Google Revises Usenet Search 628
michaelmalak writes "Wednesday night, Google Groups announced in a thread the rollout of their revised 20-year Usenet archive search engine. Among the various 'improvements': ability to search by date has been eliminated, as has the ability to deep link to a single post. See the announcement thread for others' reaction." An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet has published some interesting insights into what makes Google tick. In this lengthy article, Google's vice-president of engineering, Urs Hölzle delves into the nuts and bolts behind Google's operations, what back-up mechanisms and hardware setup is in place and even some interesting homegrown technology like the Google File System (GFS)."
WTF? (Score:2, Insightful)
What the hell? That was probably two of the most useful features.
Damn you google!
A little respect (Score:2, Insightful)
For all the years of good service we've had from google, who are we to question the removal of features? What the bearded terminal hackers at Google giveth, the bearded terminal hackers at Google may taketh away. Certainly, if we can embrace their advertising as the GNU/Linux community has done en-masse, we can understand that they have their reasons for these changes.
Perhaps you'd like to start your own archive of the USENET message boards?
Re:Progress? (Score:3, Insightful)
Dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
Separation of posts (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A little respect (Score:5, Insightful)
We're the users. That's our right as users. If nobody questions the decision to remove features, then how does Google know what features we liked?
There's absolutely nothing wrong with constructive criticism, even with respect to a "free" service.
this sucks ass.. (Score:1, Insightful)
plus now we lost the tree view on the left so it is hard to make out what is in reply to what
aah short some google stock..
First real deviation (Score:3, Insightful)
Respect is earned (Score:5, Insightful)
Excuse me, but their Google Groups feature is based entirely on profiting from others' work (and copyrighted work at that). If you're providing a properly searchable index, you might (might) have a public interest defence to the copyright infringement. If you're providing a useful service, most people might (might) not mind you using their work. But if you're going to take away useful searching facilities and provide a service that doesn't even allow proper citation (i.e., deep-linking to a specific post), you're going to be both unpopular and almost certainly breaking the law. I don't know about you, but personally I don't have much respect for people who are either of those things.
Total catastrophe, a complete and utter misstep (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A little respect (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure what motivated such changes, but usually you don't remove enhancesments to software unless they are causing major problems or if they somehow affect your financial bottom line. Somehow I think its related to the latter of the two because I don't see how the former would case problems.
You don't do something like collect nearly all the usenet postings ever made, make it searchable by date and then take it away. Basically people have lost the ability to do historical internet research using google groups. Sort by date is not even close to the same.
No Escape! (Score:4, Insightful)
ARRRRRRRRGH (Score:5, Insightful)
I have bookmarks to specific articles/threads it took me a long time to find and to which I refer now and then and if they stop working the usefulness of google groups for me will be much reduced...
As much as I understand why they would want to make USENET look more like a message board for people who never really grew up with it (usenet and gopher were mostly all we had back when I first went online) I still think that not having this functionality available for people who know how to make the most of it is very backward thinking.
Re:First real deviation (Score:3, Insightful)
They've been very close several times before. But the last time I cited the other cases I was modded into oblivion (though also Insightful) and you've already been modded (-1, Offtopic) despite the fact that you're clearly not. So, you just get the quick version this time: Groups itself, Google Cache and Google's image search are all potentially (or almost certainly) illegal in many jurisdictions, and all on dubious moral ground at times, too.
And after they'd finally got good. (Score:3, Insightful)
When Google first bought up the old DejaNews archives I was ticked. They took something with which I could get the information I was after and returned something with which I could not.
Over the past few years they finally got it back to being something useful. I had heard about this "Make It Into Yet Another Glorified Web Groups" effort, and was less than impressed. But as long as it didn't interfere with it being a decent Usenet search engine...
No sort-by-date and no direct-article-linking? WTF? So if I want to get only the most recent posts for a certain query or if I want to pass someone a direct link to a specific post then I'm now SOL? How is that an "improvement"?
Is there anywhere else with an exhaustive archive of Usenet? I think I'm about to jump ship. I neither need nor want another web-groups option, and I want more search flexibility rather than less.
I do hope you were kidding (Score:3, Insightful)
Their bread and butter? Without us (the millions of people who use google rather than a competitor) they don't have a business.
I read your post and thought I could detect a tongue firmly in cheeck. I don't know what is more disturbing
Or is everyone's stock answer to anyone's criticism of Our Corporate Masters(tm), or anyone's demand for corporate accountability not just to their stockholders, but to their community, their customers, and their resources (us, as it is our clicks and our eyes they are selling to their advertisers) to "go out and start your own company and stop criticisizing Our Greatness(tm)"?
On a more serious note (and I only feel compelled to say this because so many moderators obviously aren't getting what I believe you intended as a bit of wry humor), our president, our congress, and far too many common folks (on slashdot and off) may eagerly fall to their knees in the presence of their corporate masters (and may indeed race one another to do so), but some of us remain free thinkers and expect to criticize any organization, profit-driven or not, when they misbehave.
And crippling a service to increase revinue is certainly misbehaving, whether or not that service is "free." (Our clicks, our eyes, that they are selling and making billions off of, are also free. If this exchange becomes unequitable because of Google's dominant position
Re:Google's improvements (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps we have our reason right there. Google+ accounts anyone?
Disclaimer: I know nothing about Google groups.
Sigh. Should've seen this coming... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Progress? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Respect is earned (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Evil? Re:Progress? (Score:5, Insightful)
Search the web, newsgroups, your desktop etc. It may be all free and good now, but how long before someone pays the right price to access/control what people see.
My experience is that Google search seems to be turning up more noise now than before. Two years ago I could with certainty do a search and get the page I wanted. Now it seems I must scroll through pages of commercial sites and the such to get to the meaty part of the Internet...those little novelty sites that people put up themselves.
Oh well, that's progress.
Re:Progress? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Respect is earned (Score:2, Insightful)
That said, the loss of features disappoints me, and I hope those
Some basic copyright law / Usenet (Score:3, Insightful)
You're obviously trolling, but in the interest of myth-dispelling: under most jurisdictions, everything you write is your copyright by default. What matters is any permission you give (implicitly or explicitly) for it to be copied, and any exemptions to which someone copying it without permission may appeal (e.g., fair use).
There is an implicit permission for something you post to Usenet to propagate and stay around for a few days. Whether there's an implicit permission for others to archive those posts, and if so whether they are then allowed to reproduce them for commercial purposes without permission, is an untested question (but there's little or nothing in statute law to support this position in most places).
Give them feedback (Score:3, Insightful)
http://groups-beta.google.com/support/bin/request. py [google.com]
If you don't like how they've changed it, let them know about it. If enough of us do it, maybe they'll do something about it.
Re:Progress? (Score:3, Insightful)
dont blame google for these "improvements" (Score:1, Insightful)
Not anymore folks, Google is big time.. they have to do whatever and anything that is necessary to profit their shareholders. Not you, not me, not slashdot or any geek community.. they are corporate america incorporated.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Evil? Re:Progress? (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember when they originally took over the archive from deja. I was devestated - convinced they were going to totally screw it up. They didn't, or I got used to the screwed up version.
Also, regarding noise appearing in searches, this is a standard cycle that all search engines go through and Google's experiences are well documented. They are constantly changing their search engine to give the most relevant results. Gradually commercial sites that depend on high search results spend enough time and money optimizing their site. Google is constantly changing their tech to push that noise down, but it always gradually floats back to the top. It's in Google's best interest to show commercial sites in their paid ads, not in the valid search results.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A little respect (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, we're the people who pay google's paychecks?
Who is Google to question what its users want?
Perhaps you'd like to start your own archive of the USENET message boards?
Considering Google bought up all the significant USENET archives in existence, wouldn't that be a bit hard?
If Google had come up with a service and now they were scaling it back, I would consider it silly to complain about this, since we'd all just be where we were before Google Groups was set up. The fact that Google Groups was formed by purchasing DejaNews makes things... a bit different.
I have a feeling of deja-vu... (Score:3, Insightful)
The new system sucks. No fixed-width fonts by default, that horrible floating group name at the right of the screen when scrolling, a far slower user interface (it was slow when I first noticed the change about 7 hours ago). I can go on.
They'll be underlining words with links next.
Re:Respect is earned (Score:2, Insightful)
While GG is not an NNTP server (as far as I know), it's basically a kind of USENET server where "a while" is defined in the same way as "for limited times" is effectivly defined for copyright, along with some nifty search features.
Usenet anonymity (Score:3, Insightful)
Amen... I posted some stuff to Usenet in the early to mid 90s that, given the choice, I'd rather weren't around today. Mainly due to their naive and juvenile nature...
Problem with Usenet nowadays is you *know* it will be archived, and for that reason I use it much less (also because of the worse signal:noise ratio). When I do, it's never under my real name (last did that over 3 years ago), although I use a plausible sounding pseudonym because I have nothing to hide.
I don't even tend to use the same name for different accounts (so if you see a 'Dogtanian' elsewhere, it's someone else). If someone wants to find out about me, they probably can, but not just through a 30-second search in Google groups.
Re:Progress? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hey Google: you're being evil... (Score:3, Insightful)
Your conversations in standard email are not private (unless you pgp them)
People along the transmission path, and sysadmins with access to the mail spool can snoop on them, yes. But (1) they are not intended to be shown to the whole world, while usenet posts are - by posting to usenet you are giving explicit permission for your post to be public, and (2) they are not visible to every single person in the world with a web browser.
Re:Goodbye Google? (Score:1, Insightful)
The only question is, which alternative search tool do you recommend?
Re:Hey Google: you're being evil... (Score:2, Insightful)
Google has been heading down the "evil" path for quite some time now. It's surprising how effective the simple phrase "don't be evil" has been as an effective shield against honest scrutiny around here.
Re:Progress? (Score:4, Insightful)
Er, well, not quite; Microsoft gets hammered much more for "embracing and extending" standards and then preventing other implementations from using those "extensions" thereby forcing everyone who wants to be compatible with Microsoft to use Microsoft products. Google not including the doctype , on the other hand, is fairly innocuous, its not like IE or Firefox have issues with it.
Re:Some basic copyright law / Usenet (Score:3, Insightful)
There is an implicit permission for something you post to Usenet to propagate and stay around for a few days. Whether there's an implicit permission for others to archive those posts
Unless you have some hard legal definition for how long "a few days" is supposed to be, you *do* in fact give implicit permission to archive those posts.
Re:Respect is earned (Score:3, Insightful)
Posting to Usenet IS giving permision to copy your posts. If it wasn't there would be no usenet.
Re:Respect is earned (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Evil? Re:Progress? (Score:2, Insightful)
On the plus side though, dev-races like this do help to improve search-engine technology. Although this article doesn't fill me with hope...
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
The bastards.
Re:Evil? Re:Progress? (Score:2, Insightful)
In other words, maybe the man said what he meant.
Re:Evil? Re:Progress? (Score:2, Insightful)
I really thought this would be obvious. Nice non-use of your brain