It seems the spammers have won the war...

[Travis Newbury]

Looks like the spammers are now out numbering the real alt.html
posters. Too bad. A few rotten eggs spoil it for the rest of us.

 

[Doug Miller]

Looks like the spammers are now out numbering the real alt.html
posters. Too bad. A few rotten eggs spoil it for the rest of us.

Doesn't look that way to me: five posts this morning, and only one of them
spam -- and I'm not even using any spam filters.

BTW, nearly all Usenet spam comes through the same portal you're using: Google
Groups. For that reason, many people filter out all traffic that originated
there. To maximize the audience for your own posts, you should consider
switching to a real newsreader, instead of using Google's broken interface.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Looks like the spammers are now out numbering the real alt.html
posters. Too bad. A few rotten eggs spoil it for the rest of us.

What spammers? It is a simple matter to filter out Google Group posts,
and once done, this group is quite pleasant.

!markread Message-ID googlegroups.com

Oh wait, you use Google Groups! I don't know what ta tell ya then. I
only saw your post because you are on my list of non-spamming GG users,
with a !markunread ...

You remember the late Blinky The Shark, right, and his site, now copied
at: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

 

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Doesn't look that way to me: five posts this morning, and only one of them
spam -- and I'm not even using any spam filters.

No spam at all for me.

BTW, nearly all Usenet spam comes through the same portal you're using: Google
Groups. For that reason, many people filter out all traffic that originated
there.

That's probably why I didn't see any spam today: I don't see postings
from gmail addresses except from posters that I've specifically
identified.

To maximize the audience for your own posts, you should consider
switching to a real newsreader, instead of using Google's broken interface.

It took me a long time to do this (about two years ago) but once I did
the improvement in the surfing experience was huge. I don't remember
how much I paid for the program I use (not huge, anyway), and I pay 10
euros a year for access to the server. I imagine most people can afford
that, and anyway free servers exist.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

That's probably why I didn't see any spam today: I don't see postings
from gmail addresses except from posters that I've specifically
identified.

Since there are Google Groupers who don't use gmail addresses, and since
there are real people using gmail but _not_ the GG web interface ... is
your newsreader (Unison for Mac) capable of filtering on the Message-ID?

 

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Since there are Google Groupers who don't use gmail addresses, and since
there are real people using gmail but _not_ the GG web interface ... is
your newsreader (Unison for Mac) capable of filtering on the Message-ID?

Apparently not (I just tried it), but the options that they do have
work pretty well. Whenever I come across a serious person who uses a
gmail address I add a new rule to admit them. (I can usually tell if
they're serious from the replies people send them.) Although I'm sure
that Google Groupers who don't use gmail exist they don't cause any
problems in the groups that I frequent. (This may be because the news
server (News.individual.net) does some filtering of its own, so a lot
of the garbage I wouldn't be able to read even if I wanted to).

 

[Harlan Messinger]

Looks like the spammers are now out numbering the real alt.html
posters. Too bad. A few rotten eggs spoil it for the rest of us.

Eh? In a month's worth of alt.html postings, I see only one ad, one
piece of vandalism, and one message whose contents Thunderbird doesn't
seem to want to display. That's all. I use individual.net for Usenet, FWIW.

 

[dorayme]

Eh? In a month's worth of alt.html postings, I see only one ad, one
piece of vandalism, and one message whose contents Thunderbird doesn't
seem to want to display. That's all. I use individual.net for Usenet, FWIW.

I get almost no spam either. Today, for example, there is just this
thread. I do nothing special except have a few filters for any posts
that kept annoying me. The news server must be doing it. I know this is
is not spam, but when I filtered out The Mad Hatter years ago, I noticed
a dramatic drop in posts for alt.html because along with him came a
complete army of wild things...

But there are usenet groups where one needs to filter for GG (letting in
a few selected individuals in), not so much for the spam but for other
"blinkey" type reasons.

GG vary in how they filter themselves, look at alt.html on web and
compare with alt.php on web. The former is impossible (as Travis is
saying), the latter looks clean.

 

[Travis Newbury]

What spammers?  It is a simple matter to filter out Google Group posts,
and once done, this group is quite pleasant.
   !markread Message-ID googlegroups.com
Oh wait, you use Google Groups!  I don't know what ta tell ya then.

Uh, you can filter the spam from google groups. I was just commenting
on the ratio between spam and good posts and spam outnumbers good
posts by a factor of about 10 to 1

 

[William Gill]

I get almost no spam either. Today, for example, there is just this
thread. I do nothing special except have a few filters for any posts
that kept annoying me. The news server must be doing it. I know this is
is not spam, but when I filtered out The Mad Hatter years ago, I noticed
a dramatic drop in posts for alt.html because along with him came a
complete army of wild things...

But there are usenet groups where one needs to filter for GG (letting in
a few selected individuals in), not so much for the spam but for other
"blinkey" type reasons.

GG vary in how they filter themselves, look at alt.html on web and
compare with alt.php on web. The former is impossible (as Travis is
saying), the latter looks clean.

I'm seeing the same thing as Travis, the spam has increased
exponentially lately. You must be right, it must be the news server
falling down on the job. I'm not surprised, the news server my ISP uses
is a disaster. It took me several hours, and many new attempts to reply
to a message because of server timeouts.

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed William Gill

I'm seeing the same thing as Travis, the spam has increased
exponentially lately. You must be right, it must be the news server
falling down on the job.

I'm using news.eternal.september.org and I'm seeing hardly any spam. Posts
go to the groups immediately, not one or two minutes later like they used
to when I used my ISP's news server.

 

[dorayme]

I'm seeing the same thing as Travis, the spam has increased
exponentially lately. You must be right, it must be the news server
falling down on the job. I'm not surprised, the news server my ISP uses
is a disaster. It took me several hours, and many new attempts to reply
to a message because of server timeouts.

I used to use the one that came with my Optus plan, but after a few
breakdowns, some of considerable length (more than a week...), I changed
to albasani...

I cannot see why the Google portal has alt.html clean and alt.php (there
are other examples) spamful? Perhaps it goes on subscriber numbers? If
it is too large, Google give up? alt.html is described as having a high
activity, alt.php as medium.

On the other hand, there is another factor, alt.php has Jerry Stuckle
and Google may be giving it a wide berth like one would with a week long
dead unrefrigerated haddock... <g>

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed dorayme

On the other hand, there is another factor, alt.php has Jerry Stuckle
and Google may be giving it a wide berth like one would with a week long
dead unrefrigerated haddock... <g>

No shit! Pity there isn't a way to filter out those silly my peepee is
bigger than yours "discussions" he gets into.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed dorayme:

No shit! Pity there isn't a way to filter out those silly my peepee
is bigger than yours "discussions" he gets into.

Press "I". Works well.

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Adrienne Boswell

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed William Gill


I'm using news.eternal.september.org and I'm seeing hardly any spam.
Posts go to the groups immediately, not one or two minutes later like
they used to when I used my ISP's news server.

I spoke too soon, there's a bunch this morning.

 

[Joy Beeson]

I spoke too soon, there's a bunch this morning.

Eternal September had cleaned the spam out of alt.html by the time I
logged in this evening.

Joy Beeson
--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ -- sewing
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

 

[Ganesh]

Eternal September had cleaned the spam out of alt.html by the time I
logged in this evening.  

There are no or very less SPAM in other open groups? HOWZ that?

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

There are no or very less SPAM in other open groups? HOWZ that?

They filter it at the server level, like ISP do with mail servers.
Sometimes we see a header, but trying to open the message just give you
a bad or expired article response.

 

[Jan C. Faerber]

Looks like the spammers are now out numbering the real alt.html
posters.  Too bad.  A few rotten eggs spoil it for the rest of us.

Yes - for me it is also disgusting to see the change since last time
some weeks (or months?) ago when I posted the last time on alt.html.

I am going back now one month into the past with the google interface
in this group
and click "report spam" on each of those corresponding postings.
I hope I am using my time in a good way like that.

 

[nice.guy.nige]

Looks like the spammers are now out numbering the real alt.html
posters. Too bad. A few rotten eggs spoil it for the rest of us.

Sorry, I've been away... Did I miss anything?

Cheers,
Nige