[stalcottsmith]

Exactly what I was thinking. Does this still exist in some meaningful form? We used to have an amazing thing there... I remember before Endless September. alt.* was about as free as it gets.

[Animats]

Usenet is still up and running. There's a public news server at "news.eternal-september.org". Serious groups such as "sci.electronics.design" and "comp.lang.python" get heavy traffic. Eternal September doesn't host the alt binary groups; too much junk.

Path of a typical post:

    Path: eternal-september.org
          !news.eternal-september.org
          !feeder.eternal-september.org
          !news.glorb.com
          !peer02.iad
          !feed-me.highwinds-media.com
          !news.highwinds-media.com
          !post02.iad.highwinds-media.com
          !fx01.iad.POSTED!not-for-mail

Google Groups is a Usenet node. Posting to Google Groups will result in Usenet distribution, and posting with NNTP to a Usenet node will show up on Google Groups.