format requires more bandwidth and 
server capacity, has more security holes, and all kinds of other issues 
(larger latencies, all kinds of retards posting spam, the apps don't 
appear in my start menu). Almost all network capable applications I use 
deal with other protocols than the web 2.0 crap - irc, nntp, torrent, 
rtsp, sip, smtp/imap, ssh, nx, etc.

Feb 05 2010

"Steven E. Harris" <seh panix.com> writes:

Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:

 Walter, Please take a look at FUDForum. It's a web forum with NNTP
 support built in.


This mailing list is also hosted as a newsgroup on Gmane as

  gmane.comp.lang.d.general=C2=B9

which you can read via NNTP and a Web-based interface.


Footnotes:=20
=C2=B9 http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.d.general

--=20
Steven E. Harris

Feb 06 2010

retard <re tard.com.invalid> writes:

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:08:16 -0500, Roman Ivanov wrote:

 On 2/5/2010 11:52 AM, retard wrote:
 The sad fact is that web forums are more or less a poor copy of the
 good old usenet newsgroups. The new format requires more bandwidth and
 server capacity


 That's a questionable statement. Yes, in a forums you re-download the
 same posts several times. However, in a newsgroup you download them as
 well - inside quotes.


In nntp you only load each post once. In web forums you open the thread 
again and again - reloading the page each time. The document also becomes 
bloated because you need to wrap the text inside html elements. A pure 
xml based dsl would help here, but unfortunately web developers don't 
quite get it (e.g. <article> instead of <div id="article" 
style="foobar">).

I also have experiences with web forum software where the session ends 
before I finish my writing so I need to login twice, once to open the 
thread and second time to have permission to post my reply. If I don't 
relogin, the system might just ignore my post and because of these stupid 
ajax calls, I might not be able to go back to the message writing mode 
anymore. My whole message would be lost. Another web site on another tab 
might also crash the whole browser. So in reality I fire up a text editor 
and write my posts there when starting flame wars on the interwebs.

 
 Web forums also much more flexible, and have many more features than
 news groups. You can do formatting, post inline images and proper
 hyperlinks for starters. You can easily access them from public
 computers. Also, the developers can extend their functionality based on
 the topic, like adding tags for code folding and laguage-specific
 highlighting. People can edit their posts if they make a mistake.
 Administrators can delete messages. I can go on and on with this list.


Of course those forums are more flexible. But when you have simple 
bikeshedding going on, you rarely need all those. In case of D, the 
syntax often changes and proposals have syntactic contructs that aren't 
part of any language so those <code lang=foo></code> blocks become 
useless.

 
 In short, if the forum is properly designed, the difference in bandwidth
 is small, while the difference in functionality is enormous.
 
 I'd probably agree if you said that HTML and HTTP should be replaced
 with better, more modern and efficient protocols _with the same general
 idea behind them_.
 
, has more security holes


 That is not self-evident either. Unless I'm missing something, anyone
 can post under anyone's name here.


I meant nntp servers are rather reliable compared to e.g. php based web 
forum software. Software like phpbb have had terrible security holes. 
Some of the forum software even had plain text passwords some time ago 
when hackers pwned some popular servers.

 
 , all kinds of retards posting spam


 I don't think the software is to blame for that. I mean, yes, software
 does have an effect on the kind of people who use it, but there is
 nothing inherent to web forums that attracts the lower grade of users.


Any hacker can write a bot that posts spam on net. So they invented 
CAPTCHA. Agreed, there's spam on newsgroups, too. I guess the largest 
reason why these newsgroups have avoided all that is because Walter has 
his private nntp server and nntp isn't widely used anymore.

Feb 06 2010

dsimcha <dsimcha yahoo.com> writes:

== Quote from Jeff Nowakowski (jeff dilacero.org)'s article
 BCS wrote:
 Group = citizens of china
 controller = government of china

 for the case in question (this NG)

 group = people posting on NG
 controller = people in NG wanting someone banned.

 I see a difference


 you create a "controller" class in the newsgroup, they become the
 government.


The difference IMHO has nothing to do with how democratic the process is.  It
has
everything to do with the intention and with how much recourse the censored
person
has.  There are two differences between government censorship in a democracy and
censorship of a newsgroup:

1.  The former is meant to prevent the exchange of ideas that those in power
find
disagreeable or don't want to be exchanged.  The latter isn't intended to
**prevent** the exchange of any idea, only to improve the signal to noise ratio
by
mildly limiting **where** they can be expressed.

2.  If the government censors you, you don't have any recourse short of picking
up
your entire life and moving to a different country.  If a newsgroup mod censors
you, the barrier to posting whatever you want to post somewhere else is very
low.
 If noone reads it because you end up having to post it to alt.spam or
something,
well, freedom of speech doesn't mean people have to listen to you if they aren't
interested in what you have to say.

Feb 02 2010

BCS <none anon.com> writes:

Hello dsimcha,


 If noone reads it because you end up having to post it to alt.spam or
something,
 well, freedom of speech doesn't mean people have to listen to you if they 


 interested in what you have to say.


Vote++;

--

<IXOYE><

Feb 02 2010

Mike Parker <aldacron gmail.com> writes:

dsimcha wrote:
 == Quote from Jeff Nowakowski (jeff dilacero.org)'s article
 BCS wrote:
 Group = citizens of china
 controller = government of china

 for the case in question (this NG)

 group = people posting on NG
 controller = people in NG wanting someone banned.

 I see a difference


 you create a "controller" class in the newsgroup, they become the
 government.


 The difference IMHO has nothing to do with how democratic the process is.  It
has
 everything to do with the intention and with how much recourse the censored
person
 has.  There are two differences between government censorship in a democracy
and
 censorship of a newsgroup:
 
 1.  The former is meant to prevent the exchange of ideas that those in power
find
 disagreeable or don't want to be exchanged.  The latter isn't intended to
 **prevent** the exchange of any idea, only to improve the signal to noise
ratio by
 mildly limiting **where** they can be expressed.
 
 2.  If the government censors you, you don't have any recourse short of
picking up
 your entire life and moving to a different country.  If a newsgroup mod censors
 you, the barrier to posting whatever you want to post somewhere else is very
low.
  If noone reads it because you end up having to post it to alt.spam or
something,
 well, freedom of speech doesn't mean people have to listen to you if they
aren't
 interested in what you have to say.


And ultimately, Freedom of Speech is only applicable as far as it is 
enshrined in law. In the United States, it happens to be a 
constitutional amendment. But it specifically does not grant the right 
for people to say what they want, when they want, where they want. What 
it does is prohibit the federal government from placing any restrictions 
on speech, nothing more. So, in the United States at least, Freedom of 
Speech has no meaning in a newsgroup/online game/chat room, or whatever, 
other than that defined by the moderators/owners/maintainers.

And for the record, the United States is not a Democracy. It's a 
Republic. Though, it's often referred to as a Democratic Republic these 
days, since we have moved a bit closer to Democracy since the founding.

Feb 03 2010

"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:

"Mike Parker" <aldacron gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:hkbcjd$338$1 digitalmars.com...
 dsimcha wrote:
 == Quote from Jeff Nowakowski (jeff dilacero.org)'s article
 BCS wrote:
 Group = citizens of china
 controller = government of china

 for the case in question (this NG)

 group = people posting on NG
 controller = people in NG wanting someone banned.

 I see a difference


 you create a "controller" class in the newsgroup, they become the
 government.


 The difference IMHO has nothing to do with how democratic the process is. 
 It has
 everything to do with the intention and with how much recourse the 
 censored person
 has.  There are two differences between government censorship in a 
 democracy and
 censorship of a newsgroup:

 1.  The former is meant to prevent the exchange of ideas that those in 
 power find
 disagreeable or don't want to be exchanged.  The latter isn't intended to
 **prevent** the exchange of any idea, only to improve the signal to noise 
 ratio by
 mildly limiting **where** they can be expressed.

 2.  If the government censors you, you don't have any recourse short of 
 picking up
 your entire life and moving to a different country.  If a newsgroup mod 
 censors
 you, the barrier to posting whatever you want to post somewhere else is 
 very low.
  If noone reads it because you end up having to post it to alt.spam or 
 something,
 well, freedom of speech doesn't mean people have to listen to you if they 
 aren't
 interested in what you have to say.


 And ultimately, Freedom of Speech is only applicable as far as it is 
 enshrined in law. In the United States, it happens to be a constitutional 
 amendment. But it specifically does not grant the right for people to say 
 what they want, when they want, where they want. What it does is prohibit 
 the federal government from placing any restrictions on speech, nothing 
 more. So, in the United States at least, Freedom of Speech has no meaning 
 in a newsgroup/online game/chat room, or whatever, other than that defined 
 by the moderators/owners/maintainers.


Censorship and freedom of speech deal with overlapping, but subtly different 
things, although a lot of people don't realize it. Many people in the US are 
taught about the US's "freedom of speech" and how, like you said, it 
prevents the government from making restrictions on that. But then many of 
those people get confused and start thinking that means censorship isn't 
censorship unless it's specifically a government doing it, which of course 
is a load of bull.

Feb 03 2010

BCS <none anon.com> writes:

Hello Nick,

 But then many of those people get confused and start thinking that
 means censorship isn't censorship unless it's specifically a
 government doing it, which of course is a load of bull.
 



OK, then if you want to call other things censorship (and you may well be 
right to do so) I will say that the only cases where censorship is wrong 
*by default* is when the government is doing it. Anyone else who wants to 
control what is said in a venue they *own* should be (a few corner cases 
aside) free to do so.

--

<IXOYE><

Feb 03 2010

retard <re tard.com.invalid> writes:

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:20:19 -0500, Bane wrote:


 Except that you could argue that the government is censoring it for the
 people, thereby making it an outside force imposing control on the
 inside. Merriam-Webster's online definition would tend to go with the
 whole "outside force" idea:
 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censor . Generally speaking,
 censorship refers to one group cutting out or blocking material from
 coming into contact with another group, but you might be able to argue
 that it doesn't _have_ to be an outside force. Still, in any kind of
 normal use, it would be.
 
 - Jonathan M Davis


 Legal/moral mumbo jumbo. There are group with resources to provide/deny
 something to other groups, and there are those without that power.
 Reason for first to do it at first place? Same why dog licks his ass -
 because he can.
 
 So if admin of his mailing list can exercise his power to make it more
 useful to majority of readers on expense of few (troublesome)
 individuals, the better. Its not like anyone is going to gulag if placed
 on ban list, for fucks sake.


At least in this newsgroup it's easy to get into peoples' killfile. Just 
disagree with your beloved deitys, Andrei and W. A good way to piss them 
off is to mention dmd's broken support for tuples or .stringof, critizise 
the featuritis and language inconsistency, support Tango, or know 
something about functional languages.

Feb 02 2010

"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:

"retard" <re tard.com.invalid> wrote in message 
news:hk9vgn$f4r$3 digitalmars.com...
 Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:20:19 -0500, Bane wrote:


 Except that you could argue that the government is censoring it for the
 people, thereby making it an outside force imposing control on the
 inside. Merriam-Webster's online definition would tend to go with the
 whole "outside force" idea:
 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censor . Generally speaking,
 censorship refers to one group cutting out or blocking material from
 coming into contact with another group, but you might be able to argue
 that it doesn't _have_ to be an outside force. Still, in any kind of
 normal use, it would be.

 - Jonathan M Davis


 Legal/moral mumbo jumbo. There are group with resources to provide/deny
 something to other groups, and there are those without that power.
 Reason for first to do it at first place? Same why dog licks his ass -
 because he can.

 So if admin of his mailing list can exercise his power to make it more
 useful to majority of readers on expense of few (troublesome)
 individuals, the better. Its not like anyone is going to gulag if placed
 on ban list, for fucks sake.


 At least in this newsgroup it's easy to get into peoples' killfile. Just
 disagree with your beloved deitys, Andrei and W.


Meh, I've outright argued with both of them plenty of times.

Feb 02 2010

Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:

Nick Sabalausky wrote:
 "retard" <re tard.com.invalid> wrote in message 
 news:hk9vgn$f4r$3 digitalmars.com...
 Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:20:19 -0500, Bane wrote:


 Except that you could argue that the government is censoring it for the
 people, thereby making it an outside force imposing control on the
 inside. Merriam-Webster's online definition would tend to go with the
 whole "outside force" idea:
 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censor . Generally speaking,
 censorship refers to one group cutting out or blocking material from
 coming into contact with another group, but you might be able to argue
 that it doesn't _have_ to be an outside force. Still, in any kind of
 normal use, it would be.

 - Jonathan M Davis


 something to other groups, and there are those without that power.
 Reason for first to do it at first place? Same why dog licks his ass -
 because he can.

 So if admin of his mailing list can exercise his power to make it more
 useful to majority of readers on expense of few (troublesome)
 individuals, the better. Its not like anyone is going to gulag if placed
 on ban list, for fucks sake.


 disagree with your beloved deitys, Andrei and W.


 Meh, I've outright argued with both of them plenty of times.


I confirm Nick is not in my killfile :o).

Andrei

Feb 02 2010

"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:

"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
news:hka0h4$rl9$1 digitalmars.com...
 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
 "retard" <re tard.com.invalid> wrote in message 
 news:hk9vgn$f4r$3 digitalmars.com...
 Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:20:19 -0500, Bane wrote:


 Except that you could argue that the government is censoring it for 
 the
 people, thereby making it an outside force imposing control on the
 inside. Merriam-Webster's online definition would tend to go with the
 whole "outside force" idea:
 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censor . Generally speaking,
 censorship refers to one group cutting out or blocking material from
 coming into contact with another group, but you might be able to argue
 that it doesn't _have_ to be an outside force. Still, in any kind of
 normal use, it would be.

 - Jonathan M Davis


 something to other groups, and there are those without that power.
 Reason for first to do it at first place? Same why dog licks his ass -
 because he can.

 So if admin of his mailing list can exercise his power to make it more
 useful to majority of readers on expense of few (troublesome)
 individuals, the better. Its not like anyone is going to gulag if 
 placed
 on ban list, for fucks sake.


 disagree with your beloved deitys, Andrei and W.


 Meh, I've outright argued with both of them plenty of times.


 I confirm Nick is not in my killfile :o).

 Andrei


Considering some of our recent discussions, if I'm not in his killfile, it's 
probably blank ;)

Feb 02 2010

BCS <none anon.com> writes:

Hello retard,

 At least in this newsgroup it's easy to get into peoples' killfile.
 Just disagree with your beloved deitys, Andrei and W.


I think both of them are smart enough to figure out that if nobody here
disagree 
with them, then they shouldn't waste there time talking with us.

--

<IXOYE><

Feb 02 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

BCS wrote:
 I think both of them are smart enough to figure out that if nobody here 
 disagree with them, then they shouldn't waste there time talking with us.


Well, it is boring to talk to people who agree with you!

Feb 02 2010

Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:

Walter Bright wrote:
 BCS wrote:
 I think both of them are smart enough to figure out that if nobody 
 here disagree with them, then they shouldn't waste there time talking 
 with us.


 Well, it is boring to talk to people who agree with you!


And it's boring to always win.

Long time ago (before PC's) I bought a dedicated electronic chess game
and took it back to the store because I always beat it.  Though,
admittedly, these days I find it boring to always lose against
modern chess programs.

Feb 02 2010

"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:

"Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message 
news:hka8ju$1as2$1 digitalmars.com...
 Though,
 admittedly, these days I find it boring to always lose against
 modern chess programs.


That's one of the big reasons I lost interest in multiplayer FPSes. Getting 
fragged every three seconds gets old fast. And I'm sure as hell not good 
enough to do any better than that at it ;)

Feb 02 2010

Bane <branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com> writes:

Nick Sabalausky Wrote:

 "Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message 
 news:hka8ju$1as2$1 digitalmars.com...
 Though,
 admittedly, these days I find it boring to always lose against
 modern chess programs.


 That's one of the big reasons I lost interest in multiplayer FPSes. Getting 
 fragged every three seconds gets old fast. And I'm sure as hell not good 
 enough to do any better than that at it ;)

Feb 03 2010

Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:

Bane wrote:
 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:
 
 "Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message 
 news:hka8ju$1as2$1 digitalmars.com...
 Though,
 admittedly, these days I find it boring to always lose against
 modern chess programs.


 fragged every three seconds gets old fast. And I'm sure as hell not good 
 enough to do any better than that at it ;)


 


That's no fun.  It's like saying "choose thy enemy".

Feb 03 2010

"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:

"Bane" <branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:hkbqtb$rl2$1 digitalmars.com...
 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:

 "Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message
 news:hka8ju$1as2$1 digitalmars.com...
 Though,
 admittedly, these days I find it boring to always lose against
 modern chess programs.


 That's one of the big reasons I lost interest in multiplayer FPSes. 
 Getting
 fragged every three seconds gets old fast. And I'm sure as hell not good
 enough to do any better than that at it ;)


 might help >:D


Somehow I doubt it would help me ;)

(And actually, skill-based matchmaking didn't come around until after I lost 
interest anyway.)

Feb 03 2010

Daniel Keep <daniel.keep.lists gmail.com> writes:

Nick Sabalausky wrote:
 "Bane" <branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:hkbqtb$rl2$1 digitalmars.com...
 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:

 "Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message
 news:hka8ju$1as2$1 digitalmars.com...
 Though,
 admittedly, these days I find it boring to always lose against
 modern chess programs.


 Getting
 fragged every three seconds gets old fast. And I'm sure as hell not good
 enough to do any better than that at it ;)


 might help >:D




Wait... multiplayer games with difficulty settings?  Can't remember ever
seeing one of those.

 Somehow I doubt it would help me ;)
 
 (And actually, skill-based matchmaking didn't come around until after I lost 
 interest anyway.) 


It never works, anyway.

My brother picked up that FPS about fish... what was it?  COD 4: Modern
Warfare, or something.

Anyway.  First multiplayer game he ever played, the enemy team was
stacked with high-level players who could (and I kid you not) shoot and
see through walls.

You might think this was done via exploit.  You'd be wrong.  It's
actually how the game is designed.  People who have played longer are
matched against newbies and given weapons that mean said newbies cannot
possibly fight back.

And then the experienced players nuke your entire team and just win.

Oh, and they also appear to have a higher resistance to bullets.  You
know, just to rub it in.

Feb 03 2010

"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:

"Daniel Keep" <daniel.keep.lists gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:hkcsrv$2qis$1 digitalmars.com...
 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
 "Bane" <branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:hkbqtb$rl2$1 digitalmars.com...
 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:

 "Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message
 news:hka8ju$1as2$1 digitalmars.com...
 Though,
 admittedly, these days I find it boring to always lose against
 modern chess programs.


 Getting
 fragged every three seconds gets old fast. And I'm sure as hell not 
 good
 enough to do any better than that at it ;)


 might help >:D




 Wait... multiplayer games with difficulty settings?  Can't remember ever
 seeing one of those.


I miss when game difficulty settings had silly names like "For Granny's", 
etc. :)


 Somehow I doubt it would help me ;)

 (And actually, skill-based matchmaking didn't come around until after I 
 lost
 interest anyway.)


 It never works, anyway.


Ahh, that explains why it never seemed to help me the few times I've tried 
it. Although I wonder if it could be that there's just not many other 
newbies to play with (which in turn is probably because, like me, they 
quickly get frustrated and give up).

 My brother picked up that FPS about fish... what was it?  COD 4: Modern
 Warfare, or something.


Ha!

And this time I've been avoiding that series because I thought it was just 
another of those military-FPSes! (I really do miss the days of FPSes that 
had *creative* themes and didn't take themselves so damn seriously.)

I would totally pick up an FPS about cod. Or even salmon for that matter. 
(But not tuna, they're all so smug, thinking they're all great with their 
little tin cans, and their...umm, nevermind.)

 Anyway.  First multiplayer game he ever played, the enemy team was
 stacked with high-level players who could (and I kid you not) shoot and
 see through walls.

 You might think this was done via exploit.  You'd be wrong.  It's
 actually how the game is designed.  People who have played longer are
 matched against newbies and given weapons that mean said newbies cannot
 possibly fight back.

 And then the experienced players nuke your entire team and just win.

 Oh, and they also appear to have a higher resistance to bullets.  You
 know, just to rub it in.


Wow. Even more reason to miss the days of dialing up a buddy on a nice 
high-speed 14.4 or 28.8 for some Rise of The Triad goodness.

BTW: Regarding the nuking mechanic (first panel cracks me up): 
http://www.digitalunrestcomic.com/index.php?date=2009-11-02

Feb 03 2010

Ary Borenszweig <ary esperanto.org.ar> writes:

Walter Bright wrote:
 BCS wrote:
 I think both of them are smart enough to figure out that if nobody 
 here disagree with them, then they shouldn't waste there time talking 
 with us.


 Well, it is boring to talk to people who agree with you!


I agree.

Feb 02 2010

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

Ary Borenszweig wrote:
 Walter Bright wrote:
 BCS wrote:
 I think both of them are smart enough to figure out that if nobody 
 here disagree with them, then they shouldn't waste there time talking 
 with us.


 Well, it is boring to talk to people who agree with you!


 I agree.


(!)

Feb 02 2010

Ellery Newcomer <ellery-newcomer utulsa.edu> writes:

On 02/02/2010 06:50 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
 Ary Borenszweig wrote:
 Walter Bright wrote:
 BCS wrote:
 I think both of them are smart enough to figure out that if nobody
 here disagree with them, then they shouldn't waste there time
 talking with us.


 Well, it is boring to talk to people who agree with you!


 I agree.


 (!)


Shame on you, Walter; this conversation is supposed to be boring.

Feb 02 2010

"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:

"Ary Borenszweig" <ary esperanto.org.ar> wrote in message 
news:hka9v2$1cr3$1 digitalmars.com...
 Walter Bright wrote:
 BCS wrote:
 I think both of them are smart enough to figure out that if nobody here 
 disagree with them, then they shouldn't waste there time talking with 
 us.


 Well, it is boring to talk to people who agree with you!


 I agree.


Now I'm bored.

Feb 02 2010

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digitalmars.D - Re: TDPL a bad idea?