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Comment by SeanLuke | Hacker News Reader

This is a strangely rose-tinted view of Usenet. Usenet was a mess well before Eternal September. You can't talk about Usenet without talking about alt.*

After alt.* was inagurated, the very first group was (IIRC) alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork. Then there were alt.destroy.the.earth and alt.pave.the.earth, which were bitter enemies despite their opposition to alt.save.the.earth, because if you destroyed the earth there'd be nothing left to pave. Alt was also the home of the Big Seven sex groups, plus piracy in the alt.binaries groups. The talk.* groups had problems as well. Oh, and then there was alt.2600, which purposely had a moderator who rejected any and all postings: you had to hack USENET and assume moderator privileges to post there.

I think easily the closest thing we have nowadays to USENET is reddit. And, to be honest, if you average over its entire audience, it's more tame than USENET was.

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Yep, having been around for Usenet I don't find Reddit all that different. The main difference is the moderators I guess. But for all the stodgy work related groups on Usenet it was the alt.* groups that caught fire. Reddit is much the same, there are subs for all kinds of serious moderated technical discussion still. Those aren't the popular parts but they weren't popular on Usenet either.

Unless you've received an award, have a gold subscription, or have moderation privileges, finding new comments in a thread is not easy. In a news reader, it's trivial.

old.Reddit.com along with RES and only having handpicked subreddits on your front page (ie none of the default dumpster fire ones) makes Reddit halfway decent.

I think the difference is, back in usenet times the weirdos were also technical professionals. There wasn't the same need to be concerned for professional reputation so you'd get things like diatribes for fringe political beliefs strewn in among deep technical discussions. I used to lurk in alt.fan.warlord and watch Bram Moolenaar make fun of people's ascii pic signatures. It was a mess, but a technically informed mess, which somehow made it more interesting.

> Oh, and then there was alt.2600, which purposely had a moderator who rejected any and all postings: you had to hack USENET and assume moderator privileges to post there.

This is the kind of internet we lost when it went all corporate.

Defacing websites with crude messages and garish colors was the internet's graffiti. Ascii and Demoscene was its street art. Zines and hacker radio were the warehouse art shows. We have all these documentaries about punk music, but so few about punk computing.

You do not recall correctly, not even close.

See https://www.livinginternet.com/u/ui_alt.htm

(and I knew Brian Reid and John Gilmore in those days).

>[redd]it's more tame than USENET was

Of course it is, it's beholden to advertisers. Chairman Pao saw to its taming, right before getting canned.

Don't forget alt.chrome.the.moon and alt.sexy.french.captain.borg.borg.borg!

alt.hackers was another moderated group, but it had no moderator.

In fact, I think I had alt.2600 and alt.hackers mixed up.

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