end of comp.lang.apl?

[mkr]

it looks like the group has been overtaken by massive quantities of spam. does anyone know of a way to work around it?

Mike

[Stefano Lanzavecchia]

On Tuesday 5 December 2023 at 15:52:16 UTC+1, mkr wrote:
> it looks like the group has been overtaken by massive quantities of spam. does anyone know of a way to work around it?
>
> Mike

As far as I can tell, it's not just this newsgroup: other newsgroups I read regularly suffer from the same recrudescence of spam. I hope it's just a transitory phase and somebody will close the loophole that let the spammers in.
In the meantime, I report them on google.groups which mirrors the usenet groups.
--
Stefano

[Curtis Jones]

Stefanon, It's pretty awful. Please note the circled "i" in the upper right to "Report abuse". I've been using it, and it might help if the rest of us did, too. Curtis

[EllisMorgan]

Hello Stef,
I access this newsgroup via eternal september (ES). The is much
discussion in the group "eternal-september.support" (ESS) about the high
level of span and how to cope with it. Ray, who setup and runs ES, is
very diligent in filtering out spam. Much of the discussion is about
avoiding false positives and false negatives so that the filter will
show you all the valid messages and none of the spam. Indeed there was a
post by Ray this morning in ESS saying (I paraphrase) "I was was
expecting this after X published his filter rules".
Most of the spam Ray filters out seems to come from Google Groups (GG).
I certainly find comp.lang.apl (CLA) very usable with a low ratio of
spam to good stuff. CLA is a bit inactive these days but well worth
lurking in. I suppose the choice is between learning to run a filter for
yourself or to hide behind an energetically run usenet service provider
who does it for you.
best wishes, Ellis

[Stefano Lanzavecchia]

On Saturday 9 December 2023 at 13:07:47 UTC+1, EllisMorgan wrote:

> Most of the spam Ray filters out seems to come from Google Groups (GG).

And that's where I get comp.lang.apl from... Alas... :)

> I certainly find comp.lang.apl (CLA) very usable with a low ratio of
> spam to good stuff. CLA is a bit inactive these days but well worth
> lurking in.

I agree wholeheartedly. By the way, nice to read from you Ellis! It's been a while, again...
Cheers,
--
Stefano

[Martin Neitzel]

EllisMorgan <ne...@ellismorgan.co.uk> wrote:
> Most of the spam Ray filters out seems to come from Google Groups (GG).

That is true. On the news server I maintain, 95% of all all articles
(across all news groups) are currently that spam originating from
Google Groups. This has been going now for about four or six weeks.
(Well, you know yourself :-/ )

This has been a bad year for news server operators. In summer, someone
started spamming many newsgroups with large illicet binary postings,
occasionally also switching user accounts. These were quite easy filter
away, both based on their size (200+KB per article) und some consistent
header lines.

The GG spam is much more difficult to weed out. The articles are small,
and the "From:" address very variable. If I'd filter on "*@gmail.com",
that would do away with both Mike's and Stefano's article, too. Not
good.

However, it looks like this problem will go away in 2 months.
Today, Google released this:

https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538

The top and bottom parts of this announcment:

Google Groups ending support for Usenet

If you work with Usenet groups in Google Groups, support for these
groups is ending soon.

What's changing?
Starting on February 22, 2024, you can no longer use Google
Groups (at groups.google.com) to post content to Usenet groups,
subscribe to Usenet groups, or view new Usenet content.

[...]

Why is Google Groups support for Usenet ending?

Over the last several years, legitimate activity in text-based
Usenet groups has declined significantly because users have moved
to more modern technologies and formats such as social media
and web-based forums. Much of the content being disseminated
via Usenet today is binary (non-text) file sharing, which Google
Groups does not support, as well as spam.

One might continue last sentence as "as well as spam, which originates
from our users and which we are unable/unwilling to stop."

For the well-being of my server (with currently 95% GG spam), I will
pull the google plug right now, "two months early". Not based on
the From: address but on the "...@googlegroups.com" article ID;
i.e. you can conintue to use your @gmail.com address if you find
another news provider. I can give you a home if all you need
are "the big 8" and de.all, and oh: all the various J mailing lists
gatewayted into local newsgroups.

Martin Neitzel

[Stefano Lanzavecchia]

On Friday 15 December 2023 at 18:24:04 UTC+1, Martin Neitzel wrote:
> https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538

Well. That's it for me, then. I appreciate a lot your offer to host me, but I won't be installing a newsreader on my PCs. Years ago I converted all my access to the "internet" to being browser-based, with the 2 usenet groups I subscribe to being delivered to my Gmail inbox via Google Groups. The exceptions are my mobile devices, all based on Android. If I find a decent newsreader for Android, I'll probably be back. If not... well, sayounara.
--
Stefano

[minforth]

You can Access novabbs.com from a Browser. Decent Interface and freue.

[mkr]

Found a reasonable substitute for google. i2pn2.org and the thunderbird app.

Mike