comp.os.linux.misc = mountains of Spam
Ferdie
Is this group unused because i'm just seeing spam, tons of spam... =/
I'm a brazilian Linux/BSD user and evangelist and this situation let
me sad.
There's no way to reduce the Spam flow<#>
Thanks!
Fernando Schubert
Stan Bischof
> Hello sirs,
>
>
> Is this group unused because i'm just seeing spam, tons of spam... =/
>
> I'm a brazilian Linux/BSD user and evangelist and this situation let
> me sad.
>
> There's no way to reduce the Spam flow<#>
>
>
Unfortunately between the spam, net kooks, flame
wars, windows bashers and so on there's not a lot left
here that's of real use.
However there are still some knowledgable readers
and if you do have a real question you're likely
to find someone who knows the answer.
So the SNR may be really low but there's still some
quality content available.
regards
Stan
John Hasler
> Is this group unused because i'm just seeing spam, tons of spam... =/
It is used.
> I'm a brazilian Linux/BSD user and evangelist and this situation let
> me sad.
> There's no way to reduce the Spam flow<#>
Sure there is. Get your newsfeed from someone competent such as Newsguy
who has the skills to filter most of the spam. That leaves out Google,
of course: they are the primary source of the spam. In fact, you can
cut the spam by about 75% just by filtering out anything posted via
Google Groups.
--
John Hasler
jha...@newsguy.com
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA
Grant Edwards
> Ferdie <ferp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Is this group unused because i'm just seeing spam, tons of
>> spam... =/
>>
>> I'm a brazilian Linux/BSD user and evangelist and this
>> situation let me sad.
>>
>> There's no way to reduce the Spam flow<#>
>
> Unfortunately between the spam,
Filtering out anything posted via google groups pretty much
fixes the spam problem.
> net kooks, flame wars, windows bashers
That's still an issue.
> and so on there's not a lot left here that's of real use.
--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Everybody is going
at somewhere!! It's probably
visi.com a garage sale or a disaster
Movie!!
Maxwell Lol
> Hello sirs,
>
>
> Is this group unused because i'm just seeing spam, tons of spam... =/
I don't see any as all. You are using google as a NNTP reader, and it is the
worst way to read current news. (I use it to find old old old news).
Change the way you read news, and use a server that does spam filtering.
I pay $10 a year. Some people pay less.
Aragorn
identifying as John Hasler wrote...
> Fernando Schubert writes:
>
>> Is this group unused because i'm just seeing spam, tons of spam... =/
>
> It is used.
>
>> I'm a brazilian Linux/BSD user and evangelist and this situation let
>> me sad.
>
>> There's no way to reduce the Spam flow<#>
>
> Sure there is. Get your newsfeed from someone competent such as
> Newsguy who has the skills to filter most of the spam. That leaves
> out Google, of course: they are the primary source of the spam.
After a problem with my ISP's own newsfeed and being bluntly and rudely
faced with both the incompetence and unwillingness of their helpdesk
personnel to attend to my complaint just because they know that I'm not
using Windows or OS-X, I have started to use Eternal September for my
newsfeed.
It's an excellent newsservice - so far I haven't seen any of the hickups
yet that I regularly got to see with my ISP's newsservice - and they
filter out most (but not all) of the spam, although they do not filter
out posts based upon Google Groups as the User-Agent.
> In fact, you can cut the spam by about 75% just by filtering out
> anything posted via Google Groups.
You may have missed the fact that the OP himself is posting via Google
Groups, or else you were being sarcastic in a very subtle way. :p
Still, not all of the spam is posted via Google Groups - there was an
incident not too long ago with someone posting about 200 or more spam
messages to alt.os.linux, and I have filed a complaint with his
newsservice, although I don't know whether they've followed up on that
as I didn't get any reply from them and I have the guy filtered out -
but a decent newsreader allows one to apply a wide range of filters.
I personally don't discriminate posts made via Google Groups as some of
them might actually be legitimate, but I have already begun
contemplating the idea of applying a Google Groups filter for at least
some of the newsgroups I'm subscribed to, just to decrease the amount
of unfixable cluelessness in my newsfeed.
For instance, the typical clueless Google Groups poster will direct
their posts regarding GNU/Linux at the groups under the comp.os.linux.*
hierarchy, while those who use Google Groups to post to the
alt.os.linux.* hierarchy tend to be of the more knowledgeable kind,
e.g. people who have no other means to post to Usenet than by using
Google Groups due to restrictions bestowed upon them by their ISP, for
instance by blocking NNTP traffic.
This difference might be related to the way Google Groups works, i.e.
one has to already know of the existence of the GNU/Linux-related
newsgroups under the alt.* hierarchy, while the comp.* hierarchy will
mainly attract the totally clueless.
YMMV, of course. ;-)
--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)
Bit Twister
> Still, not all of the spam is posted via Google Groups - there was an
> incident not too long ago with someone posting about 200 or more spam
> messages to alt.os.linux,
There was/is a spammer using Google. eternal-september.org is running
a spam filter and is why you do not see many of them.
Aragorn
identifying as Bit Twister wrote...
Yeah, on occasion I will see a new post and then I get to see the
message "article could not be retrieved", and the subject line of those
posts will be a typical spam thing.
Eternal September rocks. I should have registered a long time ago. ;-)
Jon Solberg
Or not at all. There are tons of text-only public news servers. As
long as you don't need binaries, they tend to work extremely
well. Eternal-september (the one I'm currently using; previously
called motzarella.org) is a good one, but demands registration.
--
Jon Solberg (remove "nospam." from email address).
propman
I'll second that......
John Hasler
> You may have missed the fact that the OP himself is posting via Google
No.
> people who have no other means to post to Usenet than by using Google
> Groups due to restrictions bestowed upon them by their ISP, for
> instance by blocking NNTP traffic.
There are no such people. Newsguy offers both NNTP over nonstandard
ports and Web access. So do their competitors. And there are other
ISPs.
Wanna-Be Sys Admin
> This difference might be related to the way Google Groups works, i.e.
> one has to already know of the existence of the GNU/Linux-related
> newsgroups under the alt.* hierarchy, while the comp.* hierarchy will
> mainly attract the totally clueless.
>
Interesting, the alt.* groups usually house the more clueless over the
comp.* groups in almost every case.
--
Not really a wanna-be, but I don't know everything.
Maxwell Lol
> Aragorn writes:
>> You may have missed the fact that the OP himself is posting via Google
>> Groups...
>
> No.
>
>> people who have no other means to post to Usenet than by using Google
>> Groups due to restrictions bestowed upon them by their ISP, for
>> instance by blocking NNTP traffic.
>
> There are no such people. Newsguy offers both NNTP over nonstandard
> ports and Web access. So do their competitors. And there are other
> ISPs.
Which newsgroup provider provides free access using http?
John Hasler
> There are no such people. Newsguy offers both NNTP over nonstandard
> ports and Web access. So do their competitors. And there are other
> ISPs.
Maxwell Lol writes:
> Which newsgroup provider provides free access using http?
Where did "free" come from?
Michael Black
> Aragorn wrote:
>
>> This difference might be related to the way Google Groups works, i.e.
>> one has to already know of the existence of the GNU/Linux-related
>> newsgroups under the alt.* hierarchy, while the comp.* hierarchy will
>> mainly attract the totally clueless.
>>
>
> Interesting, the alt.* groups usually house the more clueless over the
> comp.* groups in almost every case.
There has been speculation in alt.folklore.computers that one reason
they get a fair share of basic computer questions is because it's early in
an alphabetized listing. Someone does a search on "computer" and that
pops up at the beginning or towards the beginning.
I suspect there is some truth to the speculation, given that people
somehow find alt.linux The people who know better wouldn't bother, but
somehow despite there being few posts there, most of them are beginner
type. I wouldn't have even known it existed if not for one of the trolls
cross-posting to there. They even lament how few posts are there, and
often "lots of spam" (the usual scenario of someone using google and
lamenting spam), when if they'd found the right newsgroup to begin with,
not only would they see more traffic, they'd likely get more answers (and
certainly they'd see more messages to read, and learn from).
Michael
Aragorn
identifying as Michael Black wrote...
Ahhh, but today *is* after all September 5890th, 1993... ;-)
John Thompson
> Maxwell Lol writes:
>> Which newsgroup provider provides free access using http?
>
> Where did "free" come from?
Eternal-spetember.org offers free access on ports 80, 119, 443, and 563.
http://www.eternal-september.org/index.php?showpage=techinfo
--
-John (jo...@os2.dhs.org)
Wanna-Be Sys Admin
Well, there's that and the fact that most news providers dropped a lot
of the alt. groups years and years ago, but they are still frequented
by some new users that have ISP's that are misconfigured and still
carry them (alt.perl groups, for example, same with alt.linux or other
alt.os groups). But I would agree that it's very likely the new users
don't consider going down the list of them and sub groups. I just
don't find better, more experienced users/answers provided to users on
the alt. groups ever (from my experience anyway), and thus I've dropped
all of them in hopes of helping anyone or discussing a topic in any alt
groups. I think alt.linux gets maybve 1 to 3 posts per every day or
three. Regardless, this group does get a lot of spam. I wish there
were more activity on usenet these days, and that there were some
heavily used and moderated groups (even if only to just kill outright
spam and not deal with trolls and off topic stuff, just spam).
TJ
> And there are other ISPs.
>
Not always, if you want broadband. Some US rural areas, in particular,
are limited in the forms of access. In my own case, I'm on the end of a
Windstream telephone line that offers DSL, but my neighbor 1/4 mile away
is on a Verizon line that doesn't. Cable stops a mile from me, 3/4 mile
from her. For her, the only affordable broadband option is a small,
fixed wireless company that doesn't offer Usenet at all. For others,
satellite is the only viable broadband option. And for some, the
broadband alternatives are just too expensive in these tough economic
times. They're stuck with dialup, or perhaps whatever the local library
provides.
TJ
--
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
J.R.R.Tolkien
Maxwell Lol
> I wrote:
>> There are no such people. Newsguy offers both NNTP over nonstandard
>> ports and Web access. So do their competitors. And there are other
>> ISPs.
>
> Maxwell Lol writes:
>> Which newsgroup provider provides free access using http?
>
> Where did "free" come from?
The OP is using googlegroups , which is free, and uses the web.
And since you said "no such people" you must be including everyone
currently using googlegroups, including people who can't or won't pay
for netnews service.
Moe Trin
<QGSBm.36838$tG1....@newsfe22.iad>, Wanna-Be Sys Admin wrote:
>Michael Black wrote:
>> Wanna-Be Sys Admin wrote:
>>> Interesting, the alt.* groups usually house the more clueless over
>>> the comp.* groups in almost every case.
That's a pretty sweeping generality. Depending on your news provider,
you may have 37400 ^alt.* groups verses 1640 ^comp.* groups (verses 0
and 870 in the 'big-eight' list that all news server "should" carry).
>> There has been speculation in alt.folklore.computers that one reason
>> they get a fair share of basic computer questions is because it's
>> early in an alphabetized listing.
That varies significantly by news server. Looking at giganews:
[compton ~]$ grep -n folklore.comput .newsrc
18860:alt.folklore.computer
18861:alt.folklore.computers
50388:de.alt.folklore.computer
[compton ~]$
>> Someone does a search on "computer" and that pops up at the
>> beginning or towards the beginning.
[compton ~]$ grep computer .newsrc | grep -n folklore
87:alt.folklore.computer
88:alt.folklore.computers
253:de.alt.folklore.computer
[compton ~]$
>> I suspect there is some truth to the speculation, given that people
>> somehow find alt.linux The people who know better wouldn't bother,
>> but somehow despite there being few posts there, most of them are
>> beginner type. I wouldn't have even known it existed if not for
>> one of the trolls cross-posting to there.
>Well, there's that and the fact that most news providers dropped a
>lot of the alt. groups years and years ago, but they are still
>frequented by some new users that have ISP's that are misconfigured
>and still carry them
Many (perhaps most) ISPs no longer provide newsgroups, and those
that do often contract out to one of the larger news providers. Those
providers haven't dropped that many groups for the simple reason that
they use the number of groups they carry as an advertising point
"More uncensored newsgroups than anyone else"
Your logic is missing something.
>But I would agree that it's very likely the new users don't consider
>going down the list of them and sub groups. I just don't find
>better, more experienced users/answers provided to users on the alt.
>groups ever (from my experience anyway), and thus I've dropped all of
>them in hopes of helping anyone or discussing a topic in any alt
>groups
You're likely to find distribution specific newsgroups in the alt
hierarchy that are discussing topics specific to those distributions
("why is msec doing $FOO" "how do I do $BAR is yast" and so on).
>I think alt.linux gets maybve 1 to 3 posts per every day or three.
>Regardless, this group does get a lot of spam.
2007 2008 2009
alt.linux 263/1845 634/2032 266/856
c.o.l.misc 12628/31140 11090/18549 5270/10657
killed/offered for the year - 2009 is to 10/16/2009:1400 UTC
>I wish there were more activity on usenet these days, and that there
>were some heavily used and moderated groups (even if only to just
>kill outright spam and not deal with trolls and off topic stuff,
>just spam).
An aggressive killfile works wonders if your news provider doesn't.
Old guy
Wanna-Be Sys Admin
I would never pay for usenet, it's dying more every year. I don't block
google group posts myself, because I, too, understand why someone
wouldn't want to pay, though there are better free usenet services (so
long as you don't want to post binary, which is fine by me).
Wanna-Be Sys Admin
> On Thu, 15 Oct 2009, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.misc, in
> article <QGSBm.36838$tG1....@newsfe22.iad>, Wanna-Be Sys Admin
> wrote:
>
>>Michael Black wrote:
>
>>> Wanna-Be Sys Admin wrote:
>
>>>> Interesting, the alt.* groups usually house the more clueless over
>>>> the comp.* groups in almost every case.
>
> That's a pretty sweeping generality.
Not really, years of using usenet prove the above.
> Depending on your news provider,
> you may have 37400 ^alt.* groups verses 1640 ^comp.* groups (verses 0
> and 870 in the 'big-eight' list that all news server "should" carry).
So? I didn't say it was only clueless users, just the majority, and
often it's broken usenet providers.
...
>
>>> I suspect there is some truth to the speculation, given that people
>>> somehow find alt.linux The people who know better wouldn't bother,
>>> but somehow despite there being few posts there, most of them are
>>> beginner type. I wouldn't have even known it existed if not for
>>> one of the trolls cross-posting to there.
>
>>Well, there's that and the fact that most news providers dropped a
>>lot of the alt. groups years and years ago, but they are still
>>frequented by some new users that have ISP's that are misconfigured
>>and still carry them
>
> Many (perhaps most) ISPs no longer provide newsgroups, and those
> that do often contract out to one of the larger news providers.
Yep, that's what my own ISP does, and those 3rd party providers aren't
very good.
> Those
> providers haven't dropped that many groups for the simple reason that
> they use the number of groups they carry as an advertising point
>
> "More uncensored newsgroups than anyone else"
Censored vs. not, has nothing to do with this discussion.
> Your logic is missing something.
Nope.
>>But I would agree that it's very likely the new users don't consider
>>going down the list of them and sub groups. I just don't find
>>better, more experienced users/answers provided to users on the alt.
>>groups ever (from my experience anyway), and thus I've dropped all of
>>them in hopes of helping anyone or discussing a topic in any alt
>>groups
>
> You're likely to find distribution specific newsgroups in the alt
> hierarchy that are discussing topics specific to those distributions
> ("why is msec doing $FOO" "how do I do $BAR is yast" and so on).
And I would wager that those groups aren't used by over a few people all
month, or all year, and many haven't been posted on for years. Whereas
the more serious comp.* groups have far more activity (though much less
than years ago) and more knowledgeable users.
>>I think alt.linux gets maybve 1 to 3 posts per every day or three.
>>Regardless, this group does get a lot of spam.
>
> 2007 2008 2009
> alt.linux 263/1845 634/2032 266/856
> c.o.l.misc 12628/31140 11090/18549 5270/10657
>
> killed/offered for the year - 2009 is to 10/16/2009:1400 UTC
Look at the posts on those groups, if you ever do look at them (I had
until a month ago, kept them subscribed to in case there was any
relevant activity. There wasn't other than a few posts). That is, the
rest are spam (more spam has been happening on usenet the last 2 or 3
years, hence the higher number of posts some years). Regardless, you
do see that the comp.* groups are far more busy (even though they get
their share of spam).
>>I wish there were more activity on usenet these days, and that there
>>were some heavily used and moderated groups (even if only to just
>>kill outright spam and not deal with trolls and off topic stuff,
>>just spam).
>
> An aggressive killfile works wonders if your news provider doesn't.
>
> Old guy
Irrelevant, the legitimate posts (non spam, etc.) are far fewer than
they used to be. That is, I wish there was more activity these days,
but that's not happening and is never going to happen anyway.
Moe Trin
<mG3Dm.7466$MZ1....@newsfe11.iad>, Wanna-Be Sys Admin wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>> Depending on your news provider, you may have 37400 ^alt.* groups
>> verses 1640 ^comp.* groups (verses 0 and 870 in the 'big-eight'
>> list that all news server "should" carry).
>So? I didn't say it was only clueless users, just the majority, and
>often it's broken usenet providers.
"broken usenet providers" exactly how? Do you have any clue how the
alternative news groups are administered/created/destroyed, and how
this differs from the "Big Eight" hierarchies?
>> Those providers haven't dropped that many groups for the simple
>> reason that they use the number of groups they carry as an
>> advertising point
>>
>> "More uncensored newsgroups than anyone else"
>Censored vs. not, has nothing to do with this discussion.
Would it make any difference if that was written as
"More newsgroups than anyone else"
>> You're likely to find distribution specific newsgroups in the alt
>> hierarchy that are discussing topics specific to those distributions
>> ("why is msec doing $FOO" "how do I do $BAR is yast" and so on).
>And I would wager that those groups aren't used by over a few people
>all month, or all year, and many haven't been posted on for years.
>Whereas the more serious comp.* groups have far more activity (though
>much less than years ago) and more knowledgeable users.
2007 2008 2009
c.o.l.hardware 756/5056 500/3112 342/1490
c.o.l.misc 12628/31140 11090/18549 5322/10712
c.o.l.network 559/6114 546/4073 275/2184
c.o.l.security 197/1397 107/626 123/328
c.o.l.setup 379/3768 646/2784 463/1952
c.o.l.x 95/663 78/622 96/258
a.o.l.debian 135/3096 225/1744 234/1750
a.o.l.mandrake 169/2353 46/371 4/136
a.o.l.mandriva 543/10887 716/11604 616/8215
a.o.l.suse 1061/15702 1167/10701 787/5516
a.o.l.ubuntu 2877/40401 16870/37190 9398/24905
killed/offered for the year - 2009 is to 10/20/2009:1400 UTC
Obviously, you have no idea what's going on in the alternative groups.
alt.os.linux.ubuntu ALONE has more traffic (even after my killfile)
than the top three comp.os.linux.* groups _including_ the spam they
contain. I'm not including any RedHat/Fedora groups because they're
scattered all over, and a.o.l.slackware which I found to be full of
elitist wankers with no useful postings. I'm also not including
mirrors of mailing lists that can be found on many servers.
>> An aggressive killfile works wonders if your news provider doesn't.
>Irrelevant, the legitimate posts (non spam, etc.) are far fewer than
>they used to be. That is, I wish there was more activity these days,
>but that's not happening and is never going to happen anyway.
Sorry, but I'm not interested in buying the crap that is posted using
google in this group (much less seeing the repetitive advertisements),
nor putting up with trolls and other disruptive idiots. Such noise
is easily filtered, allowing one to see useful/helpful posts. Yes,
the number of posts are decreasing - but this is happening all across
Usenet, not just the Linux or UNIX related groups. Hell, look at
alt.humor.best-of-usenet and rec.humor.funny - same settings as above:
a.h.b-o-u 8/262 7/111 0/62
rec.humor.funny 4/147 41/136 2/18
Old guy
Wanna-Be Sys Admin
> On Mon, 19 Oct 2009, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.misc, in
> article <mG3Dm.7466$MZ1....@newsfe11.iad>, Wanna-Be Sys Admin wrote:
>
>>Moe Trin wrote:
>
>>> Depending on your news provider, you may have 37400 ^alt.* groups
>>> verses 1640 ^comp.* groups (verses 0 and 870 in the 'big-eight'
>>> list that all news server "should" carry).
>
>>So? I didn't say it was only clueless users, just the majority, and
>>often it's broken usenet providers.
>
> "broken usenet providers" exactly how? Do you have any clue how the
> alternative news groups are administered/created/destroyed, and how
> this differs from the "Big Eight" hierarchies?
I don't understand, are you just looking to argue or something?
"Broken", as in, those groups are not supposed to be carried (many were
dropped years ago, but broken usenet providers still carry them. Non
broken one's will never see the posts). Do you have a clue about that
topic?
>>> Those providers haven't dropped that many groups for the simple
>>> reason that they use the number of groups they carry as an
>>> advertising point
>>>
>>> "More uncensored newsgroups than anyone else"
>
>>Censored vs. not, has nothing to do with this discussion.
>
> Would it make any difference if that was written as
>
> "More newsgroups than anyone else"
Irrelevant to the discussion. Besides, who cares if people carry
dropped groups few people see in comparison, or if it's not as valuable
as a better trafficked, live group?
>>> You're likely to find distribution specific newsgroups in the alt
>>> hierarchy that are discussing topics specific to those distributions
>>> ("why is msec doing $FOO" "how do I do $BAR is yast" and so on).
>
>>And I would wager that those groups aren't used by over a few people
>>all month, or all year, and many haven't been posted on for years.
>>Whereas the more serious comp.* groups have far more activity (though
>>much less than years ago) and more knowledgeable users.
>
> 2007 2008 2009
> c.o.l.hardware 756/5056 500/3112 342/1490
> c.o.l.misc 12628/31140 11090/18549 5322/10712
> c.o.l.network 559/6114 546/4073 275/2184
> c.o.l.security 197/1397 107/626 123/328
> c.o.l.setup 379/3768 646/2784 463/1952
> c.o.l.x 95/663 78/622 96/258
> a.o.l.debian 135/3096 225/1744 234/1750
> a.o.l.mandrake 169/2353 46/371 4/136
> a.o.l.mandriva 543/10887 716/11604 616/8215
> a.o.l.suse 1061/15702 1167/10701 787/5516
> a.o.l.ubuntu 2877/40401 16870/37190 9398/24905
>
> killed/offered for the year - 2009 is to 10/20/2009:1400 UTC
What is the point of posting that?
> Obviously, you have no idea what's going on in the alternative groups.
I do, you just making blanket statements is not proof of any
"obviousness" of the discussion.
> alt.os.linux.ubuntu ALONE has more traffic (even after my killfile)
> than the top three comp.os.linux.* groups _including_ the spam they
> contain.
If a dead group gets a million spam messages a year, then according to
you, it should still be carried by the provider and still has as much
value as this group? If not, what's there to debate about the topic?
> I'm not including any RedHat/Fedora groups because they're
> scattered all over, and a.o.l.slackware which I found to be full of
> elitist wankers with no useful postings. I'm also not including
> mirrors of mailing lists that can be found on many servers.
Okay...?
>>> An aggressive killfile works wonders if your news provider doesn't.
>
>>Irrelevant, the legitimate posts (non spam, etc.) are far fewer than
>>they used to be. That is, I wish there was more activity these days,
>>but that's not happening and is never going to happen anyway.
>
> Sorry, but I'm not interested in buying the crap that is posted using
> google in this group (much less seeing the repetitive advertisements),
> nor putting up with trolls and other disruptive idiots.
I never said I blamed anyone for that view.
> Such noise
> is easily filtered, allowing one to see useful/helpful posts. Yes,
> the number of posts are decreasing - but this is happening all across
> Usenet, not just the Linux or UNIX related groups. Hell, look at
> alt.humor.best-of-usenet and rec.humor.funny - same settings as above:
>
> a.h.b-o-u 8/262 7/111 0/62
> rec.humor.funny 4/147 41/136 2/18
>
> Old guy
I know, usenet itself is dying, and has been over the years. You know
this as well. I simply stated, that dying or not, there are a lot of
groups that aren't supposed to be carried by ISP's and they still are.
Not that I care, simply that they are usually worthless, get few posts
(excluding spam). Most users on those groups are there because they
don't know they are posting in a virtual ghost town, but luckily there
are some hold outs and other users that will make it a little lively.
Anyway, I don't see the point in continuing this. You're welcome to get
all bent out of shape about my view on the alt.* groups. I'm fine with
that, I have no reason to convince you otherwise, I don't care to try
to and I'm not offended that you don't agree--and this debate is dumb.
Moe Trin
<JUqDm.293$aD1...@newsfe19.iad>, Wanna-Be Sys Admin wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>> "broken usenet providers" exactly how? Do you have any clue how the
>> alternative news groups are administered/created/destroyed, and how
>> this differs from the "Big Eight" hierarchies?
>I don't understand, are you just looking to argue or something?
>"Broken", as in, those groups are not supposed to be carried (many
>were dropped years ago, but broken usenet providers still carry them.
>Non broken one's will never see the posts). Do you have a clue
>about that topic?
You may want to read ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/CONFIG/README - where
it says (emphasis added):
The "alt" and "free" hierarchies are special cases. In each hierarchy,
all properly formatted newgroups (see below) are automatically executed,
and all rmgroups are ignored. No manual changes will be made in either
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
hierarchy except under very special circumstances, and will require
substantial justification.
If you aren't familiar with 'newgroups' and 'rmgroups' control messages,
see the Usenet Hierarchy Administration FAQ posted monthly to the
news.admin.hierarchies newsgroup.
The alt groups are actually very hard to "shut down" simply because
there is no central authority to say "yes", "no" or "blue". That's the
reason there are still postings to a.o.l.mandrake after that distribution
changed its name to Mandriva in 2005, and a "replacement" group named
a.o.l.mandriva created. That's also the reason I see 419 newsgroups
whose names satisfy the regex 'alt.*test' - and there, I'll agree that
few if any of them serve any useful purpose.
>>>And I would wager that those groups aren't used by over a few people
>>>all month, or all year, and many haven't been posted on for years.
[groups stats snipped]
>What is the point of posting that?
Your wager that alternative groups are dead or only filled with spam.
>If a dead group gets a million spam messages a year, then according to
>you, it should still be carried by the provider and still has as much
>value as this group?
Using a.o.l.mandriva and a.o.l.ubuntu as examples, they were only
created in 2005, and combined they have substantially LESS spam than
c.o.l.misc - so yes, I do expect news admins would bow to their users
requests to carry the groups. They are hardly "dead". So when did you
last see a valid post in the sanctioned groups c.o.l.alpha, c.o.l.m68k,
c.o.l.xbox or c.o.l.answers? Are you even aware of those groups?
[compton ~]$ zgrep linux big.8.list.10.15.09.gz | cut -f1 | column
comp.os.linux.advocacy comp.os.linux.misc
comp.os.linux.alpha comp.os.linux.networking
comp.os.linux.announce comp.os.linux.portable
comp.os.linux.answers comp.os.linux.powerpc
comp.os.linux.development.apps comp.os.linux.security
comp.os.linux.development.system comp.os.linux.setup
comp.os.linux.embedded comp.os.linux.x
comp.os.linux.hardware comp.os.linux.xbox
comp.os.linux.m68k
[compton ~]$
That file is the monthly post to news.announce.newgroups, news.groups
and news.lists.misc titled "List of Big Eight Newsgroups" from ISC.
Old guy