Can this group be turned into a moderated one?

F

fulio pen

This group used to be very nice and clean. It helped a lot. Now there
are too many commercial postings. I wonder whether it can become a
moderated group. Thanks.

fulio pen
 
P

P E Schoen

"fulio pen" wrote in message
This group used to be very nice and clean. It helped a lot. Now
there are too many commercial postings. I wonder whether it
can become a moderated group. Thanks.

That probably "ain't gonna happen", and if it did, who will be the
moderator? With a good newsreader, you can easily filter the spam,
especially since it seems to be coming from just a handful of dimwits. This
NG seems to be especially targeted. I am not using a spam filter, and I'm
using Windows Live Mail/News, which has been "fixed" by codemonkeys so that
it has lost much of the functionality it had in the non-Live (dead?)
versions. But you can still highlight the spam and then hit the DEL key and
the offensive posts are shot down into the bit-bucket. (You may be asked if
you want to permanently delete them. I wish the delete button had the power
to crawl back through the headers and delete the people who are causing
this problem :)

It's more of a problem if you use Google Groups or similar web-based readers
because by default they expand the posts and you see many pages of abuse and
it's hard to find the roses in the manure pile.

Paul
 
T

Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn

Stefan said:
No, what China Blue Jay Way wrote is correct.

No, it is not.
Maybe you want to read up on this topic before you add even more noise to
an already noisy group?

You want to.
If you really don't know about moderation on Usenet, here's a starting
point for you: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/moderated-ng-faq/

So what? Usenet is organized decentralized. No news server admin is
required to set up this group, or peer with news servers that have it
in the first place.


PointedEars
 
T

Tim Streater

fulio pen said:
This group used to be very nice and clean. It helped a lot. Now there
are too many commercial postings. I wonder whether it can become a
moderated group. Thanks.

What commercial postings? I see less than one a week.
 
J

J.R.

It's not much of a problem when you use a good news provider,
preferrably in combination with a good news reader. The provider I use
(GigaNews) is apparently a lot worse than yours, but the amount of spam
I get is still quite managable. But take a look at this:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.javascript/topics

That's an unmitigated catastrophe. For better or worse, this page is
usually the first contact people have with the group. In addition, some
of the group's readers don't have the option of using a real newsfeed
(for example, due to blocked ports at work). So Google provides a free
web front-end (which is good), but at the same time allows random people
to post the most blatant spam you can imagine (not so good). For crying
out loud, how can an automated system not detect a message with a
subject like "Buy Cialis online" as spam?

Most of the spam I get on Usenet is automatically marked as read and
displayed in #fdfdfd on white, so it won't distract from the real
messages. But this is 2011 - I should _not_ need to create filters for
"Viagra", "Prada", "Gucci", "Tramadol", etc. Google have a very
effective spam detetion system in Google Mail - I'm using a gmail.com
address here, and I've never had a single spam mail delivered to me
through this address. Why they can't implement something similar for
their "Google Groups"... I have no idea. I tried Hanlon's Razor, but I
have to admit, I'm having a hard time believing in it anymore.

Btw, I wonder how many people are going to see this message. I used a
lot of forbidden trigger words :)

I've just seen your message because my message filters (Mozilla
Thunderbird) were applied to the messages subject. Moreover, I am using
the same News Server used by Tim Streater (aioe.org) – I think.

However, Google Groups are spoiling the Usenet party because of their
'messianic' mission to organise the entire world’s information and make
it universally accessible and “usefulâ€
<http://www.google.com/corporate/>. Geez, those guys want to rule the world.
 
P

P E Schoen

"J.R." wrote in message
I've just seen your message because my message filters (Mozilla
Thunderbird) were applied to the messages subject. Moreover, I
am using the same News Server used by Tim Streater (aioe.org) – I think.
However, Google Groups are spoiling the Usenet party because
of their 'messianic' mission to organise the entire world’s
information and make it universally accessible and “usefulâ€
<http://www.google.com/corporate/>. Geez, those guys want to rule the
world.

There is a "NEW" Google Groups that hides messages which have been flagged
for abuse:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/comp.lang.javascript

However, upon closer inspection, it's not much better. I submitted a
suggestion to provide easier abuse flagging and per-user filtering, but it's
just one of thousands, and I don't expect any real improvement. I think
Google is run by code monkeys who value and understand form over function,
so they add cutesy items like a scrolling frame and user images but still
don't "get" the idea that their own "members" are the source of a huge
problem.

Paul
 
R

RobG

There is a "NEW" Google Groups that hides messages which have been flagged
for abuse:https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/comp.lang.javascript

However, upon closer inspection, it's not much better.

It's worse. In addition to not fixing the root of the problem
(Google's own gMail clients), the interface sux.

I think the current GG interface is very ordinary, but it is streets
ahead of the new one which is designed to be used like a chat client,
not a news group.

I submitted a
suggestion to provide easier abuse flagging and per-user filtering, but it's
just one of thousands, and I don't expect any real improvement. I think
Google is run by code monkeys who value and understand form over function,
so they add cutesy items like a scrolling frame and user images but still
don't "get" the idea that their own "members" are the source of a huge
problem.

I think they are well aware that Google is the source of a significant
amount of web spam and that they are quite deliberately doing nothing
about it.
 

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