The Decline and Fall of the Windows Newsgroup

[Jon]

So what's the key difference between these groups now and a few years ago?

For me it's simply the fact that the academic level has markedly dropped.
This group as a place for the intelligent exchange of ideas has become
essentially worthless.


I first encountered the Internet / Usenet in the mid 1990s during
postgraduate studies at University. The general calibre of person
encountered online was generally university educated, and
computer-proficient.

Nowadays returning to this group is like returning to a once Oxbridge or Ivy
League lecture room, only to discover that it's now a playground for mental
delinquents to fight in.

Note this is NOT a criticism of those genuinely seeking help with technical
issues. It's a criticism of the level of response that you're likely to
receive.

MSFT employees deserted this place a long time ago. The MVPs dutifully
followed more recently.

Yes, you had your obnoxious characters in years gone by.
Yes, you had those whose intellectual contribution never progressed beyond
trite, banal one-line copycat platitudes.
Yes, you still had nasty people you wished simply did't exist, or hoped
would simply go away BUT .....

..... the principal difference imho was that however much you may have
despised a particular person's outlook, they were at least educated,
appreciating the value of learning + books and generally had informative
things to say.



Ok, so how did this happen? How did we arrive at this state of affairs?

Computers became cheaper and hence more readily available, the riff-raff
were let in to the party, bringing with them their bottles of uneducated
thuggishness (again no criticism of those seeking help).


Instead of a graduate level gathering, as the doors were opened to
all-comers, the festive gatherings descended into a yobbish free-for-all,
where all the educated people could do was to scratch their heads in a
bemused manner.



The MVP system didn't help, since it gradually degenerated to a situation
where the most prolific posters became the most esteemed, regardless of the
lack of any inherent quality in their contributions.



Ok, so what's the solution?


MS's current solution is a censored forum where all can join and the
riff-raff are theoretically excluded; making it a lot easier to exclude
particular individuals or particular lines of thinking. This will inevitably
result in an environment where anything remotely contrary to Microsoft's
business aspirations will eventually be excluded. Intelligent criticism of
the big boys will be stifled, as will particularly 'annoying' individuals
will, regardless of the long-term value of what they may have to say.

Is that REALLY the only way forward?

I'd suggest an alternative merit-based approach, censored only on computing
ability for responders.

Create an online entrance test for those wishing to respond to posts eg a
quickfire 'Computer apptitude' / IQ-style test that sifts the computing men
+ women from the boys + girls. A test based purely on assessing computing
ability + raw brainpower on not on political outlook.

Those who 'pass' would earn the right to be 'responders', while all could
still post enquiries, so that those needing help would still get it (which
of course should be open to all). A system based on merit, so that everyone
would know that they were at least getting a response from an intelligent
person (at least with respect to computing ability), rather than a suitably
brainwashed Microsoft sycophant. The quality of the discussion would rise,
and this place could once again return to being a forum for intelligent
discussion that it once was.

Or perhaps some revision of this system, whereby a distinction could be made
between responses intended to help and solve an issue and general comments
(that are presumably targeted at the 'metaproblem').

Ok, some people would find ingenious ways of cheating the test, but even
this would demonstrate some computing ability.


Thoughts?

 

[Tim Slattery]

MSFT employees deserted this place a long time ago. The MVPs dutifully
followed more recently.

No, these were always peer-to-peer groups, MS employees never posted
here much. A few were heard from once in a while, but that was the
exception. MVPs were and are here - most of us in those days got our
MVP designation from the contributions we made to these groups. (I am
no longer an MVP.)

 

[Jon]

No, these were always peer-to-peer groups, MS employees never posted
here much. A few were heard from once in a while, but that was the
exception. MVPs were and are here - most of us in those days got our
MVP designation from the contributions we made to these groups. (I am
no longer an MVP.)

Thanks for the comment. At least someone read (at least a portion of) it.

I saw the MSFT posts more as a 'regular trickle' than as an 'exception', but
either way they would now appear to have dried up. A few MVPs still post
here, agreed, but I'd suggest that they are now the exception(s) rather than
the rule.

 

[Jon]

Thoughts?

Clearly not. Oh well.

 

[Jon]

John, you're stating facts already well known.
It's not even about Usenet at all.
It's about Internet in general.

Thanks Stan. Good points.

I suppose it does really just describe the nature of the Internet at large.
As you say, more intelligent discussion takes place in the closed,
specialised forums.

I'm not really trying to advocate intellectual elitism, though. I do
actually think it's great that information is disseminated to as many as
want it, and are able to appreciate it. That after all is the basis of the
Internet. I suppose I just wish that someone would come up with a way in
which that could happen without the quality of the information declining in
the process.

Give someone a copy of a book, and both benefit. The book doesn't change. It
remains undiluted by the process.

Give someone an apple, and if it's eaten quickly then it's generally good
quality. Wait too long and it goes rotten.

Invite 2 or 3 to swim in your swimming pool and you all have a good time.
Invite the whole town and eventually someone with a disease will get in
which will spread to the rest.

Discuss, say, the process of cross-pollination between plants with a couple
of experts and you learn, and they get to share their insights with you and
other interested parties. Invite a couple of thugs into the original
conversation and the whole discussion is ruined.

But as I say, my purpose is not to set forward an overly negative view of
humanity, but just to suggest that there may be a 'third way' between the
elitism of closed door discussions, and the the fighting of thugs in the
playground.