Crazy loons

Can't Google or whoever is hosting this site do something about
getting rid of that crazy loon's persistant postings? This is a
glider site, not paranoia central!

On Nov 17, 7:31 pm, raulb wrote:
Can't Google or whoever is hosting this site do something about
getting rid of that crazy loon's persistant postings? This is a
glider site, not paranoia central!

Unfortunately not, since this is usenet not a website. Or, to be more
accurate, it is a web-interface to usenet. It is an excellent example
of "the internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around
it".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet states
One notable difference [between usenet and] a BBS or web forum is
that there is no central server, nor central system owner. Usenet is
distributed among a large, constantly changing conglomeration of
servers which store and forward messages to one another. These servers
are loosely connected in a variable mesh.[clarify] Individual users
usually read from and post messages to a local server operated by
their ISP, university or employer. The servers then exchange the
messages between one another, so that they are available to readers
beyond the original server.

On 11/17/07 12:31 PM, in article
, "raulb"
wrote:

Can't Google or whoever is hosting this site do something about
getting rid of that crazy loon's persistant postings? This is a
glider site, not paranoia central!

Just killfile him. I have, and I don't even see his ravings on my
newsreader.

I had to go to Google Groups to see what you were talking about, and then I
remembered having killfiled him a while ago, during an earlier episode of
him apparently deciding to take a break from his medications.

Bullwinkle

On Nov 17, 12:12 pm, Bullwinkle wrote:

Just killfile him.

What des that mean?

On 11/17/07 4:58 PM, in article
, "raulb"
wrote:

On Nov 17, 12:12 pm, Bullwinkle wrote:

Just killfile him.

What des that mean?

My newsreader has a setting for excluding certain posts. For instance, I can
instruct it to reject any posts from a certain email address, or user name,
or with a certain subject/topic, etc.

I use Entourage (for the Mac), but I think most other newsreaders have this
capability.

I did that with this guy, and it has worked very well. He's been "killfiled"
from my reading of r.a.s.

Bullwinkle

The following is from Google Groups.
If they get enough feedback "click More Options at top of message and
select report message" they may see fit to block these messages.

================================================== =====================


How can I report cases of Usenet abuse from people posting though
Google Groups?


To report cases of Usenet abuse, click the "More options" link at the
top of the message and select "Report this message." On the report
page, describe why you think the post is abusive.

Please be aware that, while we appreciate how annoying off-topic posts
can be, Google does not regularly monitor or censor postings sent to
Google Groups, and we aren't able to pursue most complaints that we
receive. However, we do try to prevent wide-scale spam and other forms
of Usenet abuse, most notably involving numerous repeat offenses or
the posting of someone's personal information (such as credit card or
social security numbers). We'll use all of the information we receive
regarding abuse and spam to make large-scale changes to fight all
types of abuse. In Google Groups discussion groups (not Usenet
newsgroups), you can also ask the owner or moderator to remove a post.

For more information, please click the link below to view our Terms of
Service.

On Nov 18, 12:48 am, RN wrote:
The following is from Google Groups.
If they get enough feedback "click More Options at top of message and
select report message" they may see fit to block these messages.

================================================== =====================

How can I report cases of Usenet abuse from people posting though
Google Groups?

Unfortunately he isn't posting through google groups. And even if he
was, all he would have to do is create another google account with a
different name.

The best defence is, as others have noted, to use the filtering
facilities in your newsreader. In this case he Has A Very Important
Message (as opposed to just trolling on many subjects), so the best
technique would be to filter/kill any message with a subject
containing "MI5 Persecution".

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsgroup_spam and http://
www.templetons.com/brad/spamterm.html if you are interested in the
history of such abuses.

Bullwinkle wrote:
My newsreader has a setting for excluding certain posts. For instance, I can
instruct it to reject any posts from a certain email address, or user name,
or with a certain subject/topic, etc.

I use Entourage (for the Mac), but I think most other newsreaders have this
capability.

A number don't have it, or its restricted in what it can do. Last but
not least, there's no agreed name for the facility.

Thunderbird is a mail/news program from the Mozilla/Firefox people which
has a reasonable killfile capability. It calls it the Message Filter.
This works OK and has only one drawback: you can't set a filter and then
use it to immediately clear out all matching messages - this would be
useful if you're bored with a particularly busy pest. Thunderbird runs
everywhere that the Firefox browser does, i.e. Windows, Mac and Linux
and is free for download.

If you're on Windows you can also use Forte's Agent. IMO this is the
best newsreader available. Its also free for download, so you can see if
you like it. A freshly downloaded copy runs as Free Agent and doesn't
have a killfile. If you like it you license it. This unlocks the
killfile capability also lets you use it for your mail, though IMO its
only average as a mail agent. Its killfile is great: very flexible, you
can set filters to vanish after they are no longer needed and best yet,
you can set a filter and immediately use it to clean up the newsgroup.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On Nov 18, 1:02 pm, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
If you're on Windows you can also use Forte's Agent. IMO this is the
best newsreader available. Its also free for download, so you can see if
you like it. A freshly downloaded copy runs as Free Agent and doesn't
have a killfile. If you like it you license it. This unlocks the
killfile capability also lets you use it for your mail, though IMO its
only average as a mail agent. Its killfile is great: very flexible, you
can set filters to vanish after they are no longer needed and best yet,
you can set a filter and immediately use it to clean up the newsgroup.

All that is true for XNews, except that it is free http://
xnews.newsguy.com/. It can also be driven from the keyboard, thus
avoiding many mouse movements. it is my usenet reader of choice.

"Martin Gregorie" wrote in message
news:fop515- If you're on Windows you can also use Forte's Agent. IMO this
is the
best newsreader available. Its also free for download, so you can see if
you like it. A freshly downloaded copy runs as Free Agent and doesn't
have a killfile. If you like it you license it. This unlocks the
killfile capability also lets you use it for your mail, though IMO its
only average as a mail agent. Its killfile is great: very flexible, you
can set filters to vanish after they are no longer needed and best yet,
you can set a filter and immediately use it to clean up the newsgroup.




And if you happen to be using Windows and Outlook Express (not too uncommon
a situation), you can highlight a message from the loon, click on "Message"
and select "Block Sender".

Tim Ward