How can this site get back to rowing topics
pdbl...@btinternet.com
had MI6 paranoia. I am sure that most of us are fed up with this,
surely the administrators can find a way of putting a filter on the
posts.
Rob Collings
<sigh> This was covered in the other thread. As with most of usenet,
there are no administrators (normally called moderators). This is not
a "Google Group" nor is it run by any given entity. This newsgroup is
unmoderated so anyone is effectively free to post anything they want
(binaries are probably blocked in a lot of places though). Nobody has
any authority over anyone elses postings. Beyond that, refer to the
links posted in the other thread. There is nobody to make your "plea"
to!
The google archive takes everything anyone posts. It started off life
more as an archive rather than a web interface to browse through. If
you don't feel like wading through the spam, find another host. Your
ISP probably has one, if not there are plenty of others such as
news.individual.net. Most ISPs put spam filters on their nntp servers.
Google provides its services for free, so perhaps it's fair to say you
get what you pay for?
I tend to use google groups because I can access it from a number of
places. My strategy to deal with spam involves not opening spam
threads - I find it quite effective. I've previously posted
instructions for killfiling individual people if you use firefox. I do
also have other news accounts, I just tend not to use them as much.
HTH
Rob.
Carl Douglas
There are no administrators for RSR.
As others pointed out yesterday, the volume of garbage that arrives with
your news depends entirely upon the spam-blocking policies of your news
server.
Or perhaps you could have a quiet word with Mr. Hu Jin Tao in Beijing?
China is very good at controlling the internet content accessible to its
own nationals, so it's grossly irresponsible that it cares not about the
detritus some of them inflict on the rest of us.
Cheers -
carl
--
Carl Douglas Racing Shells -
Fine Small-Boats/AeRoWing Low-drag Riggers/Advanced Accessories
Write: Harris Boatyard, Laleham Reach, Chertsey KT16 8RP, UK
Find: http://tinyurl.com/2tqujf
Email: ca...@carldouglas.co.uk Tel: +44(0)1932-570946 Fax: -563682
URLs: www.carldouglas.co.uk (boats) & www.aerowing.co.uk (riggers)
Henry Law
PD, others have explained the wrong tree that you're barking up (and
where others have barked in the past). Do you want some help in finding
a more spam-free way of reading news? They're not hard to set up on
most computers and with most Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Mail
me at "hjl" (then an at sign) and then "lawshouse fullstop org" if you
like and I'll try to give you specific help.
I see about one spam post a week on r.s.r, using Clara's news service.
--
Henry Law Manchester, England
kda...@kidare.com
For those stuck with using Google Groups, I have created a little
script that will filter out unwanted spam messages containing certain
keywords that you can specify. It uses GreaseMonkey which is a popular
and widely used extension for Firefox, so it is Firefox only I'm
afraid (sorry IE/Safari/et al).
Installation:
1. Copy & paste these instructions into a text file to have them
available, since Firefox has to be restarted.
2. Install the GreaseMonkey extension from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748
. Click on the green "Add to Firefox" button and follow the
instructions. Firefox will eventually restart (and may bring to back
here if you're lucky).
3. Go to http://www.kitdavies.com/scripts/ggfilter.user.js . A window
should pop up asking you whether you want to install the GGFilter user
script. Click "Install".
4. Bob's your uncle. Refreshing the topic list should remove most of
the spam.
Consider it beta version. At the moment it works in the Topic List
view only, not Topic Summary (I will improve this).
The keywords specified at the moment are "wholesale" and "cheap" which
sems to catch most spam. If you open the Tools > GreaseMonkey > Manage
User Scripts ... menu, select GGFilter on the left then click Edit,
you can edit the script. Line 33 contains the filter pattern. The text
above should explain what to do.
I can give no guarantees as to its compatibility. I have Firefox 2.0
and it works well with me. Feel free to let me know if you have any
issues with it.
Kit
kdavies <at> kidare <dot> com
Rob Collings
> For those stuck with using Google Groups, I have created a little
> script that will filter out unwanted spam messages containing certain
> keywords that you can specify. It uses GreaseMonkey which is a popular
> and widely used extension for Firefox, so it is Firefox only I'm
> afraid (sorry IE/Safari/et al).
Very cool, and much better than my existing killfile solution which
only works on specific email addresses. Are the specified terms in the
script a regular expression? My javascript never got beyond "Hello
world", but if this will let me filter thread titles based on regex,
that would be really rather nifty.
Thanks,
Rob.
PS for those who don't have firefox, www.getfirefox.com will sort that
out :)
nick.c....@googlemail.com
> script that will filter out unwanted spam messages containing certain
> keywords that you can specify. It uses GreaseMonkey which is a popular
> and widely used extension for Firefox, so it is Firefox only I'm
> afraid (sorry IE/Safari/et al).
> Kit
> kdavies <at> kidare <dot> com
Kit,
Thanks! That's brilliant!
For anyone else in the right situation (using Google groups and
Firefox) I can recommend this wholeheartedly. It seems to be very
effective, and took all of 2 minutes to install.
Cheers,
Nick
kda...@kidare.com
Yes, it uses a javascript regex to identify offending titles. This is
defined in the script itself atm.
Sorry, I should also have mentioned that at the moment, it only works
with grooups.google.com and groups.google.co.uk , but this can be
changed via the Tools > GreaseMonkey > Manage User Scripts .. dialog.
Regards
Kit
pdbl...@btinternet.com
>
> > I echo Caroline's plea; this time it is chinese shoes previously we
> > had MI6 paranoia. I am sure that most of us are fed up with this,
> > surely the administrators can find a way of putting a filter on the
> > posts.
>
> For those stuck with using Google Groups, I have created a little
> script that will filter out unwanted spam messages containing certain
> keywords that you can specify. It uses GreaseMonkey which is a popular
> and widely used extension for Firefox, so it is Firefox only I'm
> afraid (sorry IE/Safari/et al).
>
> Installation:
> 1. Copy & paste these instructions into a text file to have them
> available, since Firefox has to be restarted.
> . Click on the green "Add to Firefox" button and follow the
> instructions. Firefox will eventually restart (and may bring to back
> here if you're lucky).
> should pop up asking you whether you want to install the GGFilter user
> script. Click "Install".
> 4. Bob's your uncle. Refreshing the topic list should remove most of
> the spam.
>
> Consider it beta version. At the moment it works in the Topic List
> view only, not Topic Summary (I will improve this).
>
> The keywords specified at the moment are "wholesale" and "cheap" which
> sems to catch most spam. If you open the Tools > GreaseMonkey > Manage
> User Scripts ... menu, select GGFilter on the left then click Edit,
> you can edit the script. Line 33 contains the filter pattern. The text
> above should explain what to do.
>
> I can give no guarantees as to its compatibility. I have Firefox 2.0
> and it works well with me. Feel free to let me know if you have any
> issues with it.
> Kit
> kdavies <at> kidare <dot> com
Thanks.
Even I, with my limited IT skills, managed to get rid of the chinese
shoe posts.
Now I can focus on interesting topics once more.
Peter
kda...@kidare.com
>
> > I echo Caroline's plea; this time it is chinese shoes previously we
> > had MI6 paranoia. I am sure that most of us are fed up with this,
> > surely the administrators can find a way of putting a filter on the
> > posts.
>
> For those stuck with using Google Groups, I have created a little
> script that will filter out unwanted spam messages containing certain
> keywords that you can specify. It uses GreaseMonkey which is a popular
> and widely used extension for Firefox, so it is Firefox only I'm
> afraid (sorry IE/Safari/et al).
>
... And I now have a version for IE6 and above. It uses a tool call
IE7Pro which is similar to GreaseMonkey but for IE. Installation is
slightly more complex but should be OK for most people I hope.
Installation:
1. Copy&paste these instructions into a text file to keep them
available while IE restarts.
2. Go to http://www.kitdavies.com/scripts/gmfilter.ieuser.js and
"Save" the file somewhere on your machine.
3. Go to http://www.ie7pro.com and follow the instructions to download
IE7Pro. You will download an installer which you need to run. You will
have to restart IE once the installation is done.
4. Copy the file you saved in 2 above to C:\Program Files\IE7Pro
\userscripts.
5. In IE, go to menu Tools > IE7Pro preferences and select User
Scripts from the list on the left, then click on the "Reload All
Scripts" button. GGFilter should appear in the middle list. Tick the
box next to it, then press OK.
You should now be set up. Visit RSR to check the spam disappears. If
you have no luck, try restarting IE. I have sometimes found changes
don't take effect until this is done.
This has been tried & tested on IE6. I cannot guarantee what will
happen with other versions so you may need to experiment.
As before, please let me know if you have problems.
nick.c....@googlemail.com
> > For those stuck with using Google Groups, I have created a little
> > script that will filter out unwanted spam messages containing certain
> > keywords that you can specify. It uses GreaseMonkey which is a popular
> > and widely used extension for Firefox, so it is Firefox only I'm
> > afraid (sorry IE/Safari/et al).
> kdavies <at> kidare <dot> com
Hi Kit,
I'm using your Greasemonkey version, which has removed the Chinese
shoes links. However, some spam still seems to get through (replica
watches at the moment). Is there a way that I can add these (or any
other new types of spam email) to the list of emails which are blocked
by your tool?
Many thanks,
Nick
David McC
Go into Tools > GreaseMonkey > Manage User Scripts and click on the
Edit button at bottom left (ggfilter should be highlighted). Add
Replica to the filter and separate it with a pipe. (Instructions are
in the file. Wordpad works better than Notepad. The filter seems to be
case sensitive.) Save and it will work when the rec.sport.rowing page
is refreshed.
Taniwha.
PS Kit, I assume this only works on the title as that is all that is
showing on the topics page. If a post uses one of the words, is it
filtered out?
kda...@kidare.com
David has the answer. Additionally, to make the searches case-
insensitive, put an 'i' after the 2nd '/' in the filter. Eg, /
wholesale|cheap|replica/i. For those with too much time on their
hands, a guts-and-all description of how regular expressions work can
be found here: http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Core_JavaScript_1.5_Reference:Global_Objects:RegExp
Yes, the filter only applies to the title atm. This is because I
always use the topic list view and the post text is not available.
When I get round to working on the topic summary version, I will see
how easy it is to filter based on the post text itself as well. Should
be possible.
Of course, you need to be careful about which words to choose or
genuine posts may get removed. For instance, I thought of putting
'china' in the filter, but with the OGs coming up, I thought that may
cause problems!
I'm glad people find it useful.
Regards
Kit
Carl Douglas
I rather think that it is now becoming necessary also to filter out
everything containing the words "China" & "OEM".
Do other NGs suffer this level of spamming from the land where, helped
by "do no harm" Google & others, they so carefully censor what their own
citizens can see on the Internet, yet care naught when those same
citizens go crapping all over Usenet? Or is it that email excrement
restricted to sports- & politics-related NGs?
If it is the latter, would it be reasonable to suppose that Chinese
authorities reckon that dumping such a welter of garbage is a smart way
to prevent the rest of the world from reading any NG to which folk post
comments critical of China's widespread abuse of human rights & freedom
of speech?
In that context, I am bemused that Chinese residents in the UK have
apparently seen neither folly nor irony in a bunch of them demonstrating
outside the BBC in Manchester against what they claimed is biased
reporting on China. I've always had high regard for the wit & industry
of those Chinese I've known but, since China operates such potent
censorship at home, and its Tibet governor openly threatens violence
against protesters, how & why do they justify seeking to deny what
western & dissident Chinese sources are able (often on pain of long
imprisonment & physical assault) to tell us. And how dare they, so
quick to exercise the freedom of speech which many generations have
fought to gain & preserve in the UK, now abuse that freedom here in the
UK to demand censorship of UK reporting of the less attractive aspects
of Chinese domestic & foreign policy?
In China there have been public boycotts of Coca Cola, an OG sponsor,
following its innocuous advert showing a bunch of Buddhist monks having
an implausibly jolly time (just what do they put into Coke in China?).
That does not show a reasoned attitude towards one of the world's more
peaceable religions but it does appear directly related to the
unsurprising unrest in Tibet. Well, we've seen over the last 60 years
how unthinkingly malleable the Chinese domestic population can be in teh
hands of its political cadres & elite, so few surprises there except
that they haven't stop to think too hard - again. But I don't feel too
sorry for Coca Cola that it & other sponsors of Beijing 2008 are now
coming under pressure from outside China to use their voices & clout to
get China to honour the promises it made at the time the IOC awarded it
the Games. Meanwhile the IOC seems to have retreated from the fray,
tail betwixt hind legs, its few fine words having proven worthless.
Now if these Games had been all about sport & the true brothership of
man, rather than political ascendancy, national arrogance & commercial
greed (& it was China's & the IOC's choice that it was not), wouldn't
that have been grand?
Carl
Rob Collings
> I rather think that it is now becoming necessary also to filter out
> everything containing the words "China" & "OEM".
But what about when I want to buy my genuine OEM China Olimpigs Medal?
Wouldn't want to miss those adverts...
> Do other NGs suffer this level of spamming
Hell yes. I always used to think that RSR had less spam and better
signal-to-noise than most of the others I read. Maybe now it's falling
in line...
Rob.
Ted van de Weteringe
> Do other NGs suffer this level of spamming
Yes.
http://groups.google.com/group/Groups-Suggestions/search?q=filter
Carl Douglas
Thanks!
I think the first thread in that series says it all. "Do no harm"
Google, which cheerfully filters whatever China wants filtered, & which
with its sidekick Yahoo is perfectly happy to shop (in order to stay in
business in China) any email users who dare to tell it as it is & whom
the Chinese therefore want traced & will then lock up, simply doesn't
give a toss. Nor does China.
Well, that keeps it extremely simple. China sees the Internet in the
same light as all other spammers do. All that & so much more from the
people who for centuries have spouted on about the superiority of their
good manners & the great depth of their culture. And it ain't going to
change any time soon. It's just shameless, culture-free thuggery.
So, like Caroline, those of us who care, either about human rights & a
better world, or about those who wantonly dump garbage on their
doorstep, or simply about being taken for mugs, will have to be a whole
lot more careful over what, & from where, we buy.
Cheers -