Use it or lose it.

September 8, 2007 9:53 PM

What's the best way to find cool stuff on Usenet?

I often wish there was a Digg style interface for usenet to enable my finding of obscure awesomeness. I've set several lots of fancy search criteria within newzbin, and that seems to have yielded results close to what I want. (I've set them up to have the most viewed reports at the top) Unfortunately, that method prefers things like NOW 9423 cds, etc.

Any suggestions?

posted by matkline to Computers & Internet (18 answers total)

The first rule of usenet is don't talk about usenet.

That being said, I find the good stuff by directly browsing the newsgroups that I know will have decent posts. You can create grouplists to assist in this.

I have absolutely no idea what you mean by obscure awesomeness but have a look at a.b.dvd.mnm and related cross-post groups.
posted by doublesix at 10:28 PM on September 8, 2007 [2 favorites]

first rule!

also: browse & scroll.
posted by register at 10:44 PM on September 8, 2007

Sort by article size and deleting everything < 100 lines strips out a lot of the spam.br>
Sort by title makes the group a lot more readable.

After that I just scan what's left with page down, looking for something eyecatching. I tend to download things based purely on interesting titles, so having an IMDB window open is helpful in the DivX groups. For the indie groups it's quicker just to sample a track at random.
posted by Leon at 10:46 PM on September 8, 2007

Subscribe to the groups the articles newzbin points you to are in.
posted by rhizome at 11:18 PM on September 8, 2007

Indeed.

Shhhhhhhhhh.

That said, a good client with filters.
posted by -t at 1:28 AM on September 9, 2007

Umm...Usenet was shut down 7 years ago. I don't think you're gonna find "cool stuff" on something that no longer exists.
posted by melorama at 1:30 AM on September 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

"Umm...Usenet was shut down 7 years ago. "

Eh, no it wasn't.
posted by ReiToei at 4:47 AM on September 9, 2007

Uhh melorama . . . better check your facts before you make sweeping statements.

Anyhoo, because Usenet is a store-and-forward system, searching only goes so far, you really have to be willing to roll up your sleeves and investigate groups and even "participate" in them.
posted by jeremias at 4:58 AM on September 9, 2007

Google groups for more mundane sites like rec.bicycles.tech. Google doesn't carry much of usenet's forbidden fruit though.
posted by caddis at 5:37 AM on September 9, 2007

Uh, no, jeremias, you're wrong. There is no such thing as The Usenet anymore. When AOL bought it out, they pretty much killed it because it competed with thier "chat rooms".

I mean, doesn't everyone pretty much know that?

Jesus, next thing you're probably gonna tell me is that Kaycee Nicole was a hoax or something.
posted by melorama at 6:52 AM on September 9, 2007

Oh, and before any other smarty-pants chime in on this, let me just state categorically that, no, there is no such thing as a site called "EASYNEWS", and it does NOT allow you to globally search the entire binaries heirarchy in this mythical "Usenet" feed using very granular and complex search criteria (including type of video/audio codec, file extension, bitrate, pixel dimension, etc), and NO, it does NOT allow you to build dynamic RSS feeds based on these searches.

It also does NOT automatically join and un-RAR multi-segment posts for you that you can download directly with your webbrowser or a download manager.

All you myth mongers better check your facts before claiming that things exist when they really don't.
posted by melorama at 7:06 AM on September 9, 2007

Newzbin has something similar to the above ... it's been in beta for months v3.newzbin.com.

Oh, one more thing.

We never had this conversation.
posted by doublesix at 7:24 AM on September 9, 2007

melorama is correct, there is no usenet anymore. unless matkline is going to upload his collection of obscure awesomeness, in which case the best answer I can give is:

If you want obscure awesomeness, there's just no substitute for just loading a relevant group and seeing what's available two or three times a week. That's part of the zen of usenet, if it existed which it doesn't. You sit down in the river and see what floats by, and if you have sharp eyes you'll catch the obscure awesomenesses in the vast stream of Big Daddy rips.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:54 AM on September 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

Binsearch and a solid news feed is all you need.
posted by porn in the woods at 9:46 AM on September 9, 2007

There are various sites that list the posting of interesting new stuff to usenet. None of them is terribly good. VCDQuality is one. Usually these sites make you connect the dots a little bit. They won't contain links or NBZ files or the name of the group where it's posted. But they may have the filename, which you can then search for. Stuff like that.
posted by scarabic at 10:41 AM on September 9, 2007

Crap, melorama. I feel like an idiot. Upon further investigation, I stand corrected. I've been out of the loop for a while, didn't have my coffee, etc.

I've asked the mods to delete this thread, because I fear I've confused the issue.

So to be clear. It's 2007 and there is no Usenet.
posted by jeremias at 11:28 AM on September 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

How do you mean "digg style"? You want users to be able to vote up reports and an interface which responds to how rapidly they're voted up, or a "sort by recent rate of report views" or something like that? What sort of searches are getting close to what you want, and how do you think they could be improved?

I'm a Newzbin developer, so answering your question is kind of my job ;)
posted by Freaky at 12:16 PM on September 9, 2007

Jeez. Next thing I know you're going to be telling me that there's a cabal.
posted by oaf at 5:03 AM on September 11, 2007