I've been online since, sheesh, '81 or '82? Long enough that I was one of
the founding members of AVSIG on Compuserve. (Does anyone else remember
Compuserve??). When it became the WWW instead of cruising the BBS's and
other areas, I started posting to USENET groups, mainly alt.rec.homebuilt
and the other alt.rec.{insert flying related group here}.
I've notice reduced traffic in nearly ALL the USENET groups over the last
couple of years. That's not always bad, but it's not necessarily good
either. Can you imagine what the trolls in the online forum communities
could do to USENET if they ever figured out how it actually worked?
I check in the group a couple times a week and try to answer any tech
questions I can. I have two Finale re-bodies, one '86 race car that's
getting a Northstar at the moment, and a gaggle of parts cars. When I have
time, I'll make a few custom parts for people. I like to think I'm pretty
good at what I do and the parts I make are pretty well received. I turn out
solid cradle bushings for the 'pre-88's, since Daryl Morse is MIA for the
last 12 months or so. I redesigned the rear pick-up points for the early
tie rod ends that eliminates 90% of the bump steer. I've done about 4 or 5
4.9 Cadillac swaps for myself and others.
I hope the group doesn't die. It's nice to hang with polite, personable
people with the same interests.
John Stricker
PS: Here's a link for a picture to our Finale Roadster. This was at the
Starbird show in Wichita a couple of weeks ago. We're getting ready to take
it down to his show in Tulsa in another couple of weeks.
Loading Image...
Feel free to poke around on my server space. Very little HTML there, just
file listings for pictures and stuff, a ton of it Fiero's.
Post by B FuhrmannI see other newsgroups loosing membership also.
Here is what I posted in response to other people's assertion that a
particularly obnoxious person was killing the group. That group is part
of the usenet rec.sports family so it has a stronger sell to most carriers
than the alt series.
---
I think that the vast majority of internet users have no clue that the
usenet exists or how to communicate on it.
The Yahoo groups are growing more popular and I think are better known.
People can go to a common location and use a search engine to find the
details about what the groups are about and can use several methods to view
them.
I find it surprising that Google's groups (which would have increased the
use of the usenet groups through their linking) have not taken off.
Probably just that Yahoo got their first and have a really good interface.
I had considered making a Yahoo group to act as a new version of this group.
One slight advantage is that people who post as trolls or just to insult
others can be removed along with the problem messages.
--
Bill Fuhrmann
Fiero Driver since 88, Daily driver - all year round
375K miles put on my first two Formulas
Bought my third Formula on Thanksgiving weekend
A call for all who check this newsgroup to see if we can generate some
usage so it doesn't go away.
If you see this message, will you please reply with something?
Thanks,
Spuds the Unmonitor
