I have been watching the rec.woodworking usenet group for a few months
now. I am greatly disappointed that most of the posts are "OT" and
them mostly political. It this usenet is really about woodworking
please, please make political post somewhere else! No one is served
well on woodworking with many OT posts. I'd be happy to see posts
about woodworking only. Can the rest of you live with that? If not,
I am out of here.

Richard wrote:

Can the rest of you live with that? If not, I am out of here.

I agree that being unable to filter is frustrating.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:30:37 -0700, Richard wrote:

I have been watching the rec.woodworking usenet group for a few months
now. I am greatly disappointed that most of the posts are "OT" and them
mostly political. It this usenet is really about woodworking please,
please make political post somewhere else! No one is served well on
woodworking with many OT posts. I'd be happy to see posts about
woodworking only. Can the rest of you live with that? If not, I am out
of here.

Richard:

Many news reader applications offer a filter. With these filters, you
can ignore any thread (or just posts) that contain "OT" in the subject
line. You will need to know how to use a filter when SPAM season comes
around again.

Last summer, there were some days with as many as 100 or 120 SPAM
advertisements per day. Many left this NG due to the heavy SPAM that
occurs now and then. At this moment, SPAM attacks on this NG is quite
light.

But do realize this is the Halloween and Election season. You must
expect a lot of bear-baiting to be part of any Usenet group like this.
The politics will drop off substantially after November 10th. Until then
why don't you visit http://www.sawmillcreek.org or the forum hosted by
Wood Magazine (you need to do a Google search for that forum)

Richard wrote in news:3fa64c63-e4c1-481e-abef-
:

I have been watching the rec.woodworking usenet group for a few months
now. I am greatly disappointed that most of the posts are "OT" and
them mostly political. It this usenet is really about woodworking
please, please make political post somewhere else! No one is served
well on woodworking with many OT posts. I'd be happy to see posts
about woodworking only. Can the rest of you live with that? If not,
I am out of here.

The woodworking discussion hasn't stopped, it's just most of this
newsgroup's membership has gone insane over politics. You can do a few
things: Be patient and wait it out, take a temporary vacation from
rec.woodworking, or post something related to what you want to see. I
try the third option every now and again, and usually get some good
responses.

Since you're using Google Groups, your ability to filter will be quite
limited. Using a real NNTP server with 90% of the newsreader software
out there allows you to filter, which makes reading Usenet groups
possible this time of year.

Puckdropper
--
If you're quiet, your teeth never touch your ankles.

To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm

On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:30:37 -0700 (PDT), Richard
wrote:

I have been watching the rec.woodworking usenet group for a few months
now. I am greatly disappointed that most of the posts are "OT" and
them mostly political. It this usenet is really about woodworking
please, please make political post somewhere else! No one is served
well on woodworking with many OT posts. I'd be happy to see posts
about woodworking only. Can the rest of you live with that? If not,
I am out of here.

I really don't mind the OT/Political posts as long as they remain "on"
their "off" topics. Sometimes they can be interesting, and
occasionally I've even learned something from them.

What annoys me is when they degenerate so rapidly to the "you're
stupid", "No, YOU're stupid" kind of grade school playground exchanges
which do nothing but advertise that the poster has no cogent rebuttal
but simply has to have the "last word".

A good news reader software package will allow filtering to some
degree and an nfilter (http://www.nfilter.org/ ) addon can improve on
the native filters if they're insufficient. Although filtering
improves the environment I'm afraid you won't be able to completely
avoid the spam/politics/trolls/etc. without going to a moderated
newsgroup or web based vBulletin type of forum.

As mentioned elsewhere, the signal to noise ratio should improve
considerably after the Tuesday following the first Monday in November
- probably just in time for next spam or troll attack.

Tom Veatch
Wichita, KS
USA

"Richard" wrote in message
...
I have been watching the rec.woodworking usenet group for a few months
now. I am greatly disappointed that most of the posts are "OT" and
them mostly political. It this usenet is really about woodworking
please, please make political post somewhere else! No one is served
well on woodworking with many OT posts. I'd be happy to see posts
about woodworking only. Can the rest of you live with that? If not,
I am out of here.

Well - if you're about issuing ultimatums, then have a nice trip. If you've
been participating in Usenet for any time at all then you'd surely
understand that OT stuff happens. Use your filter capabilities that are
inherent in all news readers and filter out what you don't want to see.
Your bitch is a bit weak though, in that at least here most of those
political OT threads are clearly marked OT. That's a Usenet convention, If
you can't live with that, then by all means move on. Seems to me you want
Usenet and this newsgroup to conform to your desire for the group. Ok -
we'd all like that to be the case, but it just isn't in real life. Learn to
live with what the environment is.

BTW - this is not a usenet. This is a newsgroup within Usenet.

--

-Mike-

"Mike Marlow" wrote

Well - if you're about issuing ultimatums, then have a nice trip.

LOL ... thanks!


--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 8/18/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

Richard wrote:

I have been watching the rec.woodworking usenet group for a few months
now. I am greatly disappointed that most of the posts are "OT" and
them mostly political. It this usenet is really about woodworking
please, please make political post somewhere else! No one is served
well on woodworking with many OT posts. I'd be happy to see posts
about woodworking only. Can the rest of you live with that? If not,
I am out of here.

New to Usenet?

At some point many of us have asked off-topic posters to take it elsewhere,
and then somewhere down the road we find ourselves posting off-topic, oh the
irony.

Few things are as pointless as asking people to stop posting off-topic,
especially when coupled with a threat that you might leave. Who do you
expect to lose sleep over that?

Compared to many groups the signal-to-noise ratio here is actually quite
good. A little effort with the scroll wheel on your mouse will get you past
the noise, it's not like anyone is forcing you to open and read those
off-topic posts.

Richard wrote in news:3fa64c63-e4c1-481e-abef-
:

I have been watching the rec.woodworking usenet group for a few months
now. I am greatly disappointed that most of the posts are "OT" and
them mostly political. It this usenet is really about woodworking
please, please make political post somewhere else! No one is served
well on woodworking with many OT posts. I'd be happy to see posts
about woodworking only. Can the rest of you live with that? If not,
I am out of here.


I think it's time to split the group.

"Elrond Hubbard" wrote in message


I think it's time to split the group.

Are you taking applications for moderator?

Personally I think a LITTLE bit of peripherally-topicced (!) traffic is quite
good for a group - i.e. when it's nominally on topic but would offend a pure
lexographic retentive.

What off****es me is the _quantity_ of political stuff which is of no
interest to anyone living in the civilized world. OK. the odd mention of
colonial tribal squabbling could be entertaining and even informative, but a
pure OT diatribe - and its inevitable stream of responses and bloody polemic
- shags up up the signal to noise ratio as much as the spammongerers
efforts.

There are 75 gezillion newsgroups on this thing, and in the many categories
there are many many many where you could legitimately vent your spleen about
your issues with Michael Palin and Osama bin Laden racing neck and neck to
global pollution responsibility.. If I want to know, I'll go and look.

If it's desperately important that you discuss your politics, religion or
weird sexuality with those you consider friends because of a shared interest
in wood-sniffing, then by all means, put a btw pointer to your (other) post
in a different newsgroup in here. Similarly, a pointer to your amazing
discovery in alt.binaries.muslim-schoolgirls-latex-shaved-camels.custard may
well be interesting and something you'd like to tell those of us unlucky to
have missed it all about, so a _short_ mention may be appreciated by enough
on here to make it worthwhile. It's a judgment call. If you think the OT
content is little enough and will appeal to enough readers because of their
on-topic common interest, then it'd be a shame for folk to miss out on what
would be disallowed on an overly-controlled anally retentive moderators pet
group. With freedom, however, comes responsibility. If it were impossible for
spammers and OT posters to post, then the group really would be poorer for
it. It's the freedom to post, tempered by the posters good judgment, that
keeps a newsgroup alive and, ultimately, worthwhile. There again, just
because you _can_ **** in the pool doesn't mean that you _have_ to.

Think about the number of readers who DON"T live in, or care for, your LOCAL
interest matters. Its one thing to talk about the great deal you found in
your local tool store in Austin, or Blackburn or Edinburgh or Boston but yet
another to drone on about how the mayor of your village can't count up to
ten, is a lesbian and once quoted Chatlie Chaplin in a high school essay on
witch hunts. The internet - and usenet - actually extends beyond your
territorial boundaries, whatever they might be and it's arrogant and
agressive to presume and behave otherwise.

I love you all for being a diverse bunch, even if you - and I - display
moments of utter ****wittedness from time to time. I've dropped a couple of
faux pas on the wire from time to time from misgauging the group mindset. All
of us have. All part of getting to know each other and trying to do something
positive for the whole thang.

No offence intended and I hope none taken.

Just my three farthings worth.

Richard wrote:
I have been watching the rec.woodworking usenet group for a few months
now. I am greatly disappointed that most of the posts are "OT" and
them mostly political. It this usenet is really about woodworking
please, please make political post somewhere else! No one is served
well on woodworking with many OT posts. I'd be happy to see posts
about woodworking only. Can the rest of you live with that? If not,
I am out of here.

Richard;

Most newsgroups are a kind of community wherein the residents meet to
discuss subjects of common interest. Usually these subjects are about a
specific topic, such as woodworking, but from time to time other items
of interest come up that generate emails from the group. I find this to
be interesting, at least until the thread breaks down into name calling,
etc. Occasionally the OT subject is offensive, those I ignore.

If you can't live with that then have a good life.

Dave Nagel

Ed Pawlowski wrote:


"Elrond Hubbard" wrote in message


I think it's time to split the group.

Are you taking applications for moderator?

Didn't we already have a volunteer for that about 1 to 2 years ago? I'm
sure if somebody approached him politely, he'd be willing to return and
assume that duty. (EG)

--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

On Oct 19, 2:29*pm, Mark & Juanita wrote:
Ed Pawlowski wrote:

"Elrond Hubbard" wrote in message

I think it's time to split the group.

Are you taking applications for moderator?

* Didn't we already have a volunteer for that about 1 to 2 years ago? *I'm
sure if somebody approached him politely, he'd be willing to return and
assume that duty. *(EG)

--

Was that ol' Cantaloupe Cody who reported me to my employer when I
told him his construction figures were bull****?

On 19 Oct 2008 13:21:44 GMT, Elrond Hubbard
wrote:


I think it's time to split the group.


Vito is prolly taking on newcomers.


tom watson

No one is served well on woodworking with many OT posts. *I'd be happy to see posts
about woodworking only.

Isn't a posting, that asks people to not submit OT postings, an OT
posting?

On Oct 18, 7:30*pm, Richard wrote:
I have been watching the rec.woodworking usenet group for a few months
now. *I am greatly disappointed that most of the posts are "OT" and
them mostly political. *It this usenet is really about woodworking
please, please make political post somewhere else! *No one is served
well on woodworking with many OT posts. *I'd be happy to see posts
about woodworking only. *Can the rest of you live with that? *If not,
I am out of here.

Richard... what have you done for us lately?

MB wrote:
No one is served well on woodworking with many OT posts. I'd be happy to see posts
about woodworking only.

Isn't a posting, that asks people to not submit OT postings, an OT
posting?

The usenet convention is that topicality is always topical.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

MB wrote in news:98e4b511-9b2c-4128-9f55-
:

No one is served well on woodworking with many OT posts. *I'd be happy
to see posts
about woodworking only.

Isn't a posting, that asks people to not submit OT postings, an OT
posting?


Well it is properly marked with the OT in the subject line... or is it?

Puckdropper

t wrote in news:iubnf4t37hn6mtr3pdqpat85uhok84oqan@
4ax.com:

On 19 Oct 2008 13:21:44 GMT, Elrond Hubbard
wrote:


I think it's time to split the group.


Vito is prolly taking on newcomers.


tom watson

In case anyone's interested, it looks like rec.games.chess split off the
political discussion side to rec.games.chess.politics. I haven't
actually opened the group to find out if that's true, but perhaps
something similar would be beneficial here.

Disclaimer: This is just a passing idea. As such, a minimal amount of
effort has been applied to research for the conversation.

Puckdropper
--
If you're quiet, your teeth never touch your ankles.

To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm