Web gateway to this newsgroup

[gary white]

I work for a UK home improvement website and we have a forum that is a little quiet. OK, really quiet. So we are thinking about forwarding their DIY questions to this newsgroup.

This newsgroup is highly popular, but some people do not know how to access newsgroups. Also, beginners who have one question might not want to join a newsgroup and find it easier to make a one off post to a forum. Anyway, you know all this already.

Obviously like many sites we have spam, so to avoid creating loads of noise we will moderate every post that gets sent to this group.

However, for us to get answers to a post we will need to download your replies to our site. Basically the same as what Google does and DIYbanter.

I have seen the hate towards DIYbanter, and we would not want to receive the anger of you good people. The main reason for the anger seemed to be because DIYbanter did not ask permission and was a commercial website. Well, we too are a commercial website, but we will not place any advertising on pages that have your posts on, as it is not fair to gain money from your knowledge or advice.

We will also add a link to

with the text 'Powered by uk.d-i-y', or something like that.

I am interested to know what you all think.

Cheers,

Gary

[Andy Burns]

At least you took the time to ask, but I'd suspect many regulars here dislike the posts that get gatewayed from other web forums, and would rather that users were just recommended to get a proper usenet client and join group(s) directly.

Probably not what you wanted to hear ...

[Howard Neil]

Well, I did not see the original post as I have non direct posts blocked (because of spam from gmail). I suspect that I am not alone. If people wish to get the most out of their posts, then they really do need a proper usenet client.

[Andy Burns]

Reposting Gary's original message ...

[dom]

Thank you for starting off with a polite enquiry first. I think that will win you a fair bit of favour.

So how would this solution work?

Are you just going to mirror the threads *started* from your own forum?

Or mirror all new threads?

Or will you fully mirror the whole uk.d-i-y newsgroup, including old threads going back years?

If just the former, the problem will be the same simple questions turning up over and over again, whilst the thread-starter is flamed along the lines of "search the b***** newsgroup history" (and they need to be pointed to the faq/wiki too).

Mirroring the whole newsgroup is a much bigger job. But if it's done well, you might win *a lot* of new members accessing uk.d-i-y through your forum, rather than say google.

[Skipweasel]

In my experience, web-gateways are universally horrid. Just look at the apalling travesty Google has made of usenet access.

[D.M.Chapman]

What's the site?

But they ought to be encouraged to search the group archives - like google allows (albeit rather broken at times :-/ )

I'm sceptical I'll admit.

What will you offer over google groups? Appart from driving users to your site (if that's your only goal, then fine, but be upfront about it).

Also, a web interface to usenet is not trivial. Will you maintain threads correctly? Will you honour headers that request posts are not archived? Will you have a mechanism for deleting posts?

If you aren't planning on storing the posts, just linking to them somehow then I'd prefer that.

I'm all for repurposing stuff, and creating mashups can produce useful sites. I'm against just using the posts to create another bad interface to the group (see DIYBanter for a really shit way to do it).

Can you just embed bits of google groups within your site? I'm not sure what the options are (I know google maps has plenty of scope - not sure about groups).

Not sure how meaningful this will be tbh

As I say, I'm sceptical. A good interface to usenet via the web is hard. So hard, I'm not convinced it's been achieved yet...

Still, you've asked - that's a good start (unlike DIYBanter :-))

Darren

[Howard Neil]

Thanks for the re-post Andy.

I have to disagree with the assumed difficulty of joining a newsgroup. I belong to a number of both forums (and am a moderator in a very busy one) and newsgroups. It is easier to join a newsgroup and you don't have to give loads of personal information to join.

As for the DIY forum, instead of trying to get members of this newsgroup to answer the questions you can't, why not just instruct forum members how to access newsgroups with a client? It is, after all, a lot easier than many DIY tasks.

[geraldthehamster]

If your forum is that quiet, why not just suggest that your users post their questions here and use uk.diy directly, through Google groups? There's no need to know how to access newsgroups. I'm sure we'd welcome new people.

Cheers Richard

[Adrian C]

Problems with DIYBanter (and similar) and their posters

1. Posters respond to old dated threads,
2. The form of threading of existing conversations is not followed, effectively so their comments are like a top post killing subthreads.
3. They frequently do not quote who and what they are commenting on,
4. txt spk is vry comn AND SHOUTING IN CAPS
5. They assume their image attachments are somehow visible on usenet,
6. They have more anominity on usenet, which can be an issue if their comments are libellous or will intently (or not) lead others into danger,
7. X-No-Archive for current Usenet posters is not observed
8. Posters can't be guided easily by those on usenet to other threads, or relevant newsgroup crossthreads
9. Some posters aren't aware or repect the UK centric nature of this group

etc...

[Phil L]

It all depends on how it works out in the long run. People go to the diybanter site and read posts from 3 years ago and decide to send a reply, which then ends up here but is 'orphaned', IE no one has any idea wha the reply is about as the original expired years back, so it goes something like ; 'yes, what you need is a wet sprocket spigot drive, insert it into the recieving chasm, and twist left slightly' - not good, especially when someone is trawling through posts and decides to answer 10 or more similarly expired questions, this group gets a mini flood of s**te....and thats another thing, this group isn't moderated as such, so some of your posters may or may not get told to f*ck off, especially if they're being arsey or whingy.

I don't know how you are going to handle the formatting - some new posters decide to make a new thread with each post instead of replying to their original thread, this infuriates people, especially me, also top posting, excessive snipping and trying to upload pictures to a test only group - you might want to put a disclaimer WRT people being sworn at, and also tips on how to post (and how not to), how to upload pictures to tinypic and insert the link into their posts etc

[Skipweasel]

One of the few criticisms I'd make of this group is excessive quoting. If I have to hit page-down to find new words I generally dont' bother.

Mercifully absent here. You've only to look at a FreeCycle group to see how bad it can be elsewhere.

I think one of the questions we need to address is what we're all here for in the first place. I would contend that there's a good deal more of the "local pub with friends having (mostly) friendly arguments about all sorts of things" than "a valuable public service spreading knowledge and goodness with an even hand". The latter may be very worthy, but the former is more like what it feels like.

We can't be all things to all people, and there are already DIY websites that offer the kind of support and access you're suggesting. Why mangle uk.d-i-y into something resembling existing systems when its attraction is that it's unique; it doesn't have the txtspeak peasants, it doesn't have top-posters, it doesn't have stupid people (well, you know what I mean), it just has interesting people talking about interesting things.

Change just for the sake of it would be damaging to something many of us like just the way it is and wouldn't offer anything not already available to the rest of the world.

[Skipweasel]

Ooops - I don't often let my fingers do that.

[george [dicegeorge]]

They can access here through the google groups thingy at

[Mike Barnes]

I go along with that. Google would also allow them to search for previous discussions. It wouldn't be my choice but it clearly suits some people. I'd definitely stress that a proper newsreader is the best option for posting, with Google a poor second.

Last time I looked you had to register in order to post to Google Groups and that might put some people off. But if they haven't got enough gumption or can't be arsed to register, the chances of them asking an intelligent question or dealing with the follow-ups are pretty slim anyway.

[gary white]

Thanks everyone for the replies, I will reply to all now, one at a time. Is that good or should I reply to everyone in one email? I am new to this.

The plan was to mirror all new threads. However, after what you said, it might be better to get an archive, but from my experience new users still do not search forum archives - they get a wee bit lazy. Still, if we have an archive and they get flamed for not searching it, then they deserve it and they can search the archive themselves via our site or the newsgroup directly.

[Phil L]

Reply to one at a time, it makes more sense, and they are posts, not emails :-p

If you archive all posts, I think you're probably best to not allow replies to anything over, say, 2 months old. YMMV

[gary white]

I want to keep the site quiet for now. :) But I will tell you all before we go ahead with anything.

I agree. An archive with a good search facility is a must. I am not sure how we can beat Google for search technology but we will put a decent search together.

We make money already from the site, but we are a bit embarrassed because when a user wants to ask a detailed question in our forum there is nobody there to reply. So this is not about money, but just giving a good service.

The original aim was to just offer a good free service. Then I saw how DIYbanter was flamed and we agreed it was not worth making the same mistake they have. We already get loads of traffic to the site (loads for us), and I doubt we will get much search engine traffic from the content because DIYbanter already gets it indexed by Google. But the user will benefit when they search the archive or get a question answered, and that will make us look good. So basically you will make us look good. :)

I will need to speak to the technical people about that, I am new to newsgroups. We will honour 'not archive' requests.

We will look into this.

Thanks Darren

[gary white]

Good idea.

[gary white]

I am using Google groups to access this group. Is there a way to access and reply without paying for a usenet server?