Hi Jeff,
I watch 3 ng regularly (sed, rsn, cae); Many more ng cover subjects I'm
interested in but I don't bother with the ng because of all the noise: flame
wars, mostly.

My guess is that of US computer users, less than 1% even know that usenet
exists. Of those that know of usenet, many are reppeled by the ng noise. I
get the impression that many of the people who post on rsn have been using
computers before the big boom of the WWW. I'll bet some here (not me) were
on usenet before GUI OSs.

Personally, I like the low volume of rsn - I can read all of the posts
without spending too much of my day. I've posted questions to hi volume ng
(like alt.home.repair) and have gotten useful responses, but I don't just
read everything because there's just too much. I wouldn't get anything else
done (not that I do anything anyway...)

Bob
who never top-posts anywhere but rsn ;-


"Jeff Potter" wrote in message
.. .
My ISP is a HUGE local ISP and oddly they say that I'm almost the only
user of their newsreader service (which they buy from Slurp.net).
I find it very odd that Usenet is used so little by the public.
Offhand it seems like one of the best info resources of the modern era.
Are people really THAT community-phobic or something?

I mean, out of the thousands of Englishspeaking XC buffs we get, what,
a couple dozen crazy regulars who post to RSN. And here we get such
great
answers to questions, good coaching tips, timely race info,
GREAT mpegs of races that no one else in the US will get to see.

So why is RSN used so little?

I remember how excited I got in about, what, 1993 when Usenet took off.
I thought it would be a worldchanging info resource. No more could the
big
stupid media keep out the smart little guy, I thought. Instead, it's
been only
us few weirdos who use this simple, very powerful tool.

And in terms of the Web in general, I've heard that the best place to
hide
a good project is on the Net.

Yet...yet...I saw a newstory yesterday that says 30% of Americans are
daily
users of the Net and part of the "computer elite" or some such term.

--

Jeff Potter
****
*Out Your Backdoor * http://www.outyourbackdoor.com
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