Valentine Pontifex

The following is the URL to the new version
of the Organizations FAQ:

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/organizations/" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/organizations/</a>

tgamble

what's a good site for posting to newsgroups via the web? I just can't remember the name of the site I'm thinking of. Thanks.

Valentine Pontifex

<a href="http://groups.google.com" target="_blank">http://groups.google.com</a>

If you forget, the discussion section of the T.O. Other Links page does list it.

tgamble

thanks. Is there any way to post html on there? I tried posting html but it just posted the code rather than the resulting page.

jhallum

I wouldn't. People take a dim view of doing html on usenet. It's a text based medium for a reason. Not everyone has a HTML news reader, for one thing.

tgamble

damn. html is so useful for formatting and organizeing.

Valentine Pontifex

Re: No HMTL in Usenet

Remember that Usenet is quite a bit older that the WWW. No MIMEs, no HTML, no UBB code, but you can use printable ASCII characters.

And don't forget that Google does have
preview feature.

[ June 30, 2002: Message edited by: LordValentine ]</p>

tgamble

Sure, but since it's on the web it's unfortunate that the formatting doesn't exist even there.

Also, how many people have newsgroup readers but no access to the WWW? Or an HTML capable news reader? It just seems silly to still be useing such an outdated form of newsgroups.

Valentine Pontifex

Your unfamilarity with Usenet is showing. What you are suggesting simply will not work.

1) Reverse compatiblity. A change to HTML coding will not be reverse compatible. In an instant virtually every single newsreader will not be able read posts.

2) Stablity. Usenet posts from decades back are still readable and are archived. Posts from this board will very likely not be readable in such time. Heck, even HTML has changed over time. There are HTML tags that are now simply not used anymore, there are tags used by some browsers but not others, and other tags which are still common but are marked for extinction like FONT, OBJECT, and CENTER.

3) The world. Usenet serves the entire world and is accessed from many platforms that are text-only.

Keep in mind that forums like this one for outright worthless in handling the volume that Usenet deals with. A newsreader will keep track of what posts you have and have not read, they thread better than these forums do, they support kill files and filters in a far better way than any forum such as this do, and Usenet covers virtually every subject under the Sun. One gets to choose what software one want to use to read Usenet unlike forums like this which rely on a single program that must be paid for. Indeed it is best not to read Usenet via the web. Usenet is a very powerful system, and your suggestion would utterly destroy its value.