It's so sad. I used to read this group regularly in the late '90s.
There was spam and political rants then, but nothing like now, where
it seems like nine out of ten posts are ads for stupid watches or
something. Is there anything to be done?
Robobass

wrote in message
...
Is there anything to be done?

If you insist on reading the group through Google or some other web service,
the answer is "no". If you get access to a proper news server and use a proper
news reader program, you can write your own filters for the spam and killfile
those who insist on their political and religious rants and end up with a pretty
good read.

The spammers, political nuts and other assorted trolls aren't going to go
away, so the choice is yours.

Vaughn

On Apr 10, 1:59 am, "Vaughn Simon"
wrote:
wrote in message

...

Is there anything to be done?

If you insist on reading the group through Google or some other web service,
the answer is "no". If you get access to a proper news server and use a proper
news reader program, you can write your own filters for the spam and killfile
those who insist on their political and religious rants and end up with a pretty
good read.

The spammers, political nuts and other assorted trolls aren't going to go
away, so the choice is yours.

Vaughn

Hey, I'm happy to comply, but this is all new to me. Can you recommend
one?
Robobass

On Wed, 9 Apr 2008 15:47:57 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
It's so sad. I used to read this group regularly in the late '90s.
There was spam and political rants then, but nothing like now, where
it seems like nine out of ten posts are ads for stupid watches or
something. Is there anything to be done?

Killfiles. Block wide crossposts and anything from Asia for starters.

"
wrote in
Try XNEWS, get it from here --
http://xnews.newsguy.com/

Its free

It is fairly simple for the new user after it is set up.
It has a good filter system that is pretty easy to use and is
more complete that many news readers that you have to pay for.
It also has a reasonable if you decide to really get into
filtering.


You can get the news groups from your isp usually or try
aioe.com this is a free news server.

Von

.
com:

On Apr 10, 1:59 am, "Vaughn Simon"
wrote:
wrote in message


s.com...

Is there anything to be done?

If you insist on reading the group through Google or some
other web service,
the answer is "no". If you get access to a proper news server
and use a proper news reader program, you can write your own
filters for the spam and killfile those who insist on their
political and religious rants and end up with a pretty good
read.

The spammers, political nuts and other assorted trolls
aren't going to go
away, so the choice is yours.

Vaughn

Hey, I'm happy to comply, but this is all new to me. Can you
recommend one?
Robobass

" wrote:

It's so sad. I used to read this group regularly in the late '90s.
There was spam and political rants then, but nothing like now,
where it seems like nine out of ten posts are ads for stupid
watches or something. Is there anything to be done?
Robobass

You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than
your own news server Google Groups. That's where the spam is coming
from. There is some other weirdness going on with Google Groups
besides the spam, but that's another subject.

Get a real news reader/server and filter posts from Google Groups. I
agree with the other poster about Xnews. It's a very good newsreader
with a significant (however short) learning curve. Filtering Google
Groups posts (without filtering the whole branch) will remove almost
all the spam if no one replies to it and you will still see replies
to regular Google Groups posters.

Yeah, and start with Googlemail..
JR
Dweller in the cellar

On Wed, 09 Apr 2008 23:59:13 GMT, "Vaughn Simon"
wrote:


wrote in message
...
Is there anything to be done?

If you insist on reading the group through Google or some other web service,
the answer is "no". If you get access to a proper news server and use a proper
news reader program, you can write your own filters for the spam and killfile
those who insist on their political and religious rants and end up with a pretty
good read.

The spammers, political nuts and other assorted trolls aren't going to go
away, so the choice is yours.

Vaughn

--------------------------------------------------------------
Home Page: http://www.seanet.com/~jasonrnorth
If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes
Doubt yourself, and the real world will eat you alive
The world doesn't revolve around you, it revolves around me
No skeletons in the closet; just decomposing corpses
--------------------------------------------------------------
Dependence is Vulnerability:
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Open the Pod Bay Doors please, Hal"
"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.."

Ronald Thompson wrote:

Of course "CLIFF" and "TT" are at the head of the list, as well.

It doesn't completely eliminate them because there is always
someone who just has to reply to them.

For someone who's serious about using a kill file instead of just
using it as an excuse to troll, a newsreader like Xnews can filter a
thread branch (instead of just a single post) and that neatly solves
the problem of others replying to someone who is in a kill file.

But we're talking about massive amounts of spam here.