# Newsgroups & Message Boards **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 3, 1999, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newsgroups-message-boards/10516 "1999-11-03T05:51:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cessandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 1999, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newsgroups-message-boards/10516/21 "1999-11-04T03:19:00Z")
Ok, thank-you everybody for the information, but I’ve decided that I don’t like newsgroups very much. I spent a couple of hours wading through all the nonsense and I didn’t find much of anything that really piqued my attention. It really doesn’t seem to be worth the trouble. On a side note, anybody know a good message board besides this one? The whole point of investigating newsgroups was to find another place to post, so I guess a new message board would be the best option. ---
**Author:** ![Cessandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 1999, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newsgroups-message-boards/10516/22 "1999-11-04T03:20:00Z")
PS I am in OpalCat’s Teeming Millions chatroom right now ( [http://fathom.org/teemingmillions/chat.adp](http://fathom.org/teemingmillions/chat.adp) ), and I am not leaving until somebdoy else shows up! ---
**Author:** ![bantmof](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/96bed5/32.png) [@bantmof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bantmof)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 1999, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newsgroups-message-boards/10516/23 "1999-11-04T05:13:00Z")
First: newsgroups are discussions sort of like this, but not primarily web based. You can access them via the web, but that’s generally a really sucky way to do it. A newsreader works enourmously better. Second, some of them are good, but probably 99% are total crap. It didn’t used to be like that though. Newsgroups predate the web by like 15 years or something like that, and they used to be pretty good until everybody and his uncle got access to the internet and started posting MMF. It’s all a matter of finding the few good ones in the endless stream of crap. There are a few though; mostly moderated ones, but also some smallish unmoderated ones. – peas on earth ---
**Author:** ![Sycorax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@Sycorax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sycorax)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 1999, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newsgroups-message-boards/10516/24 "1999-11-04T05:53:00Z")
Cessandra - I’m glad you asked about newsgroups. I thought newsgroups were for specific topics. Months ago I was trying to subscribe to one on genealogy, but had trouble with it and gave up. I’ll have to check out the links offered here and try again. ---
**Author:** ![Cessandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 1999, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newsgroups-message-boards/10516/25 "1999-11-04T07:11:00Z")
Welcome Sycorax. Glad somebody is getting something out of this! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MadPoet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8c91f0/32.png) [@MadPoet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadPoet)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 1999, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newsgroups-message-boards/10516/26 "1999-11-04T15:15:00Z")
Am I the only one around here that remembers being able to read all of USENet in a day? Come on people… I’m only 23… I don’t want to feel antiquated. USENet used to be THE message board of the net. Or rather a collection of topic based message boards. It is where most of the true culture of the net started – not that anyone remembers it anymore. It used to be a very good place to go to talk about whatever subject you’re interested in, now it is the world’s largest collection of spam. There are still a few good groups left, but unmoderated nature makes getting information from USENet like getting a drink from a fire hose. * * * [http://www.madpoet.com](http://www.madpoet.com) The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. ---
**Author:** ![AuraSeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c2a13f/32.png) [@AuraSeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuraSeer)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 1999, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newsgroups-message-boards/10516/27 "1999-11-04T20:29:00Z")
All of Usenet in a day? I think you’d have to be older than 23 to remember that. Maybe your local newsfeed was very limited? ---
**Author:** ![MadPoet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8c91f0/32.png) [@MadPoet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadPoet)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 1999, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newsgroups-message-boards/10516/28 "1999-11-04T21:09:00Z")
Well, I’m not sure exactly how much we had access to. A friend of mine long ago ran a Waffle BBS that gave access to usenet and email. At the time there were a hundred or two newsgroups. Also, remember this is in a day… as a sad, chubby little geek, I had lots of free time to do stuff like that. * * * [http://www.madpoet.com](http://www.madpoet.com) The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. ---
**Author:** ![Shadowfox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Shadowfox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shadowfox)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 1999, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newsgroups-message-boards/10516/29 "1999-11-04T21:24:00Z")
## All I know is that my ISP doesn’t have misc.facts.straight-dope on their usenet lists. They do, however, have alt.fan.cecil-adams. I tried [deja.com](http://deja.com), but I really don’t like the way the messages are formatted. After repeated E-mails to my ISP, asking them to please add misc.facts.straight-dope to their lists, nothing as of yet has happened. So, for now, I’m staying away from Usenet until my ISP grows a brain and adds M.F.S.D to their list. Shadowfox “Most people would succeed in small things, if they were not troubled with great ambitions.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 1999, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newsgroups-message-boards/10516/30 "1999-11-04T23:36:00Z")
But picking up an earlier question of Cessandra’s, does anyone know of any other good message boards? I got into this one entirely by accident and I’m not really sure how to find any others * * * The bells of Hell go tingalingaling… ---
**Author:** ![Minxsmom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@Minxsmom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Minxsmom)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 1999, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newsgroups-message-boards/10516/31 "1999-11-04T23:45:00Z")
I don’t like the formatting of deja, either. [www.Remarq.com](http://www.Remarq.com) is MUCH better. I totally recommend it. ---
**Author:** ![bantmof](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/96bed5/32.png) [@bantmof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bantmof)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 1999, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newsgroups-message-boards/10516/32 "1999-11-05T00:16:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, I’m not sure exactly how much we had access to. A friend of mine long ago ran a Waffle BBS that gave access to usenet and email. At the time there were a hundred or two newsgroups. I’m not sure how yours worked in particular, but many BBS’s only provided a very limited usenet feed. This is just a wild-assed guess, but I’m thinking usenet was 200-300 total groups in maybe 81, 82, something in that ballpark - certainly it’s been bigger than that since the Great Renaming anyway. – peas on earth [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newsgroups-message-boards/10516.md?page=1)