(OT) Why accessing usenet through Google Groups sucks
John Corliss
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=139583&cid=11687137
--
John Corliss BS206. I use nFilter to block all crossposts, everything
from troublemakers like Andy Mabbett, Bear Bottoms, gavin, hummingbird,
Kayman and proteanthread, and all Google Groups posts because of
Googlespam. No ad, cd, commercial, cripple, demo, dotnet, nag, share,
spy, time-limited, trial or web wares OR warez for me, please.
rodney...@gmail.com
> This article describes the problems for the Groupers:
>
> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=139583&cid=11687137
>
the points:
1 two points in one: there's a very handy tree for each thread to
follow it. I know what I read, so there's no 'going through the entire
lot'
http://groups.google.nl/group/alt.comp.freeware/topics
I can see in seconds what I want to read.
2 don't care, don't care for long posts anyways
3 the settings are just fine
4 there's nothing wrong with frames in this situation
5 IMO that's a pro, not a con
6 that's not true, I can read the posts from eg Manatees Memories just
fine.
Some google-posting-pros IMO :
1 no extra software on my pc
2 'portability', I can use it anywhere in the world where a pc is
connected to the internet without bringing anything but my login and
password
3 reading, posting, searching the entire archive, viewing links, all
in the same webbrowser
Zaphod
And some of us poor saps don't have an ISP that supports Newgroups
etc... we poor starving students have to get by
rodney...@gmail.com
> And some of us poor saps don't have an ISP that supports Newgroups
> etc... we poor starving students have to get by
Microsoft has a present for you:
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/feb08/02-18GSDPR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases
bealoid
ba9629...@e6g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
[snip]
> And some of us poor saps don't have an ISP that supports Newgroups
> etc... we poor starving students have to get by
There are some very good free news servers that allow posting, and many
free servers that allow reading. And there's a reasonable choice of free
reader clients.
I'm not a Google bigot, but my life would be better if Google took abuse of
posting a bit more seriosly than they do now, and stopped relying on the
"free speech" thing. An easier way to report abuse of Google posting would
be cool.
John Corliss
> Zaphod wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> And some of us poor saps don't have an ISP that supports Newgroups
>> etc... we poor starving students have to get by
To "Zaphod", you can easily set up a *free* account with either of these
newsfeeds:
http://www.motzarella.org/?language=en&showpage=home
http://dotsrc.org/usenet/
although, IMO, the Motzarella newsfeeed is better because it carries
more groups.
Then all you have to do is to configure Outlook Express, Thunderbird or
some other newsreader to access that newsfeed by setting up an account
for it, and to subscribe to your favorite groups.
As I said, the advantages to using direct usenet access instead of
Google Groups are listed here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=139583&cid=11687137
> There are some very good free news servers that allow posting, and many
> free servers that allow reading. And there's a reasonable choice of free
> reader clients.
>
> I'm not a Google bigot, but my life would be better if Google took abuse of
> posting a bit more seriosly than they do now, and stopped relying on the
> "free speech" thing. An easier way to report abuse of Google posting would
> be cool.
In response to several complaints I made to them (through various email
addresses that are very hard to find) they finally responded by
providing me with a link to an online form for filing usenet abuse
complains:
http://groups.google.com/groups/abuse
However, using that form accomplished absolutely NOTHING (except for one
time when I pointed out illegal activity) and that's what led me to
start filtering out Grouper posts as well as telling other people how to
do it.
Susan Bugher
> This article describes the problems for the Groupers:
> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=139583&cid=11687137
"by drsquare (530038) on Wednesday February 16 2005"
That was then. This is now. Some things have changed. For example:
"Posts with no-archive set don't appear at all. . ." That's not true at
the present time.
Susan
--
Posted to alt.comp.freeware
Search alt.comp.freeware (or read it online):
http://www.google.com/advanced_group_search?q=+group:alt.comp.freeware
Pricelessware & ACF: http://www.pricelesswarehome.org
Pricelessware: http://www.pricelessware.org (not maintained)
Mister2u
environment,on the other hand if someone could find a way for Google
to make money from the spammers they might be willing to listen.
Richard Steinfeld
> Some google-posting-pros IMO :
>
> 1 no extra software on my pc
>
> 2 'portability', I can use it anywhere in the world where a pc is
> connected to the internet without bringing anything but my login and
> password
>
> 3 reading, posting, searching the entire archive, viewing links, all
> in the same webbrowser
All three of these points aren't valid if you've got an account with any
_real_ internet provider (ISP) that I've used. They provide access to
your _real_ mail account via a web site that you can access anywhere in
the world as easily as you can with Google.
John's point is that, considering the abuse that comes into newsgroups
from many Google posters, it's sensible to him just to block the entire
domain and have done with it. There are enough other free webmail
services that you can use instead if you want John to be able to read
your posts. John has been kind enough to tell you why he's probably
going to block you if you continue to use Google mail. He's not blocking
you in particular -- he's blocking the Google hassle.
Remember that at the other end of your posts are other people who may
not be sharing your nice touchy-feely experience. I, for one, resent the
advertisements that Yahoo adds to each and every post, including those
sent by people who are actually _paying_ for Yahoo as their contracted
ISP through such cheapskate corporate internet services as AT&T.
My philosophy is that if a company wants me to advertise their wares,
they'd damn well pay me for my service. But I digress. I'm probably
going to block Google mail myself. I have, in fact, even considered
blocking all free webmail services altogether because the
"signal-to-noise ratio" is worse, in general. I've found that most
people using these services are little more computer literate than folks
who come in via Web TV (note that I said "most," not "all." In other
words, there's not much that I can learn from them.
So, there's more time-waste in these posts for me. It's somewhat like
having to plow through repetitive cutesy header crap such as "Henry
staggered around the chairs in his kitchen on his way to the computer
and wrote..."
Richard
rodney...@gmail.com
<rgsteinBUTREMOVET...@sonicANDTHISTOO.net> wrote:
> rodney.use...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Some google-posting-pros IMO :
>
> > 1 no extra software on my pc
>
> > 2 'portability', I can use it anywhere in the world where a pc is
> > connected to the internet without bringing anything but my login and
> > password
>
> > 3 reading, posting, searching the entire archive, viewing links, all
> > in the same webbrowser
>
> All three of these points aren't valid if you've got an account with any
> _real_ internet provider (ISP) that I've used. They provide access to
> your _real_ mail account via a web site that you can access anywhere in
> the world as easily as you can with Google.
We're not talking about gmail nor e-mail, we're talking about posting
to usenet.
> John's point is that, considering the abuse that comes into newsgroups
> from many Google posters,
I do see spam from google, but not 'many'. And I see spam from other
sources.
Any decent neewsreader should be able to ploink them with a keystroke.
> it's sensible to him just to block the entire
> domain and have done with it.
That sounds like him, yes.
> There are enough other free webmail
> services that you can use instead if you want John to be able to read
> your posts.
Again, we're not talking about e-mail here.
And I don't care if Corliss reads it, that's his choice if he wants to
killfile me.
> John has been kind enough to tell you why he's probably
> going to block you if you continue to use Google mail.
LOL, has he ?
> He's not blocking
> you in particular -- he's blocking the Google hassle.
I don't care if people want to killfile me, I care if people start
promoting the killfiling of a whole group of people because of the
negative actions by some of them. I call that propaganda.
> Remember that at the other end of your posts are other people who may
> not be sharing your nice touchy-feely experience.
They can use a newsreader.
SNIP
Last time, not e-mail, usenet. Usenet.
RoseW
| bealoid wrote:
|| Zaphod wrote:
||
|| [snip]
||
||| And some of us poor saps don't have an ISP that supports Newgroups
||| etc... we poor starving students have to get by
|
| To "Zaphod", you can easily set up a *free* account with either of
| these newsfeeds:
|
| http://www.motzarella.org/?language=en&showpage=home
| http://dotsrc.org/usenet/
|
| although, IMO, the Motzarella newsfeeed is better because it carries
| more groups.
|
| Then all you have to do is to configure Outlook Express, Thunderbird
| or some other newsreader to access that newsfeed by setting up an
| account for it, and to subscribe to your favorite groups.
|
Thank you for posting the above 'free' newsfeed accounts. For some unknown
reason the service my ISP uses has inactivated the possibility of posting.
When the heavy 'Sprog' traffic started in the recent past my ISP stopped
incoming news altogether. I inquired at the Tech dept. and in fact they
didn't realize this had occurred. The news started coming in again but the
posting feature has never returned. I had questions or responses but would
have had to use Google groups. Hopefully this Motzarella newsfeed will solve
my posting issue.
Rose
--
http://rwgallery.webng.com/index.html
John Corliss
IME, it's been almost as good as Supernews with the text groups. Glad
you found my post useful.
John Corliss
> John Corliss wrote:
>
>> This article describes the problems for the Groupers:
>
>> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=139583&cid=11687137
>
> "by drsquare (530038) on Wednesday February 16 2005"
>
> That was then. This is now. Some things have changed. For example:
> "Posts with no-archive set don't appear at all. . ." That's not true at
> the present time.
Thanks Susan. I was wondering how much of it still applied.
granpaw
news:13rmcg8...@corp.supernews.com:
<snip>
> IME, it's been almost as good as Supernews with the text groups. Glad
> you found my post useful.
>
Hey Motzarella just solved my problems too John...THANKS!
granpaw
Susan Bugher
> Susan Bugher wrote:
>> John Corliss wrote:
>>
>>> This article describes the problems for the Groupers:
>>
>>> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=139583&cid=11687137
>>
>> "by drsquare (530038) on Wednesday February 16 2005"
>>
>> That was then. This is now. Some things have changed. For example:
>> "Posts with no-archive set don't appear at all. . ." That's not true
>> at the present time.
>
> Thanks Susan. I was wondering how much of it still applied.
dunno. . . don't care. Google Groupers know how the GG interface
works. OTOH GG's who have never used a newsreader don't know how those
interfaces work => they can't begin to understand why those who use
newsreaders are annoyed about lack of proper attribution etc.
IMO screen shots that show newreader interfaces and screen shots of the
same thread in the GG interface could be informative and helpful. . .
as long as I'm here. . .
My pet peeve re Google Groups is that Google f--ks with the Subject
heading. Helpful tags like [Update] disappear. People who read and post
in Google don't see those tags. That's *their* problem.
The problems for others begin when they reply. Google *strips* the tag
from the subject - that louses up the entire thread. These posts are an
example of that:
Message-ID: <fkldri$i52$1...@online.de>
Path:
uni-berlin.de!fu-berlin.de!news.addix.net!feed.news.schlund.de!schlund.de!news.online.de!not-for-mail
From: "EFMenzel" <efme...@web.de>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.freeware
Subject: Re: [To ACF] Merry Christmas to those and Happy Holiday to those
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 11:40:02 +0100
Message-ID:
<016a73d3-7874-46c3...@b40g2000prf.googlegroups.com>
Path:
uni-berlin.de!fu-berlin.de!postnews.google.com!b40g2000prf.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail
From: tf76 <f8di52j...@put2.net>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.freeware
Subject: Re: Merry Christmas to those and Happy Holiday to those
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 04:06:48 -0800 (PST)
Notice that Google has stripped "[To ACF]" from the Subject.
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. . .
John Corliss
YW, but it's been around for a while and many have talked about it in
this group. It's where I learned about it.
John Fitzsimons
<isitco...@gmail.com> wrote:
< snip >
>And some of us poor saps don't have an ISP that supports Newgroups
>etc... we poor starving students have to get by
Many ISPs do not carry newsgroups. That doesn't stop people using
those ISPs from getting a news feed themselves however.
Regards, John.
Ron
I agree, and you can use Google at work ;)
BTW, the article posted is THREE yrs old.
marc_al...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
TROLLKILLER for Internet Explorer and Firefox is a new killfile
browser plug-in for using Google Groups in a web browser.
You can download the latest version here: http://www.source9.com/software.html