Usenet has made a unique contribution to the world of computing.It was the first attempt to create a network beyond local BBS communities (which themselves were fairly new).
It seems that the past 6 years or so saw most big ISP's dropping USENET support claiming mostly piracy concerns.
Was it piracy or the fact that it's tough for the government to control what people say on USENET?
The majority of our interview subjects experienced a Usenet that was markedly different from what we enjoy today.
Access to Usenet was limited enough that for a number of years, one could read every article in every group in one quick daily session.
For years, Google’s mission included the preservation of the past.
In 2001, Google made their first acquisition, the Deja archives.
So spam is a problem, forged moderation headers are a problem, general abuse is a problem.
(A modern syndicated forum system with OAuth or some successor model would be a lot easier to ride herd on.)Second problem: storage demands expand faster than the user base.
Old usenet-head here (on it regularly from 1991, first met it 1986) ...