On 2024-02-23, Indira wrote:

> https://groups.google.com/g/comp.periphs.printers
> Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or
> subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
>
> An updated web-searchable no-login web-search archive that reports a unique
> URL will need to be located that allows people to search before posting to
> the c.p.p. newsgroup & which allows unique references to recent articles.

Proper unique references for USENET posts were, BTW, not available from
Google Groups for a while now (and, I'm guessing, still aren't). Those
are Message-Ids. These days, I think all you can get from Google Groups
is a link to the Google Groups interface, nothing "interoperable". At
most, you can try to use the Date: and Subject: to look the post up in a
proper archive.

IMHO a decent web-based search/archival interface for posts should both
support lookup by this ID and getting the ID for a given post, if it's
not already built around these IDs as message identifiers in its own
URLs and so on.

--
Nuno Silva

Nuno Silva wrote:

> Proper unique references for USENET posts were, BTW, not available from
> Google Groups for a while now (and, I'm guessing, still aren't). Those
> are Message-Ids. These days, I think all you can get from Google Groups
> is a link to the Google Groups interface, nothing "interoperable". At
> most, you can try to use the Date: and Subject: to look the post up in a
> proper archive.
>
> IMHO a decent web-based search/archival interface for posts should both
> support lookup by this ID and getting the ID for a given post, if it's
> not already built around these IDs as message identifiers in its own
> URLs and so on.

+1

While you're almost certainly aware of <http://al.howardknight.net/>
there are other ways to construct a URL based on the Message-ID.

http://news.chmurka.net/mid.php?mid=ur8tvukvca@paganini.bofh.team
http://usenet.ovh/index.php?article=ual&msgid=ur8tvukvca@paganini.bofh.team

Still... there was merit in having a Usenet-only keyword search engine that
was provided by dejanews (which Google took over) and which was available
to everyone with just a web browser, and which only searched Usenet and
which cost nothing which allowed the user to read the entire thread - not
just one post like Howard Knight does - and which allowed users to
reference the post to others who also had only a web browser,
etc).

If you want to search before you post, then there will probably be new
engines that come up, although none with the retention that Google had.

For example
http://comp.periphs.printers.narkive.com

But that web site by David Cavion is no longer maintained once he got a
full-time job and now has no time to maintain it.

The Usenet-only replacement search engine needs to be free to all, with
just a browser, not needing an account, and having infinite retention.

Indira <indira@ghandi.net> wrote:
> Still... there was merit in having a Usenet-only keyword search engine that
> was provided by dejanews (which Google took over) and which was available
> to everyone with just a web browser, and which only searched Usenet and
> which cost nothing which allowed the user to read the entire thread - not
> just one post like Howard Knight does - and which allowed users to
> reference the post to others who also had only a web browser,
> etc).

However I gave up on searching in Google Groups years ago when the
search function mysteriously became less effective. I instead
switched to searching it via web search engines.

> If you want to search before you post, then there will probably be new
> engines that come up, although none with the retention that Google had.
>
> For example
> http://comp.periphs.printers.narkive.com
>
> But that web site by David Cavion is no longer maintained once he got a
> full-time job and now has no time to maintain it.

I saw that as a reason why he didn't finish implementing all his
desired features such as posting support, but what's wrong with
Narkive as-is for browsing/searching posts like in GG?

Using "site:comp.periphs.printers.narkive.com" at the end of a web
search query in DuckDuckGo (or probably others, but that's what I
use), you can search the group via Narkive. Its archive doesn't
include the earlier posts that Google got from Dejanews, but at
least Google is keeping them online still too, for now.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _# | Note: I won't see posts made from Google Groups |

Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

> I saw that as a reason why he didn't finish implementing all his
> desired features such as posting support, but what's wrong with
> Narkive as-is for browsing/searching posts like in GG?
>
> Using "site:comp.periphs.printers.narkive.com" at the end of a web
> search query in DuckDuckGo (or probably others, but that's what I
> use), you can search the group via Narkive. Its archive doesn't
> include the earlier posts that Google got from Dejanews, but at
> least Google is keeping them online still too, for now.

There's another archive which isn't reported anywhere except in
this very one thread, which is https://usenetarchives.com/

But what is needed is a good set of search engines specifically tailored
for Usenet newsgroups which takes into account their header information.

Indira <indira@ghandi.net> wrote:
> Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>> I saw that as a reason why he didn't finish implementing all his
>> desired features such as posting support, but what's wrong with
>> Narkive as-is for browsing/searching posts like in GG?
>>
>> Using "site:comp.periphs.printers.narkive.com" at the end of a web
>> search query in DuckDuckGo (or probably others, but that's what I
>> use), you can search the group via Narkive. Its archive doesn't
>> include the earlier posts that Google got from Dejanews, but at
>> least Google is keeping them online still too, for now.
>
> There's another archive which isn't reported anywhere except in
> this very one thread, which is https://usenetarchives.com/

It seems to require Javascript, so that rules it out for me.

> But what is needed is a good set of search engines specifically tailored
> for Usenet newsgroups which takes into account their header information.

OK, but that hasn't got much to do with Google Groups discontinuing
their Usenet support. Its search hasn't been very good for a long
time already.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _# | Note: I won't see posts made from Google Groups |

Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

>> But what is needed is a good set of search engines specifically tailored
>> for Usenet newsgroups which takes into account their header information.
>
> OK, but that hasn't got much to do with Google Groups discontinuing
> their Usenet support. Its search hasn't been very good for a long
> time already.

Let's put that into perspective, given I've been using the Google Groups
Usenet-only search since the dejanews days, where I'd qualify that
assessment by agreeing that it sucked - but it was the best we had.

My assessment:
1. The Google Groups web-based Usenet search, as you noted, stunk
compared to the normal Google search engine everyone knows about.

2. However... it was worlds better than *any* other Usenet-only
web based no-account-needed anyone-can-use-it engine out there.

This is all we've got now, that's updated, as far as I know, where
what would be nice is if people who know more add to the list.

No-account-needed web-paged general-use Usenet-only search engines:
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.periphs.printers> deprecated 22Feb24
<https://comp.periphs.printers.narkive.com/>
<https://pi-dach.dorfdsl.de/rocksolid/search.php>
<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/thread.php?group=comp.periphs.printers>
<https://archive.org/details/usenethistorical>
<https://usenetarchives.com/>

Message-ID search engines (which aren't even close to the same thing).
<http://al.howardknight.net/>
<http://news.chmurka.net/mid.php>
<http://usenet.ovh/index.php?article=ual>
<https://www.novabbs.com/SEARCH/search_nocem.php>

On 2024-02-23, Indira wrote:

> For example
> http://comp.periphs.printers.narkive.com
>
> But that web site by David Cavion is no longer maintained once he got a
> full-time job and now has no time to maintain it.

Narkive is proving to be useless here: I was trying to check how much it
had in the interface, if it had proper threading and so on... first few
attempts to load threads gave me 500. After that I think it loaded
correctly once or twice. After that, I keep being asked to prove I'm a
human, which I guess will require javascript.

This seems to repeat itself quite often. Once it was working again, I
was able to load content only once, after that it once again calls me a
"bot" with a 429.

Let's say I'm not enjoying Narkive's current usability. It used to work
much better several months/years ago.

--
Nuno Silva

Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 2024-02-23, Indira wrote:
>> For example
>> http://comp.periphs.printers.narkive.com
>>
>> But that web site by David Cavion is no longer maintained once he got a
>> full-time job and now has no time to maintain it.
>
> Narkive is proving to be useless here: I was trying to check how much it
> had in the interface, if it had proper threading and so on... first few
> attempts to load threads gave me 500. After that I think it loaded
> correctly once or twice. After that, I keep being asked to prove I'm a
> human, which I guess will require javascript.
>
> This seems to repeat itself quite often. Once it was working again, I
> was able to load content only once, after that it once again calls me a
> "bot" with a 429.
>
> Let's say I'm not enjoying Narkive's current usability. It used to work
> much better several months/years ago.

Sounds like what happens when a website is trying to combat a DDoS
attack. But I just tried it myself and it's working fast and
efficiently as ever, so either the problem's fixed or it's
something to do with your IP address or internet connection.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _# | Note: I won't see posts made from Google Groups |

On 2024-02-27, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

> Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 2024-02-23, Indira wrote:
>>> For example
>>> http://comp.periphs.printers.narkive.com
>>>
>>> But that web site by David Cavion is no longer maintained once he got a
>>> full-time job and now has no time to maintain it.
>>
>> Narkive is proving to be useless here: I was trying to check how much it
>> had in the interface, if it had proper threading and so on... first few
>> attempts to load threads gave me 500. After that I think it loaded
>> correctly once or twice. After that, I keep being asked to prove I'm a
>> human, which I guess will require javascript.
>>
>> This seems to repeat itself quite often. Once it was working again, I
>> was able to load content only once, after that it once again calls me a
>> "bot" with a 429.
>>
>> Let's say I'm not enjoying Narkive's current usability. It used to work
>> much better several months/years ago.
>
> Sounds like what happens when a website is trying to combat a DDoS
> attack. But I just tried it myself and it's working fast and
> efficiently as ever, so either the problem's fixed or it's
> something to do with your IP address or internet connection.

An update on this: it indeed seemed to be temporary, since then I've
never had the same problem again.

The threads in this group that were unavailable (showing 500 instead)
have been fixed too.

--
Nuno Silva