Usenet Retention - Is Bigger Better?
NewsAdmin Staff Writer

In my imagination it's a scene straight out of Star Trek. Newsgroup retention swelling to massive proportions. News admins flailing about their servers in an effort to keep the barrage of data at bay. An urgent command rises above the din... "Scotty, I need more power!"... an frantic reply finds it's way through the smoke and sparks..."I'm giving it all she's got Captain!" The situation may not be this perilous, but there's no denying that the Usenet community has grown tremendously over the past few years. It wasn't t long ago that 10 days of binary retention was considered extreme, but today newsgroup service providers (NSPs) routinely offer 75, 100, 200+ days worth of retention.

Is bigger really better in this context, or is it possible to have too much of a good thing? For many NSPs retention is the only thing that distinguishes their service from competitors, but are end-users trading other important features for the ability to download a 2007 post of "Rush Hour 3" or "Norbit"?

200+ days of retention does sound impressive, but in some respects it's the equivalent of a super-sized meal at McDonalds. Initially the bucket of french fries and trough'o Coke sounds appetizing, but as you reluctantly take your last bite & slurp, you usually conclude that your eyes were bigger than your stomach. The hunger for super-sized retention is similar, but as you find yourself wading through multiple repostings of the same file or male enhancement spam, the modest retention portions offered in the value meal may have been a better choice.

Excessive retention creates newsgroups that become the final resting place for ten's of million's of posts, and while I still use my fingers and toes to count, I can safely say that ten's of million's represents a lotta stuff. The catch is that you'll now have to set aside an entire weekend to preview the posts in your favorite multimedia or dvd newsgroup. Even if I had the free time, I'd much rather chew on tin foil or sit through an "Oprah" marathon than watch my newsreader's download progress bar creep along for hours on end.

I understand that newsreaders can be adjusted to download headers in smaller increments, specialized download apps can be purchased to make data transfers easier, and NZB files can be used to retrieve specific articles, but is it really worth jumping through all the additional hoops just to grab a few files of personal interest?

I've also noticed that some NSPs are adept at playing the shell game when it comes to retention and membership features. As they distract with promises of mega retention, other service features are quickly moved from shell to shell, and eventually disappear from the table. It's not uncommon to find pricey NSPs offering humungous retention periods, but only delivering 1/2 the download capacity of their competitors. I suppose if limited account capacity forced people to spread their downloads over a longer time period, I can understand where 8 months of retention would become a necessity.

I'm not suggesting that we return to a time of 10 days retention, but it may be fair to say that Usenet has gone too far the other way. Going back to the super-size analogy, there are few things better in this world than McDonald's french fries, but even they lose their appeal when one over indulges. In the context of newsgroup retention the same thought may hold true, and too much of a good thing may be... too much.

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