[META] Depoliticizing RASFW -or- For a Better Killfile
James Nicoll
by about a dozen names from all across the political spectrum.
Actually, it is a fairly balanced list. Goodbye Pete. Goodbye
Rebecca. I'd ask you all to stop or go elsewhere but you won't
so into the one-way killfile for you.
James Nicoll
--
"About this time, I started getting depressed. Probably the late
hour and the silence. I decided to put on some music.
Boy, that Billie Holiday can sing."
_Why I Hate Saturn_, Kyle Baker
John Johnson
> Anyone else expanding their killfiles? I see mine growing
> by about a dozen names from all across the political spectrum.
> Actually, it is a fairly balanced list. Goodbye Pete. Goodbye
> Rebecca. I'd ask you all to stop or go elsewhere but you won't
> so into the one-way killfile for you.
Mine is but I tend to killfile by thread rather than poster unless it's
a particularly obnoxious poster.
--
John Johnson
RRO
<b5gqqo$kg6$1...@panix3.panix.com>, jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
wrote:
> Anyone else expanding their killfiles? I see mine growing
>by about a dozen names from all across the political spectrum.
Can killfiles alone save this newsgroup from the evil onslaught of
nefarious political carping? This looks like a job for Superman...
Michael S. Schiffer
news:MPG.18e5aa0b...@news.cis.dfn.de:
I've been doing a little of both (especially with anything that
makes me want to respond), plus some time-limited kills for people
who are normally mostly on-topic and probably will be again once
the current events have receded for a while. (I admit my list
isn't as balanced as all that, as I don't mind reading the posts of
those I agree with as much-- but I agree that it's not good for the
group as a whole regardless.)
ObSF: Cherryh's _Wave Without a Shore_, in which the society takes
its philosophy a bit too seriously, effectively encouraging people
to act as if they have killfiles in real life. (The mind defines
reality, they reason, so naturally if someone refuses to let
another person or event be part of his reality, then they aren't.)
As one might expect, this stops working at all well when they have
to deal with people who don't play by the same rules.
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
wrote:
>I'd ask you all to stop or go elsewhere but you won't
I did ask them all, but of course, you're right. Nobody went anywhere.
(And now people are crossposting.)
I tried making fun, but to no avail, everybody's so serious.
I just abandoned the whole thread that started with my post on the
petition. I did regret posting it, but seeing how your post about SFWA
and WOTC got hijacked one post later, I think I just provided a focus.
If I hadn't sent my post, something else would have provided the
focus.
Hell.
Damnation.
Shit.
vlatko (hoping I'm not in too many killfiles)
--
http://www.niribanimeso.org/eng/
http://www.michaelswanwick.com/
vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr
Richard Shewmaker
> Anyone else expanding their killfiles? I see mine growing
> by about a dozen names from all across the political spectrum.
> Actually, it is a fairly balanced list. Goodbye Pete. Goodbye
> Rebecca. I'd ask you all to stop or go elsewhere but you won't
> so into the one-way killfile for you.
<snip>
It's interesting, I can't killfile in any traditional sense of the
concept, and I have no way to single out an individual, but Netscape
allows me to kill a thread. I killed a few months ago and have seen
nothing annoying until lately. I know the stuff is out there because
when I go to get new messages, I see the total number out there and
the total number after receiving the headers is almost always smaller.
The only thing that is a potential shame is that if a new thread is
created from an old one, whatever is being used to identify a "bad"
thread carries through and the new ones don't appear for me. I'm not
feeling tremendously deprived, though.
Joel Baxter
> It's interesting, I can't killfile in any traditional sense of the
Ah, too bad. Killfiling an individual has the bonus (in my newsreader
anyway) of allowing you to name the filter; there's a certain
satisfaction in labelling someone "blowhard snob" or "annoying boy" as
you plonk them.
Er... hypothetically speaking, of course.
William December Starr
jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) said:
> Anyone else expanding their killfiles? I see mine growing by about
> a dozen names from all across the political spectrum. Actually, it
> is a fairly balanced list. Goodbye Pete. Goodbye Rebecca. I'd ask
> you all to stop or go elsewhere but you won't so into the one-way
> killfile for you.
Let's see [examines killfile]... twenty-nine people-entries plus
fourteen that are variations of names of anonymous posting services.
(Has anything of any use ever been posted here via one of those? If
so, I missed it.) Actually, given the level of fertilizer that gets
spread around here[1] I'm a bit surprised that my people-list is that
small.
1: _Why_ is all this fertilizer being deposited here these days? I
could tell you my answer but it'd be politically inflammatory in
its own right, so let's not.
They'll all be in there for a _long_ time, though; I don't have any
way to put people in there for fixed amounts of time, and while I
could probably cobble something together that'd make weekly backups
of my killfile and then process them all in some clever way -- "Hmm,
this name is on the four-weeks-ago list, so delete it from the
current one" or something -- but frankly I can't be bothered to go to
the effort. Think of it as an OIFI stack -- Once In, Forever In.
-- William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
"[W]atching the movie from start to finish is like listening to
Stephen King's Greatest Hits played by an earnest but talentless
tribute band."
-- A.O. Scott, New York Times review of "Dreamcatcher"
James Nicoll
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <b5gqqo$kg6$1...@panix3.panix.com>,
>jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) said:
>
>> Anyone else expanding their killfiles? I see mine growing by about
>> a dozen names from all across the political spectrum. Actually, it
>> is a fairly balanced list. Goodbye Pete. Goodbye Rebecca. I'd ask
>> you all to stop or go elsewhere but you won't so into the one-way
>> killfile for you.
>
>Let's see [examines killfile]... twenty-nine people-entries plus
>fourteen that are variations of names of anonymous posting services.
>(Has anything of any use ever been posted here via one of those? If
>so, I missed it.) Actually, given the level of fertilizer that gets
>spread around here[1] I'm a bit surprised that my people-list is that
>small.
>
>1: _Why_ is all this fertilizer being deposited here these days? I
> could tell you my answer but it'd be politically inflammatory in
> its own right, so let's not.
I assume it's malice towards rasfw in some cases and an
inability to exercize self-control in others. Pete would be an
example of malice since he's been here long enough to know
better and presumably a lawyer has to learn -some- self control
to be effective (1). I have a suspicion what motivates him but
I'll save that for another NG.
Ore just lacks self-control but she's hardly alone in that.
1: To avoid getting so overwhelmed by the beauty of the other side's
argument that you attempt to brainstorm with them ramifications of it.
That would be counter-productive, at least for your client.
>They'll all be in there for a _long_ time, though; I don't have any
>way to put people in there for fixed amounts of time, and while I
>could probably cobble something together that'd make weekly backups
>of my killfile and then process them all in some clever way -- "Hmm,
>this name is on the four-weeks-ago list, so delete it from the
>current one" or something -- but frankly I can't be bothered to go to
>the effort. Think of it as an OIFI stack -- Once In, Forever In.
>
Most of the people I am pitching in never contributed anything
to make up for their off-topic rants. Place fillers at best and no loss
if I never see another posting by them.
David Eppstein
"Michael S. Schiffer" <msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote:
> ObSF: Cherryh's _Wave Without a Shore_, in which the society takes
> its philosophy a bit too seriously, effectively encouraging people
> to act as if they have killfiles in real life. (The mind defines
> reality, they reason, so naturally if someone refuses to let
> another person or event be part of his reality, then they aren't.)
> As one might expect, this stops working at all well when they have
> to deal with people who don't play by the same rules.
There's also the hacker community formed from a shared killfile in
_Idoru_, but there it's more glossy background and less integral to the
story.
Mostly I've been killfiling by subject keyword (better than whole
subjects) but I've occasionally resorted to killfiling not only certain
individual posters but also all followups to their posts (by looking for
patterns in the References: header).
--
David Eppstein http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/
Univ. of California, Irvine, School of Information & Computer Science
Peter Meilinger
>> Mine is but I tend to killfile by thread rather than poster
>> unless it's a particularly obnoxious poster.
>I've been doing a little of both (especially with anything that
>makes me want to respond),
I wish I had your self-control. Though I've been mostly good
on this newsgroup, when I think about it.
I don't generally bother to kill-file anyone or anything. I find
it interesting to see what people are actually talking about, and
it's easy enough to ignore the crap I don't want to read. If it
gets too out of hand, though, I sometimes killfile threads.
Pete
Margaret Young
> Anyone else expanding their killfiles?
Yes
>I see mine growing
>by about a dozen names from all across the political spectrum.
>Actually, it is a fairly balanced list. Goodbye Pete. Goodbye
>Rebecca. I'd ask you all to stop or go elsewhere but you won't
>so into the one-way killfile for you.
>
> James Nicoll
I also have a "who responded to the initial posting" group. People who I
don't read until I see who else responds--it is a form of indexing and
rather unfairly allows others to do the heavy lifting.
--
Margaret Young
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Come the apocalypse there will be cockroaches, Keith Richards and the
faint smell of cat pee.
how...@brazee.net
Charlie Stross
as <wds...@panix.com> declared:
> 1: _Why_ is all this fertilizer being deposited here these days? I
> could tell you my answer but it'd be politically inflammatory in
> its own right, so let's not.
I have a political but non-partisan explanation that seems to cover it
(outwith the "malice aforethought" parties James refers to). Regardless
of where you stand in the political spectrum, it is very hard to argue
that the current situation is stable, predictable, and comfortable. The
level of polarization of political debate in the US seems to have been
rising for two decades, and now we're living in Interesting Times (from
9/11 onwards). Consequently, there's uncertainty and fear and loathing
on all sides, and people are venting profusely in places they wouldn't
have dreamed of doing it in before.
In the real world, half my friends seem to be picking fights with one
another over half-remembered slights, and the other half are variously
sulking or hiding under the bed gibbering in fright. All we're seeing
on rasfw and elsewhere on usenet is the usenet equivalent of this
behaviour -- a neurotic outburst of massive proportions.
-- Charlie
Louann Miller
wrote:
>William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>>They'll all be in there for a _long_ time, though; I don't have any
>>way to put people in there for fixed amounts of time, and while I
>>could probably cobble something together that'd make weekly backups
>>of my killfile and then process them all in some clever way -- "Hmm,
>>this name is on the four-weeks-ago list, so delete it from the
>>current one" or something -- but frankly I can't be bothered to go to
>>the effort. Think of it as an OIFI stack -- Once In, Forever In.
I'm using the pay version of Agent, which was well worth the money.
You can killfile a thread or an individual. It can be permanent or set
to expire after a set amount of time. Also to expire after a set
amount of -inactive- time, which is handy for creating thread-kill
filters that go away by themselves so you don't accumulate a bazillion
obsolete filters. Also for annoying people who frequently change
handles to evade killfiles.
> Most of the people I am pitching in never contributed anything
>to make up for their off-topic rants. Place fillers at best and no loss
>if I never see another posting by them.
I have several (though unlabeled) categories for who qualifies for my
killfile -- Vicious Bastards, Pointless Pontificating, Spammers,
Boringly Insane, and the occasional So Insane It's Cruel To Tease
Them. Rasfw has contributed some to each category, but another group I
frequent (talk.origins) has done much much more.
What peeves me about the current situation is that some of the people
who _don't_ normally qualify for my killfile -- in fact, some of the
ones who qualify for my 'read everything they post' file -- have
turned unreadable for the duration.
Louann
Rebecca Ore
I think the people doing this should put in the tags so people who
want to avoid it can, but I think people should understand that the
reason we're not going elsewhere is that we don't want to discuss this
with people we don't have some understanding of.
Mostly, this has been more civil than some political discussions
elsewhere.
--
Rebecca Ore
Sea Wasp
>
> Anyone else expanding their killfiles?
I never use killfiles, but I always skip 90+% of the group anyway.
Takes me less than 15 minutes per group no matter what the S/N,
exclusive of actually spending time typing answers. (that obviously adds
significant time; each installment of Terminators of Endearment is half
an hour by themselves)
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.htm
Michael Kube-McDowell
wrote:
> Anyone else expanding their killfiles? I see mine growing
>by about a dozen names from all across the political spectrum.
>Actually, it is a fairly balanced list. Goodbye Pete. Goodbye
>Rebecca. I'd ask you all to stop or go elsewhere but you won't
>so into the one-way killfile for you.
Hey, could be worse. We could be talking about the NCAA Tournament
instead.
--
Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching. -- Satchel Paige
Michael Alan Chary
Did rasf.fandom get rmgrouped?
--
"There's only one god / He is the sun god / Ra! - Ra! - Ra!"
--ancient Egyptian religious chant, attrib. to Robert Anton Wilson
The Dell dude was arrested for pot. He should have known better.
Pot's a Gateway drug.
phil hunt
> Anyone else expanding their killfiles? I see mine growing
>by about a dozen names from all across the political spectrum.
>Actually, it is a fairly balanced list. Goodbye Pete. Goodbye
>Rebecca. I'd ask you all to stop or go elsewhere but you won't
>so into the one-way killfile for you.
I don't think I've got anyone in this ng killfiled.
--
|*|*| Philip Hunt <ph...@cabalamat.org> |*|*|
|*|*| "Memes are a hoax; pass it on" |*|*|
Sean O'Hara
>
> I think the people doing this should put in the tags so people who
> want to avoid it can,
>
you should be proactive in this regard.
> but I think people should understand that the
> reason we're not going elsewhere is that we don't want to discuss this
> with people we don't have some understanding of.
>
> Mostly, this has been more civil than some political discussions
> elsewhere.
>
I read several groups with intelligent, civil discussions on these
subjects. This *isn't* one of them.
As you're a major part of the problem, <*plonk*>
--
Sean O'Hara
"I don't care how much money you have, free stuff is
always a good thing." --Queen Latifah
David Friedman
Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
> Mostly, this has been more civil than some political discussions
> elsewhere.
Now there's a damning with faint praise for you.
David Friedman
jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> 1: To avoid getting so overwhelmed by the beauty of the other side's
> argument that you attempt to brainstorm with them ramifications of it.
> That would be counter-productive, at least for your client.
I was once in more or less that situation. I was with our side as an
expert while they were asking questions of the other side's expert. In
theory, I was only supposed to make suggestions to our side's people,
who actually asked the questions.
The problem, of course, was that I and their expert had much more in
common with each other than either of us had with the lawyers on either
side. So it rapidly turned into a conversation between us. I think at
some point I suggested to him that when the whole thing was over,
perhaps we should co-author an article on the economic issues our work
as experts had raised, but nothing ever came of it.
Of course, I'm not a lawyer.
Rebecca Ore
> In article <m3y937q...@pyrophore.ogoense.local>,
> Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >RRO <rrogoffSP...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> >
> >> On 22 Mar 2003 00:03:20 -0500, in rec.arts.sf.written, in article
> >> <b5gqqo$kg6$1...@panix3.panix.com>, jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> > Anyone else expanding their killfiles? I see mine growing
> >> >by about a dozen names from all across the political spectrum.
> >>
> >> Can killfiles alone save this newsgroup from the evil onslaught of
> >> nefarious political carping? This looks like a job for Superman...
> >
> >I think the people doing this should put in the tags so people who
> >want to avoid it can, but I think people should understand that the
> >reason we're not going elsewhere is that we don't want to discuss this
> >with people we don't have some understanding of.
> >
> >Mostly, this has been more civil than some political discussions
> >elsewhere.
>
> Did rasf.fandom get rmgrouped?
I thought it was for fannish social life, not for readers and people
interested in things sfnal, like politics.
--
Rebecca Ore
phil hunt
>I'm pretty easy. I still only have taustin as my one and only killfile.
Ditto. Is he still posting BTW?
phil hunt
>On 22 Mar 2003 00:03:20 -0500, James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>> Anyone else expanding their killfiles? I see mine growing
>>by about a dozen names from all across the political spectrum.
>>Actually, it is a fairly balanced list. Goodbye Pete. Goodbye
>>Rebecca. I'd ask you all to stop or go elsewhere but you won't
>>so into the one-way killfile for you.
>
>I don't think I've got anyone in this ng killfiled.
In retrospect, I have Terry Austin kf'ed. And "Chive Mynd" who
sounfded too much like Austin for my liking (not such if they're the
saem person).
Michael Alan Chary
Ms. Ore, I worship you as though you were Isis come to life, but for
pity's sake *look* at rasf.fandom and tell me that you think such a
restriction exists.
Konrad Gaertner
>
> Anyone else expanding their killfiles? I see mine growing
> by about a dozen names from all across the political spectrum.
> Actually, it is a fairly balanced list. Goodbye Pete. Goodbye
> Rebecca. I'd ask you all to stop or go elsewhere but you won't
> so into the one-way killfile for you.
I'm not currently filtering anything, though I'm really tempted to
start one for posts with "matrix" in the subject. What's up with
those, anyway? Spam, troll, or idiocy?
--KG
Rebecca Ore
> In article <m3bs03c...@pyrophore.ogoense.local>,
> Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >mch...@panix.com (Michael Alan Chary) writes:
> >>
> >> Did rasf.fandom get rmgrouped?
> >
> >
> >I thought it was for fannish social life, not for readers and people
> >interested in things sfnal, like politics.
>
>
> Ms. Ore, I worship you as though you were Isis come to life, but for
> pity's sake *look* at rasf.fandom and tell me that you think such a
> restriction exists.
(Wipes off the slurp). Please don't do that.
Okay, I'll take a look.
--
Rebecca Ore
Konrad Gaertner
>
> It's interesting, I can't killfile in any traditional sense of the
> concept, and I have no way to single out an individual, but Netscape
> allows me to kill a thread.
What version are you using? Check the Edit menu for Message filters...
> I killed a few months ago and have seen
> nothing annoying until lately. I know the stuff is out there because
> when I go to get new messages, I see the total number out there and
> the total number after receiving the headers is almost always smaller.
I see that too, but I'm not filtering or ignoring anything, so
there's some other cause[s]. Maybe cancelled or null messages.
--KG
David Cowie
> Anyone else expanding their killfiles? I see mine growing
> by about a dozen names from all across the political spectrum.
I haven't killfiled many people, but I've killed a lot of threads for
various reasons. (My newsreader calls it "Ignore thread").
--
David Cowie david_cowie at lineone dot net
David Cowie
> I'm not currently filtering anything, though I'm really tempted to
> start one for posts with "matrix" in the subject. What's up with
> those, anyway? Spam, troll, or idiocy?
>
Choose any three.
Michael Alan Chary
Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
>mch...@panix.com (Michael Alan Chary) writes:
>
>> In article <m3bs03c...@pyrophore.ogoense.local>,
>> Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> >mch...@panix.com (Michael Alan Chary) writes:
>> >>
>> >> Did rasf.fandom get rmgrouped?
>> >
>> >
>> >I thought it was for fannish social life, not for readers and people
>> >interested in things sfnal, like politics.
>>
>>
>> Ms. Ore, I worship you as though you were Isis come to life, but for
>> pity's sake *look* at rasf.fandom and tell me that you think such a
>> restriction exists.
>
>(Wipes off the slurp). Please don't do that.
Sorry, but I was trying not to sound as patronizing as I was being :)
k
David Cowie
> On Sat, 22 Mar 2003 15:54:51 GMT, how...@brazee.net
> <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>>I'm pretty easy. I still only have taustin as my one and only
>>killfile.
>
> Ditto. Is he still posting BTW?
Last post to this group on 3 Feb 2003, according to groups.google.com.
Rebecca Ore
> In article <m3fzpfb...@pyrophore.ogoense.local>,
> Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >mch...@panix.com (Michael Alan Chary) writes:
> >
> >> In article <m3bs03c...@pyrophore.ogoense.local>,
> >> Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >> >mch...@panix.com (Michael Alan Chary) writes:
> >> >>
> >> >> Did rasf.fandom get rmgrouped?
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >I thought it was for fannish social life, not for readers and people
> >> >interested in things sfnal, like politics.
> >>
> >>
> >> Ms. Ore, I worship you as though you were Isis come to life, but for
> >> pity's sake *look* at rasf.fandom and tell me that you think such a
> >> restriction exists.
> >
> >(Wipes off the slurp). Please don't do that.
>
> Sorry, but I was trying not to sound as patronizing as I was being :)
I looked. I didn't recognize any of those people.
Will try to remember to tag the Meta discussions about today's
politics that will become next year's s.f.
--
Rebecca Ore
J.B. Moreno
> Anyone else expanding their killfiles?
No, I've been trying to hijack the political threads. So far that
hasn't been a total failure.
--
JBM
"Everything is futile." -- Marvin of Borg
creepygirl
Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
Have you considered creating a yahoogroup dedicated to political
discussions, and inviting posters from rasfw to join it? It's really
easy to create one and you can control the membership to only include
people you know, if that's your desire.
-cg
Rebecca Ore
> >Will try to remember to tag the Meta discussions about today's
> >politics that will become next year's s.f.
>
> Have you considered creating a yahoogroup dedicated to political
> discussions, and inviting posters from rasfw to join it? It's really
> easy to create one and you can control the membership to only include
> people you know, if that's your desire.
Yahoo.groups are worthless because of spam.
--
Rebecca Ore
David Bilek
Irony, thy name is Rebecca.
(Hint: You are acting like those spammers)
-David
creepygirl
Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
The one I belong to is unmoderated and is not overrun by spam.
-cg
Rebecca Ore
I don't read everything here, on or off topic. And I'm not the only
person posting on the Iraqi War and didn't start the threat or volley
out the first insults.
I'm here to see what David Friedman, Kai, and a few others are saying
about this. If they all want to move it to rasff, talk to them since
they're here more often than I am.
--
Rebecca Ore
Rebecca Ore
David Eppstein
Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > Have you considered creating a yahoogroup dedicated to political
> > discussions, and inviting posters from rasfw to join it? It's really
> > easy to create one and you can control the membership to only include
> > people you know, if that's your desire.
>
> Yahoo.groups are worthless because of spam.
I have been on a yahoo group for a few years that, as far as I remember,
has never received spam. And I get a lot of spam from other sources...
In any case, creating spam on this group (and that's what I consider
your and others' political messages to be, despite my enjoyment of your
books) is not an acceptable response to your inability to find spam-free
but more appropriate channels.
--
David Eppstein http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/
Univ. of California, Irvine, School of Information & Computer Science
David Friedman
Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
I can state my views very simply, for what they are worth:
1. As a long term policy we should be moving in exactly the opposite
direction--as I have been arguing for about thirty years. Trade with
everyone, alliance with no one unless you desperately need it--and now
that the Soviet Union has self-destructed we don't.
2. How, in the short run, you get there starting with the current mess
is a harder question, and one I have no great expertise in. It's
conceivable that removing Hussein will result in a stable and reasonably
attractive government in Iraq, and that that in the long run will make
the world a better place, but I don't think it's the way to bet. It's
conceivable that Hussein really has or is building WMD which he is
planning to sereptitiously pass on to terrorists and that we have to
stop him first--certainly if he did I wouldn't know--but it doesn't seem
terribly plausible. _Liberty Magazine_ had quite a good article
analyzing the prudential reasons for thinking we were better off staying
out.
3. What I can see of the anti-war movement here is mostly anti-war for
what seem to me the wrong reasons--in the U.S. because they hate
Bush--so even if my views on 2 above were more unambiguous I would be
reluctant to be part of it.
Rebecca Ore
> In article <m3bs039...@pyrophore.ogoense.local>,
> Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > Have you considered creating a yahoogroup dedicated to political
> > > discussions, and inviting posters from rasfw to join it? It's really
> > > easy to create one and you can control the membership to only include
> > > people you know, if that's your desire.
> >
> > Yahoo.groups are worthless because of spam.
>
> I have been on a yahoo group for a few years that, as far as I remember,
> has never received spam. And I get a lot of spam from other sources...
> In any case, creating spam on this group (and that's what I consider
> your and others' political messages to be, despite my enjoyment of your
> books) is not an acceptable response to your inability to find spam-free
> but more appropriate channels.
And I consider all discussions of sf movies and television shows to be
off topic, also, but generally just don't read them rather than fuss
at people for making them.
There's a community side of a group beyond the subject material --
thus the discussions of writing a Jane Austen spoof here rather than
in rec.arts.composition, and a number of other threads that aren't
about written s.f.
Spam isn't just things you don't like -- it's got a fairly defined
meaning and claiming that things you don't like are spam is highly
dishonest. Off-topic isn't spam. News groups are communities and
they do drift off the main topic from time to time. It's not spam.
I'm not as regular a poster here as a number of other people posting
in the political threads. If they move the discussion to rasff, then
it will so be moved, but I'm not really interested in talking about
this with 100% strangers, and I do see people posting on the political
stuff who aren't me.
--
Rebecca Ore
David Bilek
"I do not think that word means what you think it means."
-The Princess Bride.
-David
Rebecca Ore
>
> 3. What I can see of the anti-war movement here is mostly anti-war for
> what seem to me the wrong reasons--in the U.S. because they hate
> Bush--so even if my views on 2 above were more unambiguous I would be
> reluctant to be part of it.
There seem to be two core groups that will protest any war --
religious activist pacifists (generally a certain faction of the
Quaker community) and the hard core "demo, demo, demo" action faction.
Both of them tend to be off-putting to people who have other reasons
for opposing this war but who aren't anti-war in general, or even left
in general.
I'm not sure I see the present Pope as being a member of either
faction, and he came out against the war.
Ob SF, Heinlein made a distinction between a real pacifist and the run
of the mill big mouthed anarchist. And then there's everyone else.
--
Rebecca Ore
Sean O'Hara
declared...
> In article <m3adfm9...@pyrophore.ogoense.local>,
> Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > I'm here to see what David Friedman, Kai, and a few others are saying
> > about this. If they all want to move it to rasff, talk to them since
> > they're here more often than I am.
>
> I can state my views very simply, for what they are worth:
>
For Cthulhu's sweet sake, will you two get a room or at least take
it to email? This thread was about how your constant political
bickering with Ms. Ore has made this group damned near unreadable
and you jump in to reiterate your stance. By this point, if anyone
doesn't know what you think, they don't care. I know I don't at
this point. So <*plonk*> you.
--
Sean O'Hara
"I don't care how much money you have, free stuff is
always a good thing." --Queen Latifah
Christopher Adams
> killfile -- Vicious Bastards, Pointless Pontificating, Spammers,
> Boringly Insane, and the occasional So Insane It's Cruel To Tease
> Them. Rasfw has contributed some to each category, but another group I
> frequent (talk.origins) has done much much more.
talk.origins? Are you INSANE? ;)
--
- Kit -
SUTEKH Dysfunctions Officer, 2003
I dig her batrachian lips
Her bulbous eyes and scaly hips . . .
"The Innsmouth Look", Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
Peter Meilinger
He's really not. And I agree with everyone else who's said that
a lot of Yahoo Groups have no appreciable spam problem. And hell,
they're easy enough to set to moderated if it comes to that. This
newsgroup doesn't have that option. Which I generally think is
a good thing, but still.
Pete
Rebecca Ore
> Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >David Bilek <dbi...@attbi.com> writes:
> >> Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> >> >Yahoo.groups are worthless because of spam.
> >>
> >> Irony, thy name is Rebecca.
> >>
> >> (Hint: You are acting like those spammers)
>
> >(Hint: You acting like a troll).
>
> He's really not. And I agree with everyone else who's said that
> a lot of Yahoo Groups have no appreciable spam problem. And hell,
> they're easy enough to set to moderated if it comes to that. This
> newsgroup doesn't have that option. Which I generally think is
> a good thing, but still.
>
Pop-up ads. I read some of the Yahoo business boards and the thing is
utterly riddled with popup ads and is a shit interface.
I *hate* web-boards. I would rather run a server than participate in
one, ever. NNTP rules.
I've run a server, as a matter of fact.
If you want to move this conversation else where, you can ask the more
usual regulars to move it.
I see a lot of people talking about things that are not written s.f.,
from weapons systems to movies, and I just don't see the hostility
displayed to the participants in those threads that I'm plonking here.
Since I find this harrassing and trollish, and I rather do know
trolls, bye-bye.
--
Rebecca Ore
http://mysite.verizon.net/rebecca.ore
Brandon Ray
Rebecca Ore wrote:
> Peter Meilinger <mell...@bu.edu> writes:
>
> > Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > >David Bilek <dbi...@attbi.com> writes:
> > >> Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> > >> >Yahoo.groups are worthless because of spam.
> > >>
> > >> Irony, thy name is Rebecca.
> > >>
> > >> (Hint: You are acting like those spammers)
> >
> > >(Hint: You acting like a troll).
> >
> > He's really not. And I agree with everyone else who's said that
> > a lot of Yahoo Groups have no appreciable spam problem. And hell,
> > they're easy enough to set to moderated if it comes to that. This
> > newsgroup doesn't have that option. Which I generally think is
> > a good thing, but still.
> >
>
> Pop-up ads. I read some of the Yahoo business boards and the thing is
> utterly riddled with popup ads and is a shit interface.
>
> I *hate* web-boards. I would rather run a server than participate in
> one, ever. NNTP rules.
I hate them, too. So I don't use that interface; on the Yahoogroups I
subscribe to, I have them email me the messages.
I also suspect that I get less spam that way than I do as a consequence
of posting to Usenet. Of course, there's no way to prove that. But it's
not obvious to me that subscribing to a Yahoogroup causes more spam than
any other net activity.
--
When we're victorious everyone's going to want to get into the action.
Nepal will send two Sherpas and a bomb-sniffing yak. -- seen on the
Internet, 3/23/03
A.C.
news:emtp7v42fpf8btbiv...@4ax.com...
> Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >Yahoo.groups are worthless because of spam.
>
> Irony, thy name is Rebecca.
>
> (Hint: You are acting like those spammers)
No, she's not. Spam does not equal "posts with which I disagree".
A.C.
message news:MPG.18e6752a4...@news.cis.dfn.de...
> In the Year of the Goat, the Great and Powerful Rebecca Ore declared...
> >
> > I think the people doing this should put in the tags so people who
> > want to avoid it can,
> >
> Instead of making pronouncements about what others should do, mayhap
> you should be proactive in this regard.
I don't know if you can count something that starts with "I think the people
doing this should" can be construed as a "pronouncement".
A.C.
news:323p7vkik3bpbo71i...@4ax.com...
> I have several (though unlabeled) categories for who qualifies for my
> killfile -- Vicious Bastards, Pointless Pontificating, Spammers,
> Boringly Insane, and the occasional So Insane It's Cruel To Tease
> Them. Rasfw has contributed some to each category, but another group I
> frequent (talk.origins) has done much much more.
talk.origins is like watching people scream at chimpanzees. I don't
understand why people even argue there; if someone is dumb/crazy enough to
believe humans coexisted with dinosaurs, why on earth would you think you
can convince him to change his mind?
Brandon Ray
Rebecca Ore wrote:
> David Eppstein <epps...@ics.uci.edu> writes:
>
> > In article <m3bs039...@pyrophore.ogoense.local>,
> > Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> > > > Have you considered creating a yahoogroup dedicated to political
> > > > discussions, and inviting posters from rasfw to join it? It's really
> > > > easy to create one and you can control the membership to only include
> > > > people you know, if that's your desire.
> > >
> > > Yahoo.groups are worthless because of spam.
> >
> > I have been on a yahoo group for a few years that, as far as I remember,
> > has never received spam. And I get a lot of spam from other sources...
> > In any case, creating spam on this group (and that's what I consider
> > your and others' political messages to be, despite my enjoyment of your
> > books) is not an acceptable response to your inability to find spam-free
> > but more appropriate channels.
>
> And I consider all discussions of sf movies and television shows to be
> off topic, also, but generally just don't read them rather than fuss
> at people for making them.
I agree with you on this. The political threads are largely segregated;
discussions of books and authors aren't usually sprinkled with political posts
in such a way that makes it difficult to enjoy individual threads. What
normally happens is that either someone starts and OT political thread (and
those are really easy to ignore if you aren't interested) or someone hijacks a
legitimate thread, and the discussion moves away from sf.written to some
political topic or other (which can be really annoying if you're interested in
the original purpose of the thread, but is also fairly easy to identify and
avoid).
> There's a community side of a group beyond the subject material --
> thus the discussions of writing a Jane Austen spoof here rather than
> in rec.arts.composition, and a number of other threads that aren't
> about written s.f.
>
Yep.
Christopher Adams
>> a lot of Yahoo Groups have no appreciable spam problem. And hell,
>> they're easy enough to set to moderated if it comes to that. This
>> newsgroup doesn't have that option. Which I generally think is
>> a good thing, but still.
>
> Pop-up ads. I read some of the Yahoo business boards and the thing is
> utterly riddled with popup ads and is a shit interface.
Yahoo Groups are e-mail lists, though you can read them at their homepages too.
The only "spam" on those lists are the advertisements Yahoo includes with each
message, but usually at the bottom.
David Bilek
Reading comprehension. I didn't say she was spamming, I said she was
acting like a spammer. As in, posting without regard to the
consequences of her actions.
If I wanted to call her a spammer, I would have said "you're a
spammer".
-David
Rebecca Ore
> Rebecca Ore wrote:
>
> > Peter Meilinger <mell...@bu.edu> writes:
> >
> > > Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > >David Bilek <dbi...@attbi.com> writes:
> > > >> Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > >> >Yahoo.groups are worthless because of spam.
> > > >>
> > > >> Irony, thy name is Rebecca.
> > > >>
> > > >> (Hint: You are acting like those spammers)
> > >
> > > >(Hint: You acting like a troll).
> > >
> > > He's really not. And I agree with everyone else who's said that
> > > a lot of Yahoo Groups have no appreciable spam problem. And hell,
> > > they're easy enough to set to moderated if it comes to that. This
> > > newsgroup doesn't have that option. Which I generally think is
> > > a good thing, but still.
> > >
> >
> > Pop-up ads. I read some of the Yahoo business boards and the thing is
> > utterly riddled with popup ads and is a shit interface.
> >
> > I *hate* web-boards. I would rather run a server than participate in
> > one, ever. NNTP rules.
>
> I hate them, too. So I don't use that interface; on the Yahoogroups I
> subscribe to, I have them email me the messages.
<Shudder> Another mailing list. I'm now down to one -- for Linux Users.
>
> I also suspect that I get less spam that way than I do as a consequence
> of posting to Usenet. Of course, there's no way to prove that. But it's
> not obvious to me that subscribing to a Yahoogroup causes more spam than
> any other net activity.
Verizon lets me use an alias to post to usenet where I delete the mail
without downloading it to my machine (and I answer a few of them and
give even fewer my real address).
Yahoo's terms of service, which I read when considering subscribing to
a financial board on my former employer, says that they will share
information, and they will require that you do nothing to stop the
pop-ups and unders and advertising material.
I have enough email -- I've dropped a couple of mailing lists even
though Mutt and procmail do wonders in keeping list mail out of my
personal mail. Usenet doesn't follow me home, so to speak.
Rebecca Ore
It doesn't even equal "off topic by people we don't like" either.
His comments are the sort that have news admins and abuse desk people
tossing 90% of the abuse reports they get.
David Bilek
Where as your political wankery is the sort that makes RASFW nearly
unreadable.
-David
david...@pobox.com
Christopher Adams <mhacde...@optushome.com.au> wrote:
>>> He's really not. And I agree with everyone else who's said that
>>> a lot of Yahoo Groups have no appreciable spam problem. And hell,
>>> they're easy enough to set to moderated if it comes to that. This
>>> newsgroup doesn't have that option. Which I generally think is
>>> a good thing, but still.
>>
>> Pop-up ads. I read some of the Yahoo business boards and the thing is
>> utterly riddled with popup ads and is a shit interface.
>
>Yahoo Groups are e-mail lists, though you can read them at their
>homepages too.
>The only "spam" on those lists are the advertisements Yahoo includes with each
>message, but usually at the bottom.
Unfortunately, the e-mail interface is limited to recieving new
messages only, as far as I know. All admin functions and viewing
of past messages has to be done through the Web interface - which
is, IMHO, slow and painful. Why can't they take a hint from the
mailing list software around, oh, say, 10 years ago and allow all
those things through e-mail as well ? Why did they have to
reimplement ideas from the past, badly ? (Gee, sounds like
Microsoft :-> ) Unfortunately, I'm not sure if there are too
many free mailing list hosts around these days.
David.
--
(david.cook at pobox.com)
(in Melbourne, Australia)
Rebecca Ore
> I agree with you on this. The political threads are largely
> segregated; discussions of books and authors aren't usually
> sprinkled with political posts in such a way that makes it difficult
> to enjoy individual threads. What normally happens is that either
> someone starts and OT political thread (and those are really easy to
> ignore if you aren't interested)
I've tried to mark the OT ones and change the subject lines when they
veer back to being about printed written s.f.
> or someone hijacks a
> legitimate thread, and the discussion moves away from sf.written to some
> political topic or other (which can be really annoying if you're interested in
> the original purpose of the thread, but is also fairly easy to identify and
> avoid).
Feed what you want to keep. If you don't want the political threads,
be more interesting about some piece of fiction you've read.
>
>
> > There's a community side of a group beyond the subject material --
> > thus the discussions of writing a Jane Austen spoof here rather than
> > in rec.arts.composition, and a number of other threads that aren't
> > about written s.f.
> >
>
> Yep.
I'll just kill file the people whose version of being OT is hassling
other people for being OT.
And try to remember to tag OT threads.
A.C.
> "A.C." <nomadi...@removethistomailmehotmail.com> wrote:
> >"David Bilek" <dbi...@attbi.com> wrote in message
> >news:emtp7v42fpf8btbiv...@4ax.com...
> >> Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >> >Yahoo.groups are worthless because of spam.
> >>
> >> Irony, thy name is Rebecca.
> >>
> >> (Hint: You are acting like those spammers)
> >
> >No, she's not. Spam does not equal "posts with which I disagree".
> >
>
> Reading comprehension. I didn't say she was spamming, I said she was
> acting like a spammer.
A spammer is someone who spams. Any other traits you want to tack on have
nothing to do with the original definition.
> As in, posting without regard to the
> consequences of her actions.
Why not just say she's acting like a murderer, as they tend not to regard
the consequences of their actions as well.
What exactly are the consequences of her actions, anyway, that have you so
worried?
Christopher Adams
> other people for being OT.
I understand the sentiment, but discussion about what is and what is not
on-topic for a newsgroup is *always* on-topic.
Rebecca Ore
> > I'll just kill file the people whose version of being OT is hassling
> > other people for being OT.
>
> I understand the sentiment, but discussion about what is and what is not
> on-topic for a newsgroup is *always* on-topic.
And killfiling people who are being annoying is always Correct.
You know, I honestly think most of us said our pieces about this, and
some of us are interested in talking to each other not just because of
this issue but because we have some prior familiarity with each other.
It doesn't appear to me that David is ranting at me, or I at him.
I have a nephew over there, a Naval aviator fighter pilot based on a
carrier. Whole thing is extremely sad because they've been told it's
about defending our freedoms and all that. And, really, it's not even
going to necessarily help all the Iraqis that much.
Swanwick said something about seeing children sent to kill other
children, which probably would insult my nephew, but these are, by my
standards, very young men and women. And it's the present that I'll
be spinning my futures out of.
Perhaps anything is on topic that will become written s.f., or which
will give us new slants on that which is already in print.
SF is an extremely political genre compared to most other genres. The
core of it is to see people as parts of dynamic systems of people and
their technologies.
To fantasize about politics not being on topic in a group that
discusses s.f. is kinda kinda silly, I think.
David Friedman
"A.C." <nomadi...@removethistomailmehotmail.com> wrote:
Span doesn't even equal "off topic posts." That's why it's OT: not SP:
Brandon Ray
David Bilek wrote:
>
> Where as your political wankery is the sort that makes RASFW nearly
> unreadable.
Oh, please. I often disagree with her, but Rebecca has a coherent
viewpoint and she expresses it intelligently and ably.
Michael S. Schiffer
news:b5i8c7$5e4$1...@panix2.panix.com:
> In article <m3y937q...@pyrophore.ogoense.local>,
> Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>RRO <rrogoffSP...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>>
>>> On 22 Mar 2003 00:03:20 -0500, in rec.arts.sf.written, in
>>> article <b5gqqo$kg6$1...@panix3.panix.com>, jdni...@panix.com
>>> (James Nicoll) wrote:
>>> > Anyone else expanding their killfiles? I see mine
>>> > growing
>>> >by about a dozen names from all across the political
>>> >spectrum.
>>> Can killfiles alone save this newsgroup from the evil
>>> onslaught of nefarious political carping? This looks like a
>>> job for Superman...
>>I think the people doing this should put in the tags so people
>>who want to avoid it can, but I think people should understand
>>that the reason we're not going elsewhere is that we don't want
>>to discuss this with people we don't have some understanding of.
>>Mostly, this has been more civil than some political discussions
>>elsewhere.
> Did rasf.fandom get rmgrouped?
rasff is a different group of posters. Overlapping, certainly, but
diminishingly so as of the last time I was subscribed to it.
That's not to defend lengthy political discussions here by any
means. But I do understand why rasff wouldn't be deemed an
equivalent substitute with the added advantage of these discussions
being on-topic there.
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
Craig Richardson
wrote:
>David Bilek wrote:
>
>>
>> Where as your political wankery is the sort that makes RASFW nearly
>> unreadable.
>
>Oh, please. I often disagree with her, but Rebecca has a coherent
>viewpoint and she expresses it intelligently and ably.
Please. *I* post off-topic stuff way too often. Rebecca posts
off-topic about an order of magnitude more often than I do. So does
Pete McCutchen when he's "on", so I'm not being viewpoint-centric
here. One or two a day, at most.
--Craig
--
Managing the Devil Rays is something like competing on "Iron Chef",
and having Chairman Kaga reveal a huge ziggurat of lint.
Gary Huckabay, Baseball Prospectus Online, August 21, 2002
Charlie Stross
as <ogoen...@verizon.net> declared:
> Pop-up ads. I read some of the Yahoo business boards and the thing is
> utterly riddled with popup ads and is a shit interface.
>
> I *hate* web-boards. I would rather run a server than participate in
> one, ever. NNTP rules.
You know that Yahoo! Groups are actually backed onto a majordomo server,
if you peek under the hood? You can subscribe, unsubscribe, digestify,
and do the other majordomo stuff entirely by email -- and it doesn't
force you to jump through Yahoo's privacy violating registration form
to do so, either.
Of course, Yahoo! don't advertise this. It's buried in the small print
somewhere (ever since they took over egroups).
-- Charlie
aRJay
Schiffer <msch...@condor.depaul.edu> writes
reading RASFW is the lack of posts that have any kind of linkup with
written SF. The current crop of incredibly boring posts on politics are
IMO an example of the sort of thing that helped to drive them away. It
has also been stated that the response to such OT posts has turned RASFW
into a snake pit.
Personally I have been marking the political threads both marked and
hijacked as uninteresting which means I don't see them until there is a
sufficient break in the thread for it's messages to expire from my
software. My killfiles which are permanent are mainly for the usual
suspects mainly trolls, repeat driveby's and the like.
--
aRJay
"In this great and creatorless universe, where so much beautiful has
come to be out of the chance interactions of the basic properties of
matter, it seems so important that we love one another."
- Lucy Kemnitzer
Del Cotter
creepygirl <creep...@eudoramail.com> said:
>Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>Will try to remember to tag the Meta discussions about today's
>>politics that will become next year's s.f.
Rebecca, you're wrong. Have a look at the newsgroup charter.
rec.arts.sf.written is for discussion of published works of actual
science fiction, not "things which have been or might be of interest to
science fiction readers". Absolutely anything could be discussed under
such a broad definition.
What's wrong with the notion that discussing current events in Usenet
newsgroups is OK, is that a big current event would be discussed in
*every* newsgroup. And where then is the opportunity to talk about
agriculture in sci.agriculture, or cats in rec.pets.cats, and so on?
Also, "meta" is a tag for discussion of the newsgroup, not for
discussions of current affairs. If you must continue your off topic
discussions, do please tag them with [OT] at the beginning of the
subject, but be aware that it doesn't make what you're doing right.
>Have you considered creating a yahoogroup dedicated to political
>discussions, and inviting posters from rasfw to join it? It's really
>easy to create one and you can control the membership to only include
>people you know, if that's your desire.
Live Journal (www.livejournal.com) is a *really good* medium for
gathering groups for random discussion on the basis of "people I know",
rather than on the basis of specific discussion subject, as Usenet is.
I also second the idea of a mailing list, which can be run on either
model.
--
. . . . Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk . . . .
JustRead::NeilGaimanAmericanGods:GwynethJonesBoldAsLove:KenMacLeodDarkLi
ght:DamonKnightWhyDoBirds:JRRTolkienTheTwoTowers:RobertCharlesWilsonBios
ToRead:GuyGavrielKaySailingToSarantium:ChinaMievilleTheScar:ChristopherP
Del Cotter
>creepygirl <creep...@eudoramail.com> writes:
>> >Will try to remember to tag the Meta discussions about today's
>> >politics that will become next year's s.f.
>>
>> Have you considered creating a yahoogroup dedicated to political
>> discussions, and inviting posters from rasfw to join it? It's really
>> easy to create one and you can control the membership to only include
>> people you know, if that's your desire.
>
>Yahoo.groups are worthless because of spam.
Spam? What's that? Oh yeah, thousands and thousands of rude messages
you're not interested in and never asked for, and which the perpetrators
have no business clogging up your mailbox with.
Not like what you're doing to me here on this newsgroup, at all.
Del Cotter
Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> said:
>I see a lot of people talking about things that are not written s.f.,
>from weapons systems to movies, and I just don't see the hostility
>displayed to the participants in those threads that I'm plonking here.
Meanwhile, Dave Slusher says he doesn't see why he should be jumped on
for talking about radio and other media on the written group, since
there's never any complaint about the politics threads.
Neither of you are telling the truth.
Allan Griffith
how...@brazee.net says...
> I'm pretty easy. I still only have taustin as my one and only killfile.
He seems to have disappeared.
Al
Allan Griffith
cha...@antipope.org says...
> Consequently, there's uncertainty and fear and loathing
> on all sides, and people are venting profusely in places they wouldn't
> have dreamed of doing it in before.
>
> In the real world, half my friends seem to be picking fights with one
> another over half-remembered slights, and the other half are variously
> sulking or hiding under the bed gibbering in fright. All we're seeing
> on rasfw and elsewhere on usenet is the usenet equivalent of this
> behaviour -- a neurotic outburst of massive proportions.
Yes, people on both USENET and email lists seem to be getting more
argumentative on all subjects, not just overtly political ones. And
people are getting hyper-sensitive to anything that even looks like a
putdown or even a simple disagreement. And throwing around quite
excessive insults. I don't see this getting any better, unfortunately.
Al
Allan Griffith
KMac_...@yahoo.com.null says...
> Hey, could be worse. We could be talking about the NCAA Tournament
> instead.
I could be talking about it if I knew what it was.
Al
Rebecca Ore
>
> You know that Yahoo! Groups are actually backed onto a majordomo server,
> if you peek under the hood? You can subscribe, unsubscribe, digestify,
> and do the other majordomo stuff entirely by email -- and it doesn't
> force you to jump through Yahoo's privacy violating registration form
> to do so, either.
Basically, I prefer not to deal with mailing lists, either. I've
unsubbed most of the ones I used to be on. I do have accounts on a
couple of servers of private hieararchies.
NNTP rules.
Allan Griffith
says...
> >Yahoo.groups are worthless because of spam.
I run a couple of Yahoo Groups, and they're almost entirely spam-free.
It isn't difficult really, all you have to do is set them up so that new
members have to be approved by a moderator, and then filter all the new
member application that have Yahoo Mail addresses comprising random
letters. An occasional spammer gets through, but you just kick them out.
Very easy. And if people repeatedly post off-topic stuff, or flame, or
oare obnoxious, you can kick them out, or moderate their posts until they
learn to be good. So you end up with civilised, on-topic discussions.
Al
Allan Griffith
> And I agree with everyone else who's said that
> a lot of Yahoo Groups have no appreciable spam problem. And hell,
> they're easy enough to set to moderated if it comes to that. T
The Yahoo Groups that are run by people who don't actually run them, but
just set them up and then walk away, or expect them to run completely by
themselves, usually end up self-destructing or disappearing under an
avalanche of spam and OT nonsense.
The Yahoo Groups that are run by people who actually bother to run them
properly (which really isn't hard or especially time-consuming) are
civilised and stimulating, and run with very few problems.
It's unfortunate that the badly-run spam-infested groups there have given
Yahoo Groups in general a bad name which is quite undeserved.
Al
Allan Griffith
> I also suspect that I get less spam that way than I do as a consequence
> of posting to Usenet. Of course, there's no way to prove that. But it's
> not obvious to me that subscribing to a Yahoogroup causes more spam than
> any other net activity.
I think you're absolutely correct there. I've been a member of many
Yahoo Groups for quite a few years, and didn't really have any major
problems with spam until I started posting on USENET. When I started
doing that I started getting truckloads of spam.
Al
Allan Griffith
> I agree with you on this. The political threads are largely segregated;
> discussions of books and authors aren't usually sprinkled with political posts
> in such a way that makes it difficult to enjoy individual threads.
The secret is this. If you're in the mood for a noisy and vicious
political argument, you read the political threads (and I agree with
Brandon that generally speaking those threads are easy enough to spot).
If you're not in the mood for a noisy and vicious political argument,
don't read the political threads.
Al
Karl M Syring
He has been reincarnated as "Chive Mynde".
(You must change your algorithms if you want to go
undetected, Terry.)
Karl M. Syring
--
Bait:
mrm...@isp9.net
Karl M Syring
>
> Yes, people on both USENET and email lists seem to be getting more
> argumentative on all subjects, not just overtly political ones. And
> people are getting hyper-sensitive to anything that even looks like a
> putdown or even a simple disagreement. And throwing around quite
> excessive insults. I don't see this getting any better, unfortunately.
Well, the reason is that once you have discovered that the
other side will always act as the maximum possible asshole
(this is called "unilateralism" in politico speech), there is
no reason to hold back. This state of affairs will persists
for quite some time to come.
Karl M. Syring
The Doctor
Yahoo Groups must be being spam listed.
From owner-...@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM Sat Mar 22 16:06:20 2003
Sender: Spam Prevention Discussion List <SPA...@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM>
> Does anyone have a black list for yahoo groups that
> one can use as a whitelist? I'll accept a few spams
> from Yahoo so I don't loose what I need from them.
Checking my logs, they all seem to be under the scd.yahoo.com domain. I'm
going to guess that the provalue.net connections with groups.yahoo.com
envelopes are forged spam. Think I'll research that one, as the connection
rate seems high.
FYI
--
Member - Liberal International On 11 Sept 2001 the WORLD was violated.
This is doc...@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doc...@nl2k.ab.ca
Society MUST be saved! Extremists must dissolve.
Quebec - elir les gagnant qui peut deplacer le PQ la plus vite
Louann Miller
<nomadi...@removethistomailmehotmail.com> wrote:
>"Louann Miller" <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote in message
>news:323p7vkik3bpbo71i...@4ax.com...
>
>> I have several (though unlabeled) categories for who qualifies for my
>> killfile -- Vicious Bastards, Pointless Pontificating, Spammers,
>> Boringly Insane, and the occasional So Insane It's Cruel To Tease
>> Them. Rasfw has contributed some to each category, but another group I
>> frequent (talk.origins) has done much much more.
>
>talk.origins is like watching people scream at chimpanzees. I don't
>understand why people even argue there; if someone is dumb/crazy enough to
>believe humans coexisted with dinosaurs, why on earth would you think you
>can convince him to change his mind?
We've had a few converts from time to time, mostly by catching 'em
young. My own belief, and I think that of most regulars, is that we do
it for the lurkers -- there are so many creationist forums where their
case wins by default that it's important to have one out there where
the serious questions do get asked, and answered, on a regular basis.
Then there's the Black Adder aspect of things:
Edmund: It is said, Percy, that civilized man seeks out good and
intelligent company, so that, through learned discourse, he may rise
above the savage and closer to God.
Percy: Yes, I've heard that.
Edmund: Personally, however, I like to start the day with a total
dickhead to remind me I'm best.
There's a real appeal to shooting fish in a barrel, especially since
the most effective (and in many cases cruelest) method of winning is
to remain formally polite and smother them with documentable facts.
Louann
Louann Miller
<ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
>creepygirl <creep...@eudoramail.com> writes:
>
>> >Will try to remember to tag the Meta discussions about today's
>> >politics that will become next year's s.f.
>>
>> Have you considered creating a yahoogroup dedicated to political
>> discussions, and inviting posters from rasfw to join it? It's really
>> easy to create one and you can control the membership to only include
>> people you know, if that's your desire.
>
>Yahoo.groups are worthless because of spam.
I belong to several Yahoo groups and listmom another. It's actually
quite easy for the moderator to set things up so that spam doesn't hit
the list. Just make it so that any newbie who joins is set on
"moderate all posts" until he or she has made one or more sensible
on-topic post. That cuts out the join-spam-and-run contingent right
away.
As far as e-mail addresses being harvested off lists, I can only say
it doesn't appear to happen to me.
Louann
Louann Miller
<ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
>Pop-up ads. I read some of the Yahoo business boards and the thing is
>utterly riddled with popup ads and is a shit interface.
My personal solutions:
1) Mozilla. Easily set to exclude pop-up windows, which is wonderful
for all kinds of reasons. There are also several freeware utilities
out there for the purpose.
2) I have the messages delivered to me as e-mail rather than go to the
groups site, except when I need to tweak settings.
>I *hate* web-boards. I would rather run a server than participate in
>one, ever. NNTP rules.
And nobody's making you. But if you did want to do so, there are
solutions for all the problems you've brought up.
Rebecca Ore
> If you're not in the mood for a noisy and vicious political argument,
> don't read the political threads.
Honestly, I don't think these are as noisy and vicious as some I've
seen elsewhere. And I don't particularly just want to hang out with
anti-war people, either.
K-Mac
College basketball. March Madness. The event that CBS would really
rather have been covering this week (many of the first- and
second-round games were pushed to ESPN by the war).
--
Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching. -- Satchel Paige
Rebecca Ore
> On Sun, 23 Mar 2003 04:40:16 GMT, Rebecca Ore
> <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> >Pop-up ads. I read some of the Yahoo business boards and the thing is
> >utterly riddled with popup ads and is a shit interface.
>
> My personal solutions:
> 1) Mozilla. Easily set to exclude pop-up windows, which is wonderful
> for all kinds of reasons. There are also several freeware utilities
> out there for the purpose.
Yes, I have Mozilla and Konqueror, but neither are as fast as Netscape
on this machine.
> 2) I have the messages delivered to me as e-mail rather than go to the
> groups site, except when I need to tweak settings.
>
> >I *hate* web-boards. I would rather run a server than participate in
> >one, ever. NNTP rules.
>
> And nobody's making you. But if you did want to do so, there are
> solutions for all the problems you've brought up.
What I want is for Verizon to give static IPs to residential users.
Sean O'Hara
> "Sean O'Hara" <darkerthenightth...@myrealbox.com> wrote in
> message news:MPG.18e6752a4...@news.cis.dfn.de...
> > In the Year of the Goat, the Great and Powerful Rebecca Ore declared...
> > >
> > > I think the people doing this should put in the tags so people who
> > > want to avoid it can,
> > >
> > you should be proactive in this regard.
>
> I don't know if you can count something that starts with "I think the people
> doing this should" can be construed as a "pronouncement".
>
A statement of how people should behave, even when couched as an
opinion, is a pronouncement; a statement of how people should
behave that's nothing like the speaker's behavior is a hypocritical
pronouncement.
--
Sean O'Hara
"I don't care how much money you have, free stuff is
always a good thing." --Queen Latifah
Sean O'Hara
> news:emtp7v42fpf8btbiv...@4ax.com...> > Irony, thy name is Rebecca.
> >
> > (Hint: You are acting like those spammers)
>
> No, she's not. Spam does not equal "posts with which I disagree".
>
So what you're saying is that vomiting at the dinner table isn't
the same as peeing on the couch? Categorize her behavior however
you want, but it's still the equivalent of a hyperactive
kindergartener running up and down the street screaming at the top
of her lungs and shouting at anyone who tells her to go home.
Sean O'Hara
>
>
> David Bilek wrote:
>
> >
> > Where as your political wankery is the sort that makes RASFW nearly
> > unreadable.
>
> Oh, please. I often disagree with her, but Rebecca has a coherent
> viewpoint and she expresses it intelligently and ably.
>
fact that she repeats herself ad nauseum. If David Friedman has a
coherent and intelligent viewpoint, it's lost in the fact that he
states it every chance he gets.
Sean O'Hara
declared...
>
> As far as e-mail addresses being harvested off lists, I can only say
> it doesn't appear to happen to me.
>
Sean O'Hara
declared...
> Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
> as <ogoen...@verizon.net> declared:
>
> > Pop-up ads. I read some of the Yahoo business boards and the thing is
> > utterly riddled with popup ads and is a shit interface.
> >
> > one, ever. NNTP rules.
>
> if you peek under the hood? You can subscribe, unsubscribe, digestify,
> and do the other majordomo stuff entirely by email -- and it doesn't
> force you to jump through Yahoo's privacy violating registration form
> to do so, either.
>
you suggest because it's inconvenient. Killfile her, scorefile her,
or just ignore her and hope she goes away.
Martin Wisse
wrote:
>In article <m3bs03c...@pyrophore.ogoense.local>,
>Rebecca Ore <ogoen...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>mch...@panix.com (Michael Alan Chary) writes:
>>>
>>> Did rasf.fandom get rmgrouped?
>>
>>
>>I thought it was for fannish social life, not for readers and people
>>interested in things sfnal, like politics.
>
>
>Ms. Ore, I worship you as though you were Isis come to life, but for
>pity's sake *look* at rasf.fandom and tell me that you think such a
>restriction exists.
Just remember one thing: rec.arts.sf.fandom is not rasfw's garbage can;
please respect its culture, history and rules.
(Also "i want to discuss this with you guys instead of people actually
interested in whatever offtopic discussion is going on now" is a pretty
lame defence. Take it to e-mail then.)
Martin Wisse
--
I'm sick of idiots of all colours, nationalities and ideological
persuasions.
Vlatko Juric-Kokic, RASSEFF.
Martin Wisse
wrote:
>
>
>David Bilek wrote:
>
>>
>> Where as your political wankery is the sort that makes RASFW nearly
>> unreadable.
>
>Oh, please. I often disagree with her, but Rebecca has a coherent
>viewpoint and she expresses it intelligently and ably.
If it's not about WRITTEN science fiction and fantasy, it's off topic,
no matter how well written it is. So stop it.
Martin Wisse
>I'm pretty easy. I still only have taustin as my one and only killfile.
Friedman: because he came here only to debate politics. His opinions on
anything else are worthless anyway, so no loss there
Stirling: because he's too often an obnoxious idiot online and can't
resist political mudfights.
Austin: troll.
These are the main three atm. I probably should killfile Jordan again as
well, but sofar haven't done so because when he discusses sf proper,
he's quite interesting.
It's ...interesting... that everyone I've killfiled in rasfw for being
obnoxious is male. A large percentage is some form of self declared
libertarian as well.