Matt,

I'll attempt to help - especially if you promise to keep your posts
a bit smaller here and if you'll admit that some of us homeowners
know the difference between our butts and a hole in the ground.
Not all "amateurs" are hacks.

It is very sad that alt.hvac has become such a cesspool. I hope
you can be instrumental in cleaning it up. I have lurked there for
ages and I have posted a few comments there, but I avoid it a lot
lately because it has become one of the most immature newsgroup
on the net recently. It is the absolute worst possible advertisement
for the HVAC industry.

Is it possible for you to post a brief summary of what is going on
with that newsgroup? I am very computer literate, but I don't
understand how anybody except a newsgroup moderate can cancel
messages. I also don't know if there are 100 buttheads out there
or just a few posting under various usernames. A brief history of
that newsgroup and how it has degraded would be extremely
helpful.

I feel that this is a legitimate discussion on alt.home.repair because
many of us get AC/heating advice on both newsgroups - posting and
lurking here plus cautiously lurking over on alt.hvac.

Thanks for your efforts to preserve a potentially useful newsgroup,
Gideon