Historical programming-language groups disappearing from Google

[BruceH]

According to https://lwn.net/Articles/827233/ Google is 'banning' former Usenet groups such as comp.lang.forth apparently because there is/was too much spam and there is no 'owner' to remove the spam. Apparently Google has forgotten that Usenet groups are not the same as Google Groups and that there is no owner.

The result is that large volumes of historic information from comp.lang.forth and comp.lang.lisp are now inaccessible.

To paraphrase a complaint about libraries being shut due to austerity: in ancient history, civilisations had their libraries burnt and destroyed when they were invaded; now we leave it up to a Google algorithm.

[mfleming]

Usenet is a decentralized distributed message list service, and there are plenty of other providers besides Google. Just search for "usenet server" with any engine besides google I think a killing blow to Usenet came some twenty or so years ago when the U.S. Congress decided to do something about all the naughty pictures being posted to the alt groups and passed a law that made Usenet providers legally responsible for the content posted to the groups. Most internet providers responded by promptly shutting down their servers. Something to keep in mind for those who think sociial media content should be regulated...

Edit: I agree it's a shame to lose any of the historic Usenet posts. I'd love to see the old alt.comp.minix posts where Linux was first introduced to the world. Google is providing a significant service by retaining some of the old content, but Usenet service itself was always seen as ephemeral, with servers configured to purge newsgroups periodically to keep from filling up disk space!