How to kill this crap

[Alan D Ray]

Hi all.

Some idiot(s) posted a lot of this crap where the headers all begin
with "? ? ? ?" (no quotes).

The kill filter gives a syntax error when I plug this in the Paste
Subject into the Filter Expression.

The author field also has this junk

How can I get rid of this?

Thank you.

[Ralph Fox]

Agent's word-based filters treat spaces, "?", "*", punctuation characters
as part of the gap between whole words. Agent's word-based filters look
for whole words to match, and do not match the punctuation characters or
spaces between whole words.

To construct your filter you will need to use a regular expression
filter in Agent. Follow these steps to construct your filter...


 1.  Start with the text you want to match.

     For example:

             ???? ????

 2.  Put a \ (backslash) before each and every one of these 14
     'special' characters which occur in the text:
             { } . ^ $ \ ( ) [ ] * + ? |
     Do not put a \ (backslash) before other characters.

     For example:

             \?\?\?\? \?\?\?\?

 3.  Enclose the text from #2 between { and }

     For example:

             {\?\?\?\? \?\?\?\?}

 4.  Put the header name (Subject: or From:) before it, including
     the colon : at the end of the header name.

     For example:

             from: {\?\?\?\? \?\?\?\?}


If it doesn't work, check that you have done all four steps above and
that you have not missed out any of the steps.


Also see: Help >> Index >> Expressions, Message Filters >> Regular Expressions Reference


--
Kind regards
Ralph Fox
🦊

The ox when weariest treads surest.

[sdread]

On Wed, 14 Feb 2024 17:03:38 +1300, Ralph Fox <-rf-nz-@-.invalid>
wrote:

I'm struggling with literally hundreds of subject lines like this:
{63ca5e93-0f95-4639-8958-9264a9e7989b}.

The curly brackets and/or hypens evade a working filter using a series
of [a-z0-9]. Putting the curly brackets in the filter preceded with a
backslash doesn't work and the modified filter disappears from the
kill filter list after it's applied once

I'm also unsure how to include hypens in the filter given they aren't
in a consistent position in the subject. I'm hopiing I don't need to
have a series of up to 20 [a-z0-9] each separated by a hyphen (e.g.,
"[a-z0-9][a-z0-9]-[a-z0-9][a-z0-9].".

Any ideas appreciated.

[pyotr filipivich]

sdread <m...@anonymous.com> on Fri, 16 Feb 2024 15:23:03 -0600 typed in
alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent the following:

I find that making a kill file based on the "author"'s domain
works to some extent.
It's a bummer when they're using gmail.com but ...
>
>
--
pyotr filipivich
This Week's Panel: Us & Them - Eliminating Them.
Next Month's Panel: Having eliminated the old Them(tm)
Selecting who insufficiently Woke(tm) as to serve as the new Them(tm)

[Rich Ulrich]

The curly brackets are among the 14 characters that include ?
in the example above. The same model ought to work for { .
Subject:{/{}

I have my filtering mark as Read what { \?\?\?\?} captures.
I also had to capture posts with Download in the subject.

My usual view shows only the Unread. This lets me change views
and review what has been captured and not shown. The last
week's total is 65, down from 3 or 4 times that in January.

--
Rich Ulrich

[Arthur T.]

In Message-ID:<0ejvsid2a3j08hvpr...@4ax.com>,

sdread <m...@anonymous.com> wrote:

>I'm struggling with literally hundreds of subject lines like this:
>{63ca5e93-0f95-4639-8958-9264a9e7989b}.
>
>The curly brackets and/or hypens evade a working filter using a series
>of [a-z0-9]. Putting the curly brackets in the filter preceded with a
>backslash doesn't work and the modified filter disappears from the
>kill filter list after it's applied once

For at least 4 hyphens, try:
{\{[a-f0-9]+\-[a-f0-9]+\-[a-f0-9]+\-[a-f0-9]+\-.+\}}

I don't have subjects like that, so I can't test, but you could also
try:
{^\{[a-f0-9]+\-[a-f0-9]+\-[a-f0-9]+\-[a-f0-9]+\-.+$\}}

I don't know why the \{ in the filter didn't work for you.

As for the filter disappearing, are you giving it an expiration
number of days? If so, and if you don't have the unofficial fix, the
filter could be disappearing because of that.

Note: I used a-f rather than a-z as they look like hex numbers. If
you want, you could use a-z.

As always, try it as a global search before setting it loose for
real.

--
Arthur T. - ar23hur "at" pobox "dot" com

[Ralph Fox]

On Fri, 16 Feb 2024 15:23:03 -0600, sdread wrote:
> On Wed, 14 Feb 2024 17:03:38 +1300, Ralph Fox <-rf-nz-@-.invalid>
> wrote:

[...snip...]

Your filter expression should have _two_ pairs of curly brackets.
* An inside pair of curly brackets from step 1 above. These curly
brackets must be preceded with backslash characters from step 2
above.
* A second pair of curly brackets around the outside, added in
step 3 above. These curly brackets must *not* be preceded with
backslash characters.

For an example, see Arthur T's reply.

> and the modified filter disappears from the
> kill filter list after it's applied once

This sounds as if you are putting a check-mark in the filter's setting
"Expire this filter after...", but your Agent does not have the filter
expiry patch. Without the patch, expiring filters will expire
immediately (since 6 June 2017).

See this post for a longer description and for the patch:
<https://alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent.modified.narkive.com/vhHbQQjO/agent-filter-expiry-problem-fix>

> I'm also unsure how to include hypens in the filter given they aren't
> in a consistent position in the subject. I'm hopiing I don't need to
> have a series of up to 20 [a-z0-9] each separated by a hyphen (e.g.,
> "[a-z0-9][a-z0-9]-[a-z0-9][a-z0-9].".

That would be the most targeted way, with fewest false positives.

> Any ideas appreciated.

--
Kind regards
Ralph Fox
🦊

Better keep under an old hedge, then creep under a new furze-bush.