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Old November 26th 20, 12:55 AM posted to rec.collecting.stamps.discuss
Stan Fairchild[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2
Default Is anybody reading this NG?

On Wednesday, October 21, 2020 at 4:49:52 PM UTC-4, me wrote:
In article ,
"David E. Ross" wrote:

On 10/19/2020 1:28 PM, Victor Manta wrote:
"Victor Manta" wrote in message ...

The last posting on RCSD was on 5/15/2020, then nothing newer came...

Thanks to only two collectors who participated in this thread.

Of course, it is disappointing to see how this once so popular NG has
"melted" to the point where it has become rather insignificant.

It was also strange to notice that even in these conditions of quasi
anonimity the amount and frequency of themes OFF TOPIC added was
surprisingly high.

Anyway, have fun with stamp collecting and stay safe!

Victor Manta

[begin rant]

It's not merely this newsgroup. Many newsgroups used to have quite
robust, on-topic discussions. That seems to have ended. And that is
very sad.

NNTP (network news transport protocol) has a large advantage over
Web-based forums. A Web-based forum is owned and controlled by whoever
owns the Web site. On the other hand, newsgroups propagate over many
NNTP servers. If one NNTP server fails or the owner decides to shut it
down, we can always go to another server without missing anything.

Similarly, if the owner of a Web-based forum decides to censor messages
arbitrarily, nothing can be done about it. No one NNTP server operator
can block what is propagating among the other servers. Yes, there are
moderated newsgroups; but often, there are multiple moderators for a
newsgroup limiting the ability of one person to be a censor.

[end rant]

This newsgroup is in my subscription list, but this is the first time
I've ever posted to it.

Usenet in general has been losing popularity over the years. I started
on Usenet back in 1983 in college. Picked it up again in the late '90s,
and have been a regular subscriber to several groups since then. Some
of the binary groups get a lot of traffic, but discussion groups are
pretty much non-existent anymore. I subscribe to a discussion group
related to a band that I like, but it seems like it died about 15 years
ago. There are still posts to it, but they are from psychotic people
ranting about politics instead of discussing the band.

Stamp collecting in general has also seen a major decline in popularity.
I'm 55 years old, and I go to stamp shows a few times a year. We have
one locally that's once a year that used to draw dozens of vendors and a
couple thousand people. Last year, it was noticeably smaller. I
overheard one vendor saying that at least half a dozen vendors from the
previous year had either died, or were in such poor health that they had
retired. At the shows I go to, I am usually by far the youngest person
there (as I said, I'm 55).

There are websites devoted to stamp collecting that get a fair amount of
traffic. I think that's where most collectors are going.

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