On Tue, 26 Aug 2025 01:53:33 -0000 (UTC), Duncan wrote: > David Chmelik posted on Sun, 24 Aug 2025 09:17:30 -0000 (UTC) as > excerpted: > >> Some Usenet newsgroups, such as alt.culture.usenet alt.fan.usenet, are >> discussing Usenet archives going back for text groups maybe to the >> beginning. Maybe this is a little off-topic, but if I were to get some >> such archives, how would I load just text groups I use into Pan? There >> were a few discussions I started or were in some years/decades ago I >> want to refer to or continue, but Eternal-September.org crashed and >> only has a couple years. Would you suggest getting a commercial >> subscription to Usenet and then just getting all those headers from a >> larger server, and then continuing on Eternal-September.org? > > That'd be the simplest method, yes. > > It should be possible to wrestle the archives into pan format, and I > might try it were I doing it, but it'd be more for the > challenge/experience/ knowledge if so, and while I'm reasonably > confident I could do it if suitably determined, I'm seriously skeptical > about the chances of me being much help to anyone else trying it > /without/ first doing it myself. So honestly, the commercial server > method sounds /much/ more reasonable.
I hope I can get more old text articles because after signup, some decades seem missing and I'm very interested, especially CS (and art, RPGs). Would I have to get them from the old DejaNews archive or it may also be only partially-complete? > [The below pushes block accounts strongly enough I'm adding this pre- > apology as it's honestly more strongly than I'd normally be comfortable > with. There are indeed some cases where time-based makes better sense. > But seriously, do the math and see. Don't get stuck in the wrong type > of account either way, as over a few years it could well be hundreds of > dollars wasted, and/or lost opportunity due to an unnecessary cancel > because you chose the wrong one and it's blowing your budget.] That's fine, but I wasn't sure what those were until reread... > If you do go commercial server, since it seems you're reasonably low > volume, I'd strongly suggest considering an unexpiring block account. > Then set it to lower priority than your normal server in pan, so pan > will only pull from it if it can't find the message on your higher > priority servers. You can even set it to zero connections when you > don't want to use it at all. > > That way you don't have to worry about a monthly fee, you can use it > only when you want/need, and if you don't use it for awhile, no big > deal, the block doesn't expire. So that's the difference. I should try unexpiring block later... > [...] > The well-recognized long-term gold standard is of course giganews.com. > I honestly don't know what their current reputation is, but back in the > day they made a point of being the best connected (will a policy of > peering with pretty much everyone to be sure they had all the posts and > their reputation matched that), and they still claim that. I'd consider > them worth a trial at least if you're in the time-based market or have > propagation/reliability complaints about other providers. Cost-wise, > $10/ > mo monthly or $100/yr ($8.33 monthly). There's a 14-day free trial. But > unlike newshosting, I'd say that $10/month $100/yr is likely to be worth > it if you want/need propagation, reliability and support (they feature > their actual humans to help and ten-minute response-time). If you're > considering time-based, I'd definitely say do at least the free trial, > then decide. > > But the time-based are mostly for comparison as I believe you'll be low > enough usage that time-based is a waste given unexpiring block prices, > making block the better choice for you as it was for me. Nevertheless, I tried GigaNews. They've been very helpful, though when I started using their server, a large number of posts' dates are wrong at beginning and end of some/most newsgroups. The beginning has question marks, and some before Usenet, and a few--not enough--after it started, and most since only 2003... then it has some from '2026' to almost the year 10000. What's most concerning is 1979 to 2003 gap. I thought this might've happened on Eternal September also but there was an easier way to get rid of these than killfile, which I noticed if it expires articles all I know to do is backup/delete ~/.pan2 and start over--no apparent way to get them back (maybe 30+ years ago it was fine to expire articles after a month, but now I'd rather that not be default: an average workstation PC could hold all the text Usenet they ever want with negligible space). Is there a way to get rid of ones with wrong dates without blocking everything next year? (I don't care if it has an earlier/ fake '2026' post next year). It's to the point I almost can't even read comp.lang.c, comp.lang.fortran, comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica, rec.arts.comics.*, rec.games.frp.*, rec.games.roguelike.*, sci.math, maybe some UNIX/GNU/Linux shell/script newsgroups, many other really interesting ones. > [...] >> I'm also interested in some binary ones like art/music, like >> art.binaries.sounds.mods--not the illegal binaries--but >> Eternal-September didn't carry MOD music newsgroups for some strange >> reason... > > Again, sounds like a block account could be reasonable. If you were > doing movies or TV shows, that's high-volume enough a time-based account > would probably work better, but individual short-audio or still-image > series, block should work well for as long as you don't go overboard, > and whole- album audio would probably be intermediate, with block more > cost efficient at the low end and time-based better high-end. I might get into other binaries instead of so much on World Wide Web (WWW) Internet Archive (IA, archive.org ) but I think you're right. If you didn't, then I may as well switch to block account after my GigaNews expires. Thanks! _______________________________________________ Pan-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pan-users
