On Sun, 31 Jul 2005 15:51:00 -0700, ~ jan JJsPond.us
wrote:

On Sun, 31 Jul 2005 15:17:19 -0600, David wrote:

I haven't seen a cross-post or troll-post for over six
weeks now. It must be really painful for these people to discover
that all their efforts are not only just ignored; they aren't even
seen! How bad must it feel to learn that one is simply irrelevant?

BTW, I am using the filtering that comes with Agent 2.0; I can't
speak for other newsreaders...

I've got Agent, how does one stop the cross posting clowns? ~ jan
~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~

Hi Jan, (and anyone else that uses Agent, and could use a bit of
help),

This will get you started:

From Agent,
1) HELP=INDEX=USENET FILTERS will put you in the middle of the
instruction topics. (There are 12 of them in my version of Agent)

From there,
2) ADD USENET FILTER DIALOG BOX provides a page of reading that you
need to be familiar with, as well as several internal filtering
sublinks

From there,
3) HOW TO CREATE MESSAGE FILTERS provides some more introductory
basics

From there,
4) EXPRESSION EXAMPLES you begin to see that you can carry this
about as far as you wish. (There are limitations, but so far I have
been able to do the job without even getting close to them).
Note especially the Example 1 expression:
subject: ($ | $$ | $$$* | $money* | sex* | porn*| xxx*)

Now, as a working example:

Right click on a posting that you don't like,
then
FILTERS=ADD KILL FILTER drops you into the dialog box that you have
already read about. And there are several options that you have
already read about. You will want to do some tinkering and
experimentation here regarding what to include or exclude from the
filter expression, but trust me, it's not that difficult.

Do several of these, until you get the hang of it, then right click to
FILTERS=OPEN FILTERS WINDOW to see a tidy display of what you've got
so far.

(To get out of this window, and return to the NG, click
WINDOW= rec.ponds)

Now, return to the Example 1 expression in 4) above. You can easily
create a condensed Subject filter like this one, where each term
betweeen the vertical bars is a word that you don't want to hear about
in a subject line. (e.g., I don't find much relevance, at least in my
own particular sphere, between God and rec.ponds).

Now, similarly, you can also create a condensed Author filter, with
names that you don't care to experience as authors. (You probably
don't need any examples here.)

Finally, I have found it useful to use the "IGNORE" option in the
dialog box, initially, just to be able observe how the filters are
working for a while. (It's also rather perversely satisfying g.)
Then, after a while you can change to the "DELETE" option, and these
people then simply just become irrelevant.

HTH.
Best wishes, David

BTW, the following is extracted from the Agent FAQ. If you want, or
need to go deeper, there are a lot of ways to go much farther than I
have described above:


Filters - explanations, examples, and utilities:

"Classic" word based:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://...ey/CLASSIC.HTM
http://tinyurl.com/ysm79
"Advanced" regular expressions:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://...ey/REGULAR.HTM
http://tinyurl.com/ywaj5
Utility to list filters:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://...ey/FILTERS.HTM
http://tinyurl.com/25fmn
[Jim Bradley; also see his home page for other goodies:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://...et/~JLBradley/
http://tinyurl.com/2fgmc
Jim's pages all cover up through v. 1.8