Your "failure to notice" only proves that you failed to notice. I get 14 text newsgroups from E-S and have not noticed any problems.
oh Wow. such a -heavy- user. For comparison, I am subscribed to over TWO HUNDRED FIFTY _text_ newsgroups.
When do you do woodworking?
The fact that it is not an issue _for_you_ does not mean that it is not a valid concern for other people. I personally, have, on rare occasions, needed to track down a posting that was several years old.
Demonstrating, again, that you "Dont know what you don't know" about what is important to other people.
_YOUR_ expectations/experiences are *NOT* universal.
"Ignorance in action." I "know" it happens because I have read posted complaints by users of various 'free' systems that they see responses, but -not- the message that is being replied to. When -multiple- users from the _same_ service complain about the absence of the SAME messages, It is pretty conclusive evidence. When one of them posts a copy of a message *from* the provider _admitting_ that those messages were dropped, That is *conclusive* proof of it happening.
Proving only that _you_ have not 'noticed' it -- it does not even prove that it 'doesn't happen" with the message threads you do read. It only
BTW, it happens that I *do* 'notice' the same thing, 'falsely dropped messages', on paid providers, as well.
I happen to use a newsreader that displays 'state' information for
-every- message 'referenced' in any 'newer' postings -- even if the message is 15 (or more) levels of response prior to the current message.
*YOUR* opinion is not -universal- on that matter.
I know people that have used Astraweb for multiple years. Within the last twelve months, there has been 'more than one' occasion where they have reported -- using alternate access methods -- that specific newsgroups, at least, have failed to display *any* new articles for periods of -days-. DESPITE other newsservers showing several hundred new messages in that newsgroup.
Again, you "don't know what you don't know".
The TOTAL downtime for either of Giganews' US server complexes since 2004 is approximately _12 minutes_, spread across 5 separate incidents.
What you were hit by was a failure of the "authentication server' -- owned, operated, and maintained by the 'reseller' (or the wholesale-services-buying ISP)
Comcast has a long-standing reputation for cluelessness. Especially if it doesn't involve Windows boxes, the world-wide-web, or their hosted email service.
*MANY* newsreader programs -cannot- filter on content in headers that are not in the 'XOVER' headers, nor accessible by XPAT'.Those newsreaders that -can- so filter are ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE slower at so doing, Because they cannot make -one- request to the server for a certain group/class of articles, and get a list of matching IDs, but have to make a separate retrieval request for the headers of -each- article find the selected header and check the content thereof.
Proving only that you have 'limited experience' with such matters.
It is a fact that -none- of the 'free' providers would continue to exist if the pay providers went away. They simply would not be able to afford the resources -- particularly in staff, but also in 'bandwidth' costs -- to maintain the required connectivity to other nodes.
Somewhere over 90% of _all_ USENET traffic passes through one of a handful of remaining 'backbone' sites. The former widespread 'mesh' of multiply- connected sites has very nearly collapsed into a 'star' topology.
Are you sure this is not all about me? I always thought it was. :)
"Robert Bonomi"
Ain't that the truth!
I remember talking to one of their drones and he had no idea what a newsgroup was. And he, apparently, concluded that if he did not know what is was, he did not have to help me. Not that he could anyway.
A lot of them are very low volume. Like, less than a dozen messages a YEAR.
'... you probably think this newsgroup is about you.' To misquote a circa 1970 pop tune.
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