[clue-talk] Corporate Media Is The Problem

[Bruce Ediger]

On Thu, 21 Jan 2010, grant at amadensor.com wrote:

> How was Usenet done?   There had to be a central point of truth for each
> newsgroup.   If that server went, didn't it all come down for that one
> group?

No central point existed, either in theory or in practice.  It used something
called a "flood fill" algorithm.  In practice, edge sites with only one peer
could miss the occasional article, but if a site had 2 or more peers, you got
everything.  Maybe not in the same order, but that's what trn and other
threaded newsreaders were for.

Seriously, usenet was completely decentralized.  In practice a few user IDs
and site names had a bit more control over group creation and article
censorship, but it was relatively easy to opt-out of that control and
censorship.  That was usenet's strong point and weak point.  All it took
was a crowd of braying jack at sses to bring it down.  I blame AOL, CompuServe
and Prodigy for bringing that crowd in.