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Comment by Tomek_ | Hacker News Reader

Author tried a cheap trick of attracting audience by using a title of a big "shock-value". But the truth is not as bad as that title suggest: the most important thing about Google Groups, discussions that is, are not going anywhere, it's only "Files" and "Pages" features that are going to be trashed.

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Which is a big deal if you use this features. Plus, I run many groups and didn't know they were disabling these features, so they are not telling everyone about it.

The title is true. Some Data from Google Groups is going to be Destroyed. I don't think anyone would have read it to mean that all Google Groups Data will be destroyed. Some Files and Pages will certainly be valuable; it's not like "Google Groups Boring Data to be Destroyed."

> I don't think anyone would have read it to mean that all Google Groups Data will be destroyed.

Actually, that's exactly how I interpreted the headline.

Can we turn down this 'author-is-using-a-cheap-trick-to-attract-audience' volume around here. I don't think Bruce Eckel needs to attract audience so badly that he will do it purposefully. Granted, title is not reflective of the content but give the authors some benefit of the doubt. Let's do a quick Google search on authors before we write stuff like this.

You mean evaluate people based on who they are versus what they say? No thanks.

I interpreted the title to mean Google Groups was going away. I was not aware that there was a separate "data" concept.

That sounds like your lack of familarity with the software and not the author's showmanship.

If the title read: "Google Groups Shutting Down!" and they meant shutting down the pages and files part, then sure I'd see your argument. But literally all data in Google Groups will be destroyed. I actually thought the tittle meant his data was destroyed on his Google Group, much less all of them were being wiped. I think it is pretty big news.

> You mean evaluate people based on who they are versus what they say? No thanks.

I don't know. I usually find that knowing who people are often provides some context to what they are saying.

TFA has "data" in the title. You weren't aware of what it meant and jumped to a conclusion. I don't see how it follows that the author is being sensationalistic.

So you are saying basically, we should believe [some notable author] over our lying eyes?

For those who didn't use the features, here is how it looks like in one example:

http://groups.google.com/group/groovyplusplus

  (Discussions 1090 messages)
  (Pages 1 page)
  (Files 1 file)

Google announced: "we have decided to stop supporting the pages and files features." "Starting in November 2010, Groups will no longer allow the creation or editing of files and pages" "In February 2011, we will turn off the pages and files features, and you will no longer be able to access that content."

I read this article this morning and thought, "Oh they're removing some feature I don't even know exists.", but didn't want to comment on it worrying that maybe I really do use it and it is useful.

Then after reading your comment, I went to every Group I am subscribed to through Google Groups and couldn't find a single one that had a significant number of pages or files. The only group that did seem to use the feature is an old users group that has a very outdated iCal calendar and a group hackfest project from 2006 in a tarfile.

Maybe I'm missing the point here, but why should Google be forced to maintain and update a feature of one of their products that from my observation, no one uses? If anyone is a member of a group that does use this feature heavily, what kind of files and pages do you have tied to your group, and couldn't those be simply moved to a sites.google.com address?

If hacker Hacker News didn't remove the exclamation mark from the end of the title the shock-value could be even bigger :)

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