On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 08:54:38 -0600, Don Stauffer wrote:

Is there such a thing as an a priori kill file? One that will guess
what off-topic discussions will come up? I could write a kill file to
kill anything with OT in it, but not all OT discussions have OT in
subject line.

Well, they're additive. So you could kill any post that has two or more
commas in the Newsgroups: line (takes out posts crossposted to 3 or more
groups), any post with OT: in the subject line, any post from particular
individuals, and so on. Keep adding until you get the desired
signal:noise ratio. Will you miss some signal? Sure. Usenet is huge,
you're missing signal all the time. But pick what and who you don't
want to read, and programatically ignore them, and _your_ Usenet
improves.