I've run into this as well.

On the flip side, they were only "alive" because people -- like me, like you -- posted to them. So they're dead, but like Lazarus they can be resurrected by commanding them to be alive, through the simple mechanic of using them, and encouraging others to come participate.

Something like that happened back when Slashdot was bought by Dice.com, and lot of users just up and left. Some people started building new, similar sites, but a lot of them agreed to go to Usenet newsgroup comp.misc, which had been long dormant by that time, with nothing but occassional spam posting.

Since then, comp.misc has been a rather nice place.

EDIT: Corrected the newsgroup name. Note to self: don't drink and type.

I opened up comp.misc and the first post was from 9 days ago arguing that women can't code, and the insinuating tirade of arguments.

I don't think you'd find that on HN at least.

I feel like since just anyone can sign up for Usenet these days instead of just the technologically motivated, communities like them have been altered significantly.

Yeah, I haven't been there myself in months (I forget, plus do not have a NNTP reader in my phone), but I don't remember it being this bad before.

Still, there are still interesting threads, and with judicious application of PLONK (something you can't do on modern web forums like HN, by the way), you can make the worst idiots out of your sight.

Join us on alt.cyberpunk.

I'm up for it! Where do you like to post?

I frequent alt.ham.radio, comp.sys.cbm and comp.os.vms (which is quite active). I lurk on some others that are generally used for notifications, such as alt.bbs (and alt.bbs.ads).

I'm always up for more newgroups to hold my interest. Another poster mentioned comp.misc is active, so I'll probably start checking that one out as well.

Thanks, I've subscribed to the ham radio groups (don't really do anything with commodore or VMS [anymore]). Do check out comp.misc, it's got some regulars and things can be a bit curmudgeonly but it's quite active and not spammy.