| > I don't see any searchable thread. I see you criticizing | > someone but have no idea what came before. You should | > get a real newsgroup reader and stop using Google Groups. | > Then you won't be posting ghost messages that don't make | > sense to anyone else. Newsgroups happen in real time, | > not 6 years ago. | | I arrived here via a simple search for information on polyshades use on floors, does that make it a searchable thread?
It's hard to explain if you don't know the difference between Usenet and the Internet. Usenet is a series of text-based chat groups that are hosted on numerous servers. It's similar to group email, and it happens in real time, like email. It has nothing to do with the http protocol that browsers use to show webpages.
Usenet posts show up in the group and one can subscribe to any number of groups. Once you subscribe you can see the latest posts in a "treeview" format, showing the course of the discussion, and you can join in.
What Google has done has been to collect past Usenet posts and show them in webpages. In many cases those posts are years old. That would be OK for informational purposes, but Google is also allowing people to post to the groups from those webpages, bypassing Usenet. Those people usually don't understand what Google is doing and think they're joining an active discussion.
The result is that Google Groups posters are usually posting into empty space, while here on Usenet we see nonsense posts that don't seem to relate to anything.
It's a bit like answering want-ads from a newspaper that's 10 years old. If you reach anyone at all they'll probably be confused about why you're calling. It misses the basic concept of how Usenet works. Since the original post is years old, no one in the newsgroup sees it, because the newsgroup is in real time. Posts that old are long gone. And no one in the newsgroup sees the responses to that original post. They're also long gone. That's what I meant in saying it's not a searchable thread. For those of us on Usenet the first post in the thread is the one starting with "your snark is misplaced". There's no indication of what the foregoing posts might have said, so the post from juliatn has no context. she might have found the discussion by searching Google, but she's not taking part in the discussion as she thinks she is.
If you want to read and post to newsgroups you really should get a proper newsreader and subscribe to the groups. Then you can take part in the discussions as they're happening. If you post to ancient threads that Google Groups has archived it *could* possibly benefit someone, at some point, who's searching the Web, but the value of a discussion is lost because the posters are usually long gone. And meanwhile you're leaving rubbish posts in the actual Usenet newsgroup that have no context and therefore make no sense to readers in the group.
Here's a basic explanation of Usenet:
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There are numerous newsgroup readers available.
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If you're used to using freebie webmail through Google then you may not be familiar with email programs, like Thunderbird. (Real email, like newsgroups, is a completely separate communication protocol from webpages and webmail. Webpages are http. Usenet is nntp. Email is smtp. Each involves different communication protocols with different strengths and weaknesses, designed to be used by specific software. Just as webmail is limited in comparison with real email, Google Groups webpage format is limited in comparison to actual newsgroups.)
However you get your email, you can still install Thunderbird, Forte Agent, MesNews, or any of several other programs to read newsgroups. You can then subscribe to groups through your ISP. If your ISP doesn't have newsgroups service you can get free service here:
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