"hibb" wrote in message
...
On Jun 21, 2:10 pm, LdB wrote:
I would like to suggest that all of you regulars of alt.home repair
take a look at the newsgroups rec.boats and rec.boats.cruising. I
have used the internet since the 1980's. Long before the days of the
World Wide Web. This newsgroup as well as the rec.boats groups were
well established before I found them.

The usernet has always been a favorite hiding place for internet kooks
and trolls. They have almost completely overwhelmed rec.boats and are
now slowly destroying rec.boats.cruising.

In both rec.boat groups it was simply a matter of the troublemaker(s)
posting off topic subjects of a political and personal nature that
many of the less restrained members could not resist responding to.
The resulting flame wars have driven off most of the serious users so
that now both groups are little more than a bunch of kooks doing
everything possible to annoy each other.

One of the biggest Off Topic troublemakers in the rec.boats group goes
by the names Harry, Harry Krause, HK and probably a few others. He
also likes to spoof the id's of others to stir up trouble when people
don't respond to his posts or trolls, which is what it is all about in
his case.

Anybody on this group notice our Harry's. We seem to have a few. Some
of our Harry's post normally. Some of our Harry's start threads like
this:

Interesting UK hand gun link

Obama, dictator of America.

The end of the world is nigh!

Take a look at the state of those other newsgroups before you decide
to respond to this one.

If you are a Harry and consider yourself a serious user of this group
I apologize for dragging you into the thread. If you are the Harry
that posts off topic would you please explain why you find it
necessary to do so. You do know there are many political newsgroups
that would welcome those posts?

For the rest of the home repair users, you have now seen what the
trolls can
do to newsgroups. You can continue on as usual or you can possibly
think first before responding to a troll. Google Internet Trolls if
you need a little more convincing that there could be a problem.

To the Harry troll

I can understand why you people would go after the rec.boats group. In
short they deserve you but that's another story. Why would you want to
come after this group? They're just a bunch of ordinary people from
all walks of life. They mean no harm to anyone. They're just looking
for simple homeowners advice or are willing to help others with some
of the same. I really can't understand why you or others like you
would get any enjoyment out of attacking a group like this?

LdB

Guilty as charged as far as replying to some of those threads. I've
seen posters in other groups make the case against off topic posts but
you did a better job arguing your case than most. Plus the posts in
other groups seem more like people just bitching about off topic posts
but seldom or never post on topic threads themselves.

I can't promise anything but I will keep this thread in mind when I am
tempted to post in the off topic threads in this NG in the future.

David

Having seen what hibb speaks of in rec.boats, I agree. Yet, it does take
two people to argue. Trolls only stay where they are fed. If they don't
get the attention they crave, they will be off to another group. Yes, I
comment on off topic stuff, but just to a brief point. After that, it
becomes an adolescent namecalling flame war that really then doesn't even
have anything to do with the original off topic political rant. It's just
up to everyone if they want to get into it with the trolls. And a lot of
good people who can offer good ON topic advice are then killfiled with the
political troll, and then a valuable poster is lost, even if they can't
control themselves enough to decide who they want to talk to, and not.

Usenet is losing its value. I scroll through, and if I see someone who is
posting a lot about things political, I just killfile them. There are a few
here who post a lot about things political, yet who do post about home
repair topics. I just avoid the threads that are OT. Servers and ISPs are
letting newsgroups go for just the reasons mentioned here, that is what
originally started as a help column turned into a crabfest, and they don't
want to dedicate the time and machinery needed to pass along people like HK
et al. They'd rather do anything that generates advertising or revenue.
So, it is going to be interesting to see where Usenet goes from here.

It has gotten so bad that now there is a proliferation of sites where if you
have a question or a problem, for XX bucks, they will get and give you the
answer. And these are answers that used to be, or need to be, free.

It's sad these little people have nothing better to do in their lives.

Steve

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A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.