After years of reading this NG, and reading all the junk here, and
making filter after filter in Thunderbird, there is nothing left! I
think I filtered everything to the point that the NG is now pointless!

On 12/4/2018 8:59 AM, Art Todesco wrote:
After years of reading this NG, and reading all the junk here, and
making filter after filter in Thunderbird, there is nothing left!Â* I
think I filtered everything to the point that the NG is now pointless!
And, to reply to my own post, Thunderbird seems to have lost all my
filters. I suppose I could get them from my November 1 backup.

"Art Todesco" wrote

| After years of reading this NG, and reading all the junk here, and
| making filter after filter in Thunderbird, there is nothing left! I
| think I filtered everything to the point that the NG is now pointless!

I gave up some years ago and just stopped by
recently, in case anyone might need real help.
But it's got much worse than I remember it. It's
not just the junk posters. It's also the regulars
going off-topic, bickering about politics, and
competing over who knows more handyman trivia.

It's a shame. Usenet is such a great resource, but
a handful of tech newsgroups are pretty much
the only ones I visit anymore. For reasons I
don't understand, most people are far more likely
to post to commercial websites that are difficult to
read and require membership.

I was recently reading Reddit for the first time
because I wanted to follow a particular issue.
What a mess that is! Lots of people who just
want to argue or say their piece. And the site
supports it by allowing posts to be "upvoted".
It's discussion by mob rule. At least on usenet
there are no moderators and no "voting". (Where
there are moderators, such as the Mozilla groups,
the group itself ends up being little more than a
marketing channel for the product. Say something
critical in a Mozilla group and it probably won't
even show up.)

On 12/4/2018 8:59 AM, Art Todesco wrote:
After years of reading this NG, and reading all the junk here, and
making filter after filter in Thunderbird, there is nothing left!Â* I
think I filtered everything to the point that the NG is now pointless!

I just looked at my filter log in TB which was cleared yesterday and now
contains over 100 messages filtered. There is still some good stuff
here and it is not as bad as some other groups.

On Tue, 4 Dec 2018 09:07:35 -0500, Art Todesco
wrote in

On 12/4/2018 8:59 AM, Art Todesco wrote:
After years of reading this NG, and reading all the junk here, and
making filter after filter in Thunderbird, there is nothing left!* I
think I filtered everything to the point that the NG is now pointless!
And, to reply to my own post, Thunderbird seems to have lost all my
filters. I suppose I could get them from my November 1 backup.

I think this NG is still worth reading. True, about 90% of the posts
are OT junk, but when you get Tbird filtering again you'll eliminate
most of the junk.
--
Web based forums are like subscribing to 10 different newspapers
and having to visit 10 different news stands to pickup each one.
Email list-server groups and USENET are like having all of those
newspapers delivered to your door every morning.

Starting last night I've been getting dozens of emails "post in violation of terms-of-service canceled by Sir Cancelot. What's going on with that?

On 12/4/2018 9:08 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Art Todesco" wrote

| After years of reading this NG, and reading all the junk here, and
| making filter after filter in Thunderbird, there is nothing left! I
| think I filtered everything to the point that the NG is now pointless!

I gave up some years ago and just stopped by
recently, in case anyone might need real help.
But it's got much worse than I remember it. It's
not just the junk posters. It's also the regulars
going off-topic, bickering about politics, and
competing over who knows more handyman trivia.

(I also gave up.)

You used to be one of the most interesting people.

In addition to the general crap, this group recently picked up some UK
posters with some of the posts (like UK electrical) totally irrelevant here.


It's a shame. Usenet is such a great resource, but
a handful of tech newsgroups are pretty much
the only ones I visit anymore. For reasons I
don't understand, most people are far more likely
to post to commercial websites that are difficult to
read and require membership.


Found anything interesting (that you would want to share here)?

"bud--" wrote

|
| You used to be one of the most interesting people.
|
Thanks. Nice to be remembered.

| Found anything interesting (that you would want to share here)?

In terms of newsgroups? Not really. I'm a contractor
who also does web design and writes Windows software.
So I frequent the Windows and programming groups.
There seems to be one, barely functional group left for
each Windows version. Some years ago Microsoft stopped
supporting their usenet groups. They still exist but most
people took Microsoft's lead and moved to their webpage-
based, moderated forum, which is little more than a
marketing venue.
But the Windows people, for whatever reason, have
always tended to be considerate, so the groups function
pretty well.
Then I also go to a vbscript and vb6 groups for
programming chat, which are leftover Microsoft groups.

Recently I went to a webmasters group to ask a
question. The posts were all junk, but a serious question
brought knowledgeable people out of the woodwork.

For most other things I just do searches. For instance,
car repair. I can find youtube videos and commercial
groups, and often I find the answer I need there. Last
year I needed to tile a threshold, with a mud bed, and
had never done that before. I found videos to help on
youtube.

More recently I've had an odd tire sound that I can't
figure out. I found someone who had posted a video.
It was exactly the same sound. But no one in the
group had come up with an answer.

For anything else, civility seems to be long gone.
Religion, philosophy, politics.... I don't even bother
to look at usenet for those topics. And private groups
tend to have a pecking order of wiseacres who are
comfortably settled in. I guess usenet also has that,
but on usenet they have no power.

On 12/4/18 3:13 PM, bud-- wrote:
On 12/4/2018 9:08 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Art Todesco" wrote

| After years of reading this NG, and reading all the junk here, and
| making filter after filter in Thunderbird, there is nothing left!Â* I
| think I filtered everything to the point that the NG is now pointless!

Â*Â*Â* I gave up some years ago and just stopped by
recently, in case anyone might need real help.
But it's got much worse than I remember it. It's
not just the junk posters. It's also the regulars
going off-topic, bickering about politics, and
competing over who knows more handyman trivia.

(I also gave up.)

You used to be one of the most interesting people.

In addition to the general crap, this group recently picked up some UK
posters with some of the posts (like UK electrical) totally irrelevant
here.

I like reading how things are done in other places. One never knows
when a stray idea from somewhere will come in handy.
There was a good tv show years ago illustrating how odd ideas from
different places
and times would combine to make something. The host would start the
show maybe sitting in a modern sports car, then go through the things
that had to combine to make the
car.
It took me a couple minutes to remember. The show was Connections
hosted by
James Burke. It looks like at least some of the episodes are on Youtube
if you're
interested.

On 12/4/2018 9:23 PM, Dean Hoffman wrote:
On 12/4/18 3:13 PM, bud-- wrote:
On 12/4/2018 9:08 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Art Todesco" wrote

| After years of reading this NG, and reading all the junk here, and
| making filter after filter in Thunderbird, there is nothing left!Â* I
| think I filtered everything to the point that the NG is now pointless!

Â*Â*Â* I gave up some years ago and just stopped by
recently, in case anyone might need real help.
But it's got much worse than I remember it. It's
not just the junk posters. It's also the regulars
going off-topic, bickering about politics, and
competing over who knows more handyman trivia.

(I also gave up.)

You used to be one of the most interesting people.

In addition to the general crap, this group recently picked up some UK
posters with some of the posts (like UK electrical) totally irrelevant
here.

Â*Â*Â*Â* I like reading how things are done in other places.Â* One never knows
when a stray idea from somewhere will come in handy.
There was a good tv show years ago illustrating how odd ideas from
different places
and times would combine to make something.Â*Â* The host would start the
show maybe sitting in a modern sports car,Â* then go through the things
that had to combine to make the
car.
Â*Â* It took me a couple minutes to remember.Â*Â* The show was Connections
hosted by
James Burke.Â* It looks like at least some of the episodes are on Youtube
if you're
interested.

That was a great show. Perfume atomizer led to the carburetor was one
story.

On 12/04/2018 08:08 AM, Mayayana wrote:
It's a shame. Usenet is such a great resource, but
a handful of tech newsgroups are pretty much
the only ones I visit anymore. For reasons I
don't understand, most people are far more likely
to post to commercial websites that are difficult to
read and require membership.

I gave up on the tech newsgroups a long time ago. Ones like the C group
turned into script kiddies and C fundamentalists bickering. Ask a
question and someone was sure to tell you it wasn't really a question
about C and please screw off. Unless you're a complete newbie there
really aren't that many questions about the C language itself.