The Spammers Have Really Trashed This NG.

[Andrew Thompson]

(moderated group)

..It seems the
idea would have to be circulated, and if enough people were interested in
doing so, then the party is on.

The one thing I can tell you is that it seems a lot
easier to establish a group in the usenet hierarchy,
than it is to change it. Based on that, I strongly
recommend taking great care with how you initially
define the group description and process.

For example, would a new group even attempt to make
the kinds of distinction between topics that are
implied by the existing comp.lang.java.* hierarchy?

My feeling is that most noobs have enough trouble
telling Java from JavaScript, let alone whether an
question about an applet failing to connect to a
servlet is best suited to c.l.j.gui, a programmer
group, or an EE specific group.

As an aside, I don't know if it is technically
possible, but if the moderator could 'hold up/delay
for inspection' any posts from an unknown origin
(especially new topics), yet have a list of 'trusted
sources' that are immediately passed, that might be
able to largely alleviate the delays that slow threads
to a crawl.

If any people on the 'trusted list' descend into
spammish or trollish behaviour, they get maybe
2-3 posts through before the mod. notices and
removes them from the list.

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

The one thing I can tell you is that it seems a lot
easier to establish a group in the usenet hierarchy,
than it is to change it. Based on that, I strongly
recommend taking great care with how you initially
define the group description and process.

For example, would a new group even attempt to make
the kinds of distinction between topics that are
implied by the existing comp.lang.java.* hierarchy?

No reason to do so.

The current structure is not that good and no need to
propagate it further.

My feeling is that most noobs have enough trouble
telling Java from JavaScript, let alone whether an
question about an applet failing to connect to a
servlet is best suited to c.l.j.gui, a programmer
group, or an EE specific group.

An EE what ??

As an aside, I don't know if it is technically
possible, but if the moderator could 'hold up/delay
for inspection' any posts from an unknown origin
(especially new topics), yet have a list of 'trusted
sources' that are immediately passed, that might be
able to largely alleviate the delays that slow threads
to a crawl.

If any people on the 'trusted list' descend into
spammish or trollish behaviour, they get maybe
2-3 posts through before the mod. notices and
removes them from the list.

Interesting idea and one that could reduce the moderator
work a lot.

But I also suspect that it could raise long discussions about
who get the priv and who not.

Arne

 

[Andrew Thompson]

Andrew Thompson wrote: ....

Interesting idea and one that could reduce the moderator
work a lot.

But I also suspect that it could raise long discussions about
who get the priv and who not.

Most of the moderators I have encountered
seem to take the approach that -
"The moderator's decision is final, and NO
CORRESPONDENCE WILL BE ENTERED INTO."

...but I see your point. The mods might get an
occasional death threat over that approach.

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Most of the moderators I have encountered
seem to take the approach that -
"The moderator's decision is final, and NO
CORRESPONDENCE WILL BE ENTERED INTO."

..but I see your point. The mods might get an
occasional death threat over that approach.

Rejecting posts is one thing - it is just a post, but
categorizing people in "good" and "bad" is difficult not
to consider a bit personal.

And if someone with free posting rights bring it up (and
posts about the group are usually considered on topic), then
it could become ugly.

Arne

 

[Karl Uppiano]

(moderated group)


The one thing I can tell you is that it seems a lot
easier to establish a group in the usenet hierarchy,
than it is to change it. Based on that, I strongly
recommend taking great care with how you initially
define the group description and process.

For example, would a new group even attempt to make
the kinds of distinction between topics that are
implied by the existing comp.lang.java.* hierarchy?

My initial inclination was only to moderate the comp.lang.java.programmer
group, and not the entire hierarchy. More specifically, create a new group,
comp.lang.java.programmer.moderated. The unmoderated version would go on as
always. I'm not sure technically, how newsgroup names map to actual message
storage, or how messages propagate through newsgroups on the server side,
but someone could conceivably post to the unmoderated group, and see their
articles there immediately, whereas a moderator would filter the messages to
the moderated group, with some unavoidable delay.

My feeling is that most noobs have enough trouble
telling Java from JavaScript, let alone whether an
question about an applet failing to connect to a
servlet is best suited to c.l.j.gui, a programmer
group, or an EE specific group.

A moderator could help with this by rejecting posts to the wrong newsgroups.
I have had posts bounce back to my email when I violated some posting rule
or another -- usually the amount of quoted text. Of course, one has to
provide a real email address to benefit from rejection notification. I have
even seen moderators move an article to a more appropriate newsgroup out of
the goodness of their heart. That's not typical, though.

As an aside, I don't know if it is technically
possible, but if the moderator could 'hold up/delay
for inspection' any posts from an unknown origin
(especially new topics), yet have a list of 'trusted
sources' that are immediately passed, that might be
able to largely alleviate the delays that slow threads
to a crawl.

If a poster goes a predetermined number of posts without a rejection, they
could be whitelisted. If other users start registering complaints of spammy
or trollish behavior, the moderator could pull them off the whitelist, and
return them to plebe status.

If any people on the 'trusted list' descend into
spammish or trollish behaviour, they get maybe
2-3 posts through before the mod. notices and
removes them from the list.

Yeah, like that. Earning whitelist status would generally be considered a
badge of honor, and most sensible people would not intentionally jeopardize
that status.

 

[Robert Mark Bram]

The spammers have really trashed this forum, and I can find no effective way
to filter them out. Is there a moderated version of this NG anywhere?

I was surprised to find such a heavy level of spam on this group after
not visiting for a year or more.

Is there no moderator for this forum?

I read/post to newsgroups through my browser only, and it is extremely
discouraging to see so much spam.

Rob

 

[Andrew Thompson]

....
I was surprised to find such a heavy level of spam on this group after
not visiting for a year or more.

If the group had a higher proportion of people visiting
and posting technical content, the spam would pale
into insignificance (or at least seem less pervasive).

You might think about that, the *next* year you're
not posting.

Is there no moderator for this forum?

Well ..duhh? Did you read any significant part of
the earlier discussion?

I read/post to newsgroups through my browser only, and it is extremely
discouraging to see so much spam.

I resisted making this comment earlier, expecting
howls of protest, but I'll risk it now.

If any person here is ..

a) limited to accessing technical forums about Java
through a web browser only, and..
b) is overwhelmed by the spam they see on usenet
(which - BTW mostly originates from users of the
very WITUN you and I are both using),

...then perhaps they would get better value from
visiting /different/ Java forums that are available
through a browser. Notably the Sun forums (which
are the only other general purpose Java forums that
I have much experience with).

Of course, that is not 'usenet', but the problem
of spam *is* quite effectively addressed through
the Sun forums.

 

[Robert Klemme]

AFAIK no news server makes any real effort to filter spam posts.

I use http://www.individual.net/ and haven't seen much of the spam that
I see looking at this nesgroup via Google Groups. And it was
definitively not removed by my client. As you can see they do spam
filtering: http://www.individual.net/overview.php

The service is not free but 10 EUR / year isn't too expensive IMHO.

Kind regards

robert

 

[Mike Schilling]

I use http://www.individual.net/ and haven't seen much of the spam
that I see looking at this nesgroup via Google Groups. And it was
definitively not removed by my client. As you can see they do spam
filtering: http://www.individual.net/overview.php

The service is not free but 10 EUR / year isn't too expensive IMHO.

I see less spam using news.eternal-september.org than I did with my
ISP's (recently departed) NNTP server, and it's free.