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If you had to choose a newsgroup, aba or abma....

 
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edlan
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2002 1:52 pm    Post subject: If you had to choose a newsgroup, aba or abma.... Reply with quote

Well I've crossposted to both before, I don't know if this uses up unnecessary bandwidth. If it does, it would probably be better to post in 1 group, which group should I post to, a.b.a. or a.b.m.a?
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xo
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Joined: 09 Feb 2002
Posts: 466
Location: Los Angeles [comcast]

PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2002 4:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I vote for abma. It's the "proper" newsgroup. I'd personally like to see aba go away because juggling two groups is an annoyance I'd prefer not having to deal with. I think that others may disagree, and it's probably never going to happen, but that's my take.

-xo
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2002 11:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have to agree. ABMA is named properly for multimedia posts. ABA seems to have been co-opted for the purpose at some point, but really should be reserved for non-multimedia anime binaries that don't fit anywhere else.

Crossposting only wastes space if a news server is not set up to smartly share files between newsgroups. I would hazard a guess that most are, and that this is not a problem. However, crossposting WILL inflate your bad-boy rating with the usenet admin crowd, as they do count it double.

A problem with getting rid of ABA is that it might cause articles to scroll off faster if everything were posted to ABMA. I don't know exactly how expiry works. Other than that, I'd say let's un-invade ABA.
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Sat Mar 16, 2002 12:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

With a great deal of respect to ABA which I believe is older, I personally chooose ABMA since it fits more properly in the alt hierarchy. Technically (and if you read the ABA control message) ABA exists for video and manga. Of course it has become a video only group, but it apparently wasn't always that way. I made sure the FAQ pointed this out just in case anyone ever decided to point to the control message and post manga.

There are still a few servers that don't carry one of the other (or so I'm told) so not crossposting might hurt someone here or there, but I still don't crosspost. I've been sticking with posting to ABMA (and ABMAR) for a long time now. I do so in the hope that someone else likewise posts to ABA and in the end things end up balanced.

As for the waste of crossposting, that was answered above. I think it's rare that there is any waste. It does call some slight unwanted attention to you though as Gorunova pointed out. I certainly was shocked when I was one of the top crossposting abusers on usenet during my Dirty Pair post. Shocked

The fact is, however, that many of us are better off with both. Since many commericial servers gauge their retention, and therefore server expansion needs, by '# of days' individually by group, having both actually allows for double the anime capacity on these servers.

xo makes a valid point and I used to dislike the separate groups for the same reason. But now that I use a news client that can combine any number of newsgroups into a virtual 'folder', it doesn't affect me personally anymore. But I certainly sympathize with him. Honestly, it was usually the crossposts that really made that a sticky situation for me as I'd sometimes queue the same thing in each group accidentally when my crosspost detection filters would fail. I'm very glad I don't have to deal with that anymore.

So to sum up, if I hadn't gotten used to posting to ABMA and were trying to make that decision, I'd probably take a look at the posting totals for the two groups and choose the less heavily trafficked one.


Last edited by Keikai on Sat Mar 16, 2002 1:00 am; edited 1 time in total
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xo
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Joined: 09 Feb 2002
Posts: 466
Location: Los Angeles [comcast]

PostPosted: Sat Mar 16, 2002 12:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Keikai wrote:

But now that I use a news client that can combine any number of newsgroups into a virtual 'folder', it doesn't affect me personally anymore.


Sounds like an interesting feature! Which newsreader? So that I can bug the authors of pan (the only real option under Linux unfortunately) about it Smile.

-xo
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Sat Mar 16, 2002 12:44 am    Post subject: OT response about my newsclient :) Reply with quote

xo wrote:

Sounds like an interesting feature! Which newsreader? So that I can bug the authors of pan (the only real option under Linux unfortunately) about it Smile.

Well I believe several of the current Windows usenet binaries clients do it. I think Newsbin and perhaps Newsgrabber do. However, after using each for about a week I was still extremely dissatisfied. Instead, I've used the little known NewsPro (www.usenetpro.com) now for about a year. It is, in my opinion, a really brilliant client. Not user-friendly really, but extremely powerful.

As a matter of fact, I was about a month into developing my own news client specifically because I wanted one that seamlessly joins multiple newsgroups on multiple servers into single folders, when I decided to try NewsPro a second time. The first time I tried it I just didn't care for the interface and gave up on it too quickly. Boy am I glad I tried it again. Within a week I had abandoned my project, registered NewsPro and have been using it quite happily for a long time. He's also good about updates (it had yEnc support before anyone was posting yEnc stuff to our groups) and is good about incorporating user suggestions. He actually reads and responds in his forums! For whatever reason, though, its not fun to learn to use it, and it is certainly not everyone's cup of tea.

A combination of very poor (nearly nonexistant) documentation and the fact that he uses terms that are non-standard (to me...probably due to the fact that he is not from the US/UK) made it a bit of a pain to learn. I was still finding features that I had wanted all along in it two months after I had started using it. Razz When I mention it to people I tell them to give it at the very least an entire week of use before making a final decision.

Anyways, I know that didn't help you much, but it might be worth playing with if you have the ear of a Linux newsclient author. Funny enough, I havent added mention of NewsPro in the FAQ client listing yet. Okay, don't everyone act surprised at once. Cool
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earthdark



Joined: 21 Feb 2002
Posts: 73

PostPosted: Sat Mar 16, 2002 3:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ZeoNews (www.zeonews.com) also supports virtual groups, virtual servers, etc. but it's still in development so YMMV in terms of usability. I'm using build 1023, which has no yenc support but otherwise is pretty stable. The newer builds support yenc but judging from the posts in their forum, it looks a bit on the bleeding edge side...
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xo
Site Admin


Joined: 09 Feb 2002
Posts: 466
Location: Los Angeles [comcast]

PostPosted: Sat Mar 16, 2002 11:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the links guys. The idea of virtual servers/groups is a new one to me (haven't seen such a thing in Mac or *nix newsreaders) and it seems like a great idea. I just hope that I'll get to use such a feature soon :p.

-xo
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Tobias Rieper



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 41
Location: Berlin, Germany

PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2002 11:05 am    Post subject: OT response about my newsclient :) Reply with quote

Keikai wrote:

Instead, I've used the little known NewsPro (www.usenetpro.com) now for about a year. It is, in my opinion, a really brilliant client. Not user-friendly really, but extremely powerful.


I was a happy user of Newsgrabber 3 for years. But nowadays the yEnc posts make half of the traffic. So I dumped NG3 today... Sad
(Damn, why can't they just update it for yEnc? That's all I need...)

Zeonews is not an option to me. The latest usable build can't do yEnc and is still too friggin slow. So I used Newsbin 4 to download the yEnc posts, but I really hate it.

With your recommendation, I tried NewsPro... the best 35 bugs, I ever spent!
The interface is really "unique". Scrolling with my mouse wheel behaves strange. (I'm not sure, if it's a bug or a feature...) And those non-proportional scrollbars make you always think "Wait, that's way too few headers..."
But after 10 minutes, I figured out and set up all neccessary settings for downloading. It's working quite good now, but I can feel that I only saw the tip of the iceberg of it's powerful features yet...

Two questions:
Is a "virtual group" possible?
Can I see, how much I downloaded from what server?

Anyway, a million thanks for this tip.

Oh... yeah... back to the topic...

I would recommend ABMA.

T.Rieper
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2002 11:55 am    Post subject: OT response about my newsclient :) Reply with quote

Tobias Rieper wrote:

With your recommendation, I tried NewsPro... the best 35 bugs, I ever spent!

I hope that was meant to say 35 bucks! Razz Although it has a bug or two I find it as stable as any other client. One recommendation, if your news database starts getting massive like mine (in the GB range) make sure it stays defragmented. NewsPro will dog on a large, fragmented database.
Tobias Rieper wrote:

The interface is really "unique". Scrolling with my mouse wheel behaves strange. (I'm not sure, if it's a bug or a feature...) And those non-proportional scrollbars make you always think "Wait, that's way too few headers..."

Heh, that takes some getting used to for sure. It is a feature. The mousewheel scrolling just does one page at a time regardless of mouse settings. The scrollbar is the really weird part. He does it that way, I believe, so that you always have a decent sized grabber even with massive header listings, but it is disconcerting till you've been using it a while. I don't even notice it anymore and am able to gauge the size of the header list pretty accurately.
Tobias Rieper wrote:

But after 10 minutes, I figured out and set up all neccessary settings for downloading. It's working quite good now, but I can feel that I only saw the tip of the iceberg of it's powerful features yet...

That's how it was for me.
Tobias Rieper wrote:

Two questions:
Is a "virtual group" possible?
Can I see, how much I downloaded from what server?

By virtual group do you mean grouping multiple newsgroups into one? If so absolutely (was a primary concern). In the newsgroups tab (the main one) just create a new folder and then select the groups you want to group and then right click on the newly created folder. "Move to Folder" will be the only entry in the context menu. Once there, just double click on the folder and it will combine the groups. For example, I group ABA, ABMA and ABAV into one group (and of course it groups all the servers as well automatically).
As for the second question, alas, no. I've always wanted that as well. Since you are registered, though, you might want to contact the author (by his forums if they are up or email if they arent). I have found he is pretty responsive to requests, although he gets very busy at times.
Tobias Rieper wrote:

Anyway, a million thanks for this tip.
Oh... yeah... back to the topic...

My pleasure. I'll have to write a section on it in the FAQ so I can demystify that client a bit. Not because I feel its for everyone, but rather because I think allot of people would love it once they got past its excentricities. It really saved me so much effort and frustration over Newsgrabber and Newsbin (and all the other clients I tried at the time) that I became an instant evangelist for it. Razz There are some features I'd like to see, primarily some found in XNews, but frankly I've found non-standard ways of accomplising most of them. Allot of the default settings in the general tab, however, I have had to change to keep myself happy.

Sorry for going so far off topic folks. Embarassed
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AlienBoy



Joined: 27 Feb 2002
Posts: 70
Location: Middle Management

PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2002 5:42 pm    Post subject: OT response about my newsclient :) Reply with quote

Keikai wrote:

Sorry for going so far off topic folks. :oops:


I don't think anyone really mines. I was about to chime in my $.02 about why I prefer ABMA over ABA, but it seems like the point has already been driven home. Now it's time to download and checkout NewsPro. I was an AGENT user for a long time and then I just asked myself "why?" Xnews has been my reader of choice for the last 2 years and I'm pretty content with it. There are still some features I'd like to see and it sounds like NewsPro has them. This should make for a fun night of testing.
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user



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 72

PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:28 am    Post subject: OT response about my newsclient :) Reply with quote

Tobias Rieper wrote:

I was a happy user of Newsgrabber 3 for years. But nowadays the yEnc posts make half of the traffic. So I dumped NG3 today... Sad
(Damn, why can't they just update it for yEnc? That's all I need...)


Looks like Shane released Newsgrabber 3.0.34 a few days ago just to deal with yEnc stuff:

http://www.news-grabber.com/index.htm

I'm using BNR2 right now, but I suppose I'll give NG3 another once-over as well...
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Sjafira



Joined: 15 Mar 2002
Posts: 10
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2002 11:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi

I hope you guys don't mind me joining the discussion since I've just the forum recently.

About ABA or ABMA, in the beginning I was quite puzzled myself. I didn't know whether to cross post in both groups or only in either ABA or ABMA. I asked around and some people preferred that I posted in both groups. Later I also found out that some people are able to access ABA but not ABMA. I do understand the problem because when I first joined the newsgroups, ABMA was not accessible until a year later.
After reading the reactions, then I would consider only posting in ABMA since most of the people do tend to prefer ABMA. What I do miss is the discussion group. Some groups have two separate group on the same subject, like for example the binary group and the discussion group where people do their requests and talk to other people in the group.
Although we have filter functions in our newsreader.. it can be messy sometimes in the group and that is why I am happy that we have a forum for ABMA where the messages are more structured Smile

About NewsPro, Keikai is absolutely right. I have used Newspro for 2 years now and honestly I wouldn't want to trade with other newsreader. When yEnc was introduced I was afraid that newspro couldn't decode it.. but voila it did! without the extra decoder (which I already downloaded but anyway). The first newsreader I used was Agent and to be honest there is nothing wrong with Agent except that it is lousy with binaries. Agent is a great newsreader with a nice interface when you only want to read and post discussions in textgroups. I tried NewsBin, Xnews, Newsgravity, Newsshark.. geee... but I think I'll stick with NewsPro. And because newspro defrag you HD enormously I have a separate partition only for newspro database hehe..

I haven't been able to figure all the features out in NewsPro and I want to thank you Keikai for the tips. Much appreciated! If you know more please let us know ^_^
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