Article with message-id: <[email protected]>

This is a sincere thank you to all the free NNTP server operators.

I am speaking only for myself. None of the people I mention have endorsed 
this message. I name them solely out of respect for their long-standing 
contributions to the free Usenet ecosystem. I may have missed some.

For decades, a small number of dedicated volunteers have kept free NNTP 
servers and their peering links alive. They built the infrastructure, 
maintained the feeds, fixed the breakage, absorbed the abuse, and kept the 
doors open long after most sane people would have walked away. Without 
them, free access to Usenet would have disappeared years ago.

This work was not limited to running servers. It also depended on the 
quiet, often invisible labor of peering, including arranging feeds,
maintaining links, negotiating connections, and keeping articles flowing
across a network that has no central authority. Peering is the glue that
holds Usenet together, and the people who handled it deserve recognition
for keeping the entire system functioning even as they're not as public
facing as the free nntp server admins might be to a normal user.

I want to express my sincere thanks to the public faces behind these 
long-running free servers and the peering work that supported them:

Paolo Amoroso (Aioe)
Roman Racine, Alexander Bartolich, Sabine Schultz (Albasani)
Daniel and Monika Weber, Benjamin Gufler (Solani)
Steen Jensen (Sunsite)
Steve Crook (Mixmin)
Alex de Joode (Dizum)
Ivo Gandolfo (Paganini)
Ray Banana (Eternal September)
Jesse Rehmer (Blueworld)
Retro Guy (NovaBBS, RIP)
Davide Cavion (Narkive)
Marco Mook (peering and backbone work)

I certainly have missed some, but I do not speak for any of them.
I simply respect what they all have built. For everyone. For history.

Their work has given countless people around the globe a no-cost way to 
endeavor to read, learn, explore, and communicate freely. Their efforts 
deserve recognition, and their efforts deserve better than the noise that 
now dominates this group.

Thank you all, for keeping the free newsservers backbone system alive for
as long as you have. Your efforts mattered then, they still matter.
-- 
Bofh forbids crosspost/f'up to alt.free.newsservers so this is a multipost.