I see that the last 20 posts for the past month were from Tim,
without a reply to even a single one of them.

Is this temporary or is Google killing Usenet? Or maybe people
are happily posting in other membership requiring BG forums?

MK

PS: Could someone (Tim? stick?) forward my post about my mutant
experiments to other forums that they participate in? I would
appreciate it. Thanks.

On 3/29/2024 5:03 PM, MK wrote:
> I see that the last 20 posts for the past month were from Tim,
> without a reply to even a single one of them.
>
> Is this temporary or is Google killing Usenet? Or maybe people
> are happily posting in other membership requiring BG forums?

Google is not "killing" usenet, it's been dying a long slow death for
decades. I don't come here as much as I used to and if Tim is the only
one posting here there's not much reason for him to continue.

There are other fora for discussing backgammon so presumably he's moved
to one of those. If so, I'd be interested in which one, but perhaps I'll
find it on my own.

On 4/12/2024 1:19 PM, ah...Clem wrote:
> On 3/29/2024 5:03 PM, MK wrote:
>> I see that the last 20 posts for the past month were from Tim,
>> without a reply to even a single one of them.
>>
>> Is this temporary or is Google killing Usenet? Or maybe people
>> are happily posting in other membership requiring BG forums?
>
> Google is not "killing" usenet, it's been dying a long slow death for
> decades. I don't come here as much as I used to and if Tim is the only
> one posting here there's not much reason for him to continue.
>
> There are other fora for discussing backgammon so presumably he's moved
> to one of those. If so, I'd be interested in which one, but perhaps I'll
> find it on my own.

I think Google's web interface made it easier to post and search
but more unfortunately many people didn't know that Usenet groups
were different than Google groups and after Google pulled the plug,
they probably thought that was the end of it all.

I don't follow enough of them to generalize but I think Usenet is
still popular in scientific/academic circles (and perhaps in some
other communities that I don't know about) for many reasons such
as those institutions still operating Usenet servers for the sake
of their own users, who refused to be "mind-slaved" by Google,
Microsoft by using Unix, etc. and they were savvy enough to know
how to access Usenet groups with email and news clients.

As for RGB, I think backgammon itself has been dying, as the
excitement about "AI" bots became old and turned into dogmatism
that the remaining small community of gamblers grew comfortable
with it, which eliminated any incentives to innovate and create
better bots, etc.

After even trying to beat the bots had become boring for me once
I had achieved it, daily position discussions, which I had never
cared for to begin with, became totally uninteresting for me but
it's still sad to see RGB become a "ghost town" in cyberspace. :(

Since there were people in RGB who wouldn't post in any other
forums owned/operated by individuals or commercial entities, some
people followed several of them concurrently. For years, I have
seen that Tim was posting at least also in bgonline.org if not in
other forums that I don't know of. So, if you miss him, you don't
need to look for him too hard. Just go join bgonline.org which
is owned/operated by "stick".

MK

On 4/12/2024 5:50 PM, MK wrote:

> Since there were people in RGB who wouldn't post in any other
> forums owned/operated by individuals or commercial entities, some
> people followed several of them concurrently. For years, I have
> seen that Tim was posting at least also in bgonline.org if not in
> other forums that I don't know of. So, if you miss him, you don't
> need to look for him too hard. Just go join bgonline.org which
> is owned/operated by "stick".

Interesting. BGonlline has been defunct for several years, but it now
appears to be back. Thanks for the pointer.