It has tons of valuable information, especially concerning Rhino 3.0 which I am still using together with Flamingo 1.1. Where can I find it?
If there is no user interface to it, perhaps there is a dump somewhere?
I am especially interested in the following news groups:
You can use your favorite NNTP reader and download the messages to your computer. There has never been a good search tool for finding messages in the newsgroup archives (one of the many reasons we’re switching to Discourse!).
We’ll leave the newsgroup online but read-only for a while after July 4. When traffic drops to near zero, we’ll probably turn it off.
There was some web based search tool, though. Better than nothing.
Anyhow, would it be too much to ask to provide the news group archives as a dump, once the groups are read only? If you need help: I have done complex things with INN (if you’re using that) in the past, though that was almost ten years ago.
I am having a hard time understanding what value a dump of old discussions is really going to provide. In fact, I really question the value of the old discussions at all. The relevance of conversations fade as new technology and features make the old solutions obsolete.
I’m surprised you say that Brian. The old newsgroup is absolutely chockerblock with cunning methods, workflows, macros, scripts and general advice on how to model in Rhino. It’s a collected resource of the aggregated brilliance of a lot of very talented people (I do not include myself in this category 
This new forum will of course end up being the same thing eventually and I see your point about technology moving forwards. However the fact is that a lot of the information on the old newsgroup is generic ie. it is applicable to all versions of Rhino, new and old.
Speaking for myself, I have a huge number of posts marked in my newsreader that I constantly go back to, to remind myself of how to do something. Admittedly, I do forget things easily these days
For us old newsgroupies, it’s not an issue as I suspect most of us have the whole thing stored on our local machine anyway. However others may not have that luxury. I’d suggest that if it is not too much of a resource problem, it would be worth leaving the old NG up as read only so that people who want to make the effort can get at it.
I really think it would be a waste of a wonderful archive of knowledge otherwise.
Steve
I said that in my first reply in this thread!
I realize now that “for a while” is vague. How about if we promise to leave it online and read-only for 1 year or until the server dies, whichever comes first. At that point it will go dark and we won’t do anything to migrate the data anywhere.
Storage is cheap, and hosting a dump e.g. on the Wiki should not exceed McNeel’s capabilities.
It’s a pity, already I cannot find posts before late 2009. That may be an issue with my newsreader, but I doubt it.
Seems like McNeel wants to force user’s to upgrade… 
So if I put all the newsgroup posts in one giant text file, zip it, and make it downloadable, you’ll be happy? Or were you thinking of the dump in some alternate format? If so - what format are you imagining?
Well, an online SEARCHABLE dump would be nice. Even if it was just a DUMP discussion here on Discourse (with dummy usernames).
Or perhaps just a WIKI page with plain text. Users could search it via CTRL-F.
All the posts (incl. headers of course) in one giant zip file would be perfect. That contains all the information there is. It could serve as the basis for someone to build a searchable online archive, if there is demand.
Try this:
site:news2.mcneel.com and then whatever you want to search for.Does that give you what you want?
If you want to limit the search to the Rhino newsgroup, try: site:news2.mcneel.com "Newsgroup: rhino, Thread" <your search terms>
or the Plug-ins newsgroup: site:news2.mcneel.com "Newsgroup: rhino.plug-ins" <your search terms>
Now this piece would have got a down vote from me if it was possible 
Was it the tone, the word choice, or the content you thumbs-downed? How do you wish I had responded? It’s difficult for me to understand your point of view from your response.
The content and the delivery.
It’s usual for me to run searches looking for code trying to remember things once discussed long ago. That’s why people spent so much time complaining about the search.
I agree that it will get old, but the history from when 5.0 caught up on the NG until the discussion shifts to 6.0 you will have what, 6 years worth of information there? It won’t fade that quickly.
To just declare it useless is pretty short sighted imo.
I also don’t understand the downvote.
@brian, thanks for your advice, it works like a charm, and a lot of very old threads are available! 
Now only news2.mcneel.com needs to be preserved. If one day you decide to shut it down, then please don’t forget about providing a dump.
So what do you want me to do differently?
Thanks Brian.
The longer it can stay there, the better in my opinion.
My suggestion would be to keep a link to it on the website along with a quick description of how to search it via google site:. You could put a disclaimer up saying it is purely an archive of old posts and is provided as a “use at own risk” resource.
I guess that’s the statement that @RicardoAmaral (as much as I) was unhappy with. Old discussions provide tremendous value. It feels like a waste of time to post about Rhino 3.0 issues on Discourse when most of these issues have been discussed in the past.
Of course, I would like to upgrade, but as an occasional user of Rhino (some days/weeks each year) financially that doesn’t make sense to me. In fact I haven’t rendered anything serious with Flamingo in years. It’s the old problem of hobbyists vs. professionals. Perhaps one day there will be a subscription based model, allowing pay per use (preferably per hour). It shouldn’t be impossible to build something like an Internet wide Zoo.
How much are you willing to pay per hour to use Rhino?