"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...

This, to me, is an unfortunate thing to do. Google, and
others, are a massive and useful resource.


Only for those who are in search of arcane information that's
not readily available from any other source. Books or the
internet. I personally find the archive invaluable for tips
and workarounds on obsolete hardware and software, for
instance.

However IME, on most topics around 75% of the replies to any question
posted on Usenet will either be totally irellevant, wrong headed,
or deliberately misleading in any case.

While at a guess around 80% of the information posted on gardening
Newsgroups could probably be found elsewhere. In books or on the
net. And of the information posted, around 50% is largely a matter
of opinion based solely on subjective experience in any case.
This doesn't necessarily make it any the less valid, but its
hardly the most authoratitive source of information on
most topics, for a start.


michael adams

....

Setting xna=y
reduces the effectiveness of this resource (although quoted
xna=y messages are still stored, which is most of them).
There are other, less well-known sites that do not take
notice of the xna=y request, as well.