I spent the last year gathering and normalizing as many resources for
Usenet messages and built a search engine over public Usenet
discussions going back to 1981. Posting here because this seemed like
the one group that would actually care.
https://www.usenet-rewind.com/
Since Google Groups stopped indexing new Usenet content a
while back, and search over its historical archive has always been
rough- I wanted something that treats this as a real research
archive -- full-text search, date-range/filtering,etc and most
importantly as much Usenet data as possible going back as far as I could >find.
The index currently holds (to date) roughly 980 million messages and is
still growing. Sources are archival backups, data donations, and ongoing >crawls of several thousand still-active public NNTP servers. Binary and >yEnc-encoded content is stripped where possible to keep the index
focused on text.
The index was built using Apache Solr 10, MariaDB 12 (rocksdb), Ubuntu >22.04.5 LTS & custom Python scripts, all on nvme disk.
This is public archival content, same legal basis as DejaNews and
Google Groups before it. There's a removal process for anyone who
wants their own posts taken down, and author contact info is masked
by default.
Over in alt.folklore.computers
Craig Stadler wrote:
I spent the last year gathering and normalizing as many resources for
Usenet messages and built a search engine over public Usenet
discussions going back to 1981. Posting here because this seemed like
the one group that would actually care.
https://www.usenet-rewind.com/
Since Google Groups stopped indexing new Usenet content a
while back, and search over its historical archive has always been
rough- I wanted something that treats this as a real research
archive -- full-text search, date-range/filtering,etc and most
importantly as much Usenet data as possible going back as far as I could
find.
The index currently holds (to date) roughly 980 million messages and is
still growing. Sources are archival backups, data donations, and ongoing
crawls of several thousand still-active public NNTP servers. Binary and
yEnc-encoded content is stripped where possible to keep the index
focused on text.
The index was built using Apache Solr 10, MariaDB 12 (rocksdb), Ubuntu
22.04.5 LTS & custom Python scripts, all on nvme disk.
This is public archival content, same legal basis as DejaNews and
Google Groups before it. There's a removal process for anyone who
wants their own posts taken down, and author contact info is masked
by default.
I thought that some might find it interesting.
Over in alt.folklore.computers
Craig Stadler wrote:
I spent the last year gathering and normalizing as many resources for >>Usenet messages and built a search engine over public Usenet
discussions going back to 1981. Posting here because this seemed like
the one group that would actually care.
https://www.usenet-rewind.com/
Since Google Groups stopped indexing new Usenet content a
while back, and search over its historical archive has always been
rough- I wanted something that treats this as a real research
archive -- full-text search, date-range/filtering,etc and most
importantly as much Usenet data as possible going back as far as I could >>find.
The index currently holds (to date) roughly 980 million messages and is >>still growing. Sources are archival backups, data donations, and ongoing >>crawls of several thousand still-active public NNTP servers. Binary and >>yEnc-encoded content is stripped where possible to keep the index
focused on text.
The index was built using Apache Solr 10, MariaDB 12 (rocksdb), Ubuntu >>22.04.5 LTS & custom Python scripts, all on nvme disk.
This is public archival content, same legal basis as DejaNews and
Google Groups before it. There's a removal process for anyone who
wants their own posts taken down, and author contact info is masked
by default.
I thought that some might find it interesting.
On Sun, 06 Sep 2026 10:10:36 +0100, Chris J Dixon <chris@cdixon.me.uk>
wrote:
Over in alt.folklore.computersYes indeed! Thank you for posting that.
Craig Stadler wrote:
I spent the last year gathering and normalizing as many resources for >>>Usenet messages and built a search engine over public Usenet
discussions going back to 1981. Posting here because this seemed like
the one group that would actually care.
https://www.usenet-rewind.com/
Since Google Groups stopped indexing new Usenet content a
while back, and search over its historical archive has always been
rough- I wanted something that treats this as a real research
archive -- full-text search, date-range/filtering,etc and most >>>importantly as much Usenet data as possible going back as far as I could >>>find.
The index currently holds (to date) roughly 980 million messages and is >>>still growing. Sources are archival backups, data donations, and ongoing >>>crawls of several thousand still-active public NNTP servers. Binary and >>>yEnc-encoded content is stripped where possible to keep the index
focused on text.
The index was built using Apache Solr 10, MariaDB 12 (rocksdb), Ubuntu >>>22.04.5 LTS & custom Python scripts, all on nvme disk.
This is public archival content, same legal basis as DejaNews and
Google Groups before it. There's a removal process for anyone who
wants their own posts taken down, and author contact info is masked
by default.
I thought that some might find it interesting.
I've saved the link - although I suppose I could always find it again
on Usenet-Rewind :-)
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