[LeoPanthera]

It's a shame that Usenet did not persist. There's nothing stopping anyone from using NNTP to create a new separate "forum" that is not connected to "Usenet".

But since Usenet lost its popularity there's very little NNTP client software available now.

A shame.

[Karrot_Kream]

It is a bit moribund but there are some newsgroups that are alive. It's full of spam, trolls, and obnoxious contrarians, but you can post about whatever you'd like, receive replies for whomever, and never have to deal with upvote politics or comment pile-ons.

One newsgroup I recommend is `comp.sys.raspberry-pi`. It has a pretty high SNR and is quite active, especially in comparison to some other groups on Usenet.

[musicale]

> upvote politics

I hadn't heard this term before for upvote/downvote wars (and associated groupthink/monoculture), but I think it's a good one.

[jonathankoren]

Yup. I’m particularly fond of the results of my comment when called vote counters “sentiment thermometers”.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21539167

[jjav]

BTW Usenet is still around, I still read it every week. Most groups are dead or pure bot spam, but there are pockets of actual activity.

Usenet is quite awesome conceptually. It's a much better solution than mailing lists for large group discussions, and obviously better than all proprietary walled garden forums.