[wordup] Google Restores Deja View

Sun Apr 29 19:07:03 EDT 2001

"Oh lord, you can find everything now. I don't know if I like this..."

From: The Eristocracy <Eristocracy at merrymeet.com>

Google Restores Deja View
By Michelle Delio
9:00 a.m. April 27, 2001 PDT

The porn is back. The chronicles of many nasty flamewars are back, too.
And everything you ever said in Usenet, back before you had a real job or
kids to worry about, has now returned to haunt you.

Popular Internet search site Google has made more than 500-million
archived Usenet messages -- an archive dating back to 1995 -- available
online again.

Google acquired Deja.com's Usenet Discussion Service, which included the
archives, on Feb. 12 and promptly took a large part of the archive offline
until the company could design a speedier search interface for the
collection.

Google seems to have succeeded in optimizing the search engine for the
archive. And some users are discovering that Google's more efficient
search engine is turning up old, sometimes embarrassing, Usenet posts.

Back in 1995, people might not have been thinking that their posts would
be archived and searchable some day. And they were also less concerned
about privacy.

Virtually everyone who posted on Usenet back then used their real names
and e-mail addresses. Now, many people post with nicknames and altered
e-mail addresses.

"Google certainly did optimize the search function, and I have found all
the posts I made when I was 18. I cannot believe what an absolute, utter
asshole I was back then," said a rueful Mike Milgen, an open-source
programmer who was furious when the Deja archives first went offline.

Many users are now reporting the reappearance of posts that a search on
the original Deja service did not retrieve.

"Oh lord, you can find everything now. I don't know if I like this," said
freelance technology writer Terry Franks, who immediately searched for his
own old posts.

Others aren't sure they like the new interface.

Google has grouped conversation threads -- collections of messages and
replies -- by the post's subject lines. Deja had archived them using a
message ID number. Message IDs are considered to be an effective way of
classifying Usenet posts because subject lines are often changed
mid-conversation as the discussion wanders into new, but still-related,
territory.

Grouping messages by subject lines can also lead to unassociated posts
being linked. Random posts with subjects that often crop up on Usenet,
such as "need help with my computer," are now all linked together.

Despite those problems, users have ready access to the pearls of wisdom
that had been posted in groups such as alt.sex.hedgehog.ouch.ouch.ouch and
alt.sex.bestiality.hamster.duct-tape, along with all the other salacious
scribbling and naughty pictures posted over the years by Usenet's merry
band of amateur pornographers.

Despite -- or perhaps because of -- all the assorted strangeness, most
feel that Google's Usenet archive is an irreplaceable and invaluable
reference.

The Usenet archives are probably the best technical library on the
Internet, and also a wonderfully bizarre collection of all the things that
humans discuss, said Michael McCormick, a professor of New Media at the
University of Toronto.

"In amongst the random flames, self-obsessed rantings, and insanely filthy
porn, there is so much that is of real value," McCormick said. "I applaud
Google for making Usenet archives available again."

"We sometimes forget that the Web is only a small part of the Internet.
Usenet is stupidity, brilliance, anger, kindness, art and sex - all
jumbled up in one glorious mess. It's the human side of the Internet."