24-12-2003, 04:43 PM
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Newsgroups dead? Was: pantry moths?
wrote:
-snip-
Sadly, I've just about decided that Usenet newsgroups are no
longer worth it: too many spammers, trolls, stalkers, other
problems (including the surreptitious harvesting of whole
groups for commercial websites), very poor noise/signal
ratio, etc. etc.
I don't know how anyone reads most groups these days without a filter
that eliminates crossposts. I use nfilter - no longer at
nfilter.org, but the FAQ is cached by google- Search for "nfilter faq"
There are probably alternatives but I've never looked for one. I just
never see any post crossposted to a group with politics or religion in
its name. It also killfiles any post that goes to more than 3 groups.
[you can set it to kill any crossposted message, but I do see
occasional posts that are crossposted judiciously that are worth
reading]
I occasionally add a certain group that seems to be just troll bait &
eliminate crossposts to it. Agent takes care of the never ending
threads and occasional trolls.
I have participated in Usenet newsgroups for over 15 years,
but I just don't think (right now) that they are any longer
a productive use of time.
I've only been on usenet 1/2 that time, but I still find too much
wheat among the chaff to give it up.
So I've pretty much switched to mailing lists instead. I
still read this group from time to time. I skipped the
whole eternal cross-posted thread.... ugh. That was a
beautiful, perhaps classic, example of why I don't think
newsgroups a worthwhile use of time at present.
Even without crossposts- after about 30 posts threads are rarely
productive, so I just killfile them when they get too far afield.
Maybe I'll change my mind in the future, but right now,
that's how I see it.
If you want to know my recommendations for mailing lists,
please email me privately. My address in this message is
real.
I use my real address, too. That is really the only down-side to
Usenet that I haven't found a decent cure for. I'm still getting
50-100 'MS security updates' a day, not to mention all those body
fixes that I have no need for. But I *want* some folks to be able to
reach me easily.
Jim
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