In message , at 18:13:47 on Sun, 26
Feb 2006, Flower Bobdew wibbled
In article , Janet Tweedy
writes

I go to the bottom of them, select all, scanning quickly every title
in case a short proper message is there, then just remove. Easy with
Turnpike.

Indeed. I was just hoping there was a way of avoiding downloading them.
[Besides switching news supplier.]

To kill locally, you do need to download at least the headers.

I've just asked in the TP newsgroup and there isn't really a catch-all
based on the headers available. Aside from utilising the
"/^X\-Complaints\-To: /h" which appears with each batch.

/news\.rcn\.net/h is a little quicker for Turnpike - shorter match (I've
posted that rule into the Turnpike group as well).

With a little more digging, unless or until they move to injecting
elsewhere, the combination of 3 reject rules

/news\.rcn\.net/h
/0wned/h
/Koi\-lo:/h

That's a zero in 0wned not a capital 'O'.

would kill everything so far in Turnpike (and the 2nd one may have
longer term potential) but not, AFAICS looking at the last 6 months
of urg, killing posts from one of your regulars.


Another useful one I forgot to mention in the post I made ^somewhere
up there is killling (in TP at least) on crossposting (though not useful
for the current floods). People using other news readers that can kill
on any header may find this useful as well.

/^Newsgroups:.*,/h - kills anything crossposted
/^Newsgroups:.*,.*,/h - kills anything crossposted to more than 2 groups

Add as many additional .*, as preferred, one additional newsgroup in the
crossposted article per extra .*,

[notes for converting to other news readers]
/^ start of header line
..*, match any characters followed by the , needed for the Newsgroups
line if there is more than one group the post should appear in.
/h apply the rule to a header

[You can use TP's Connect window to see the obvious impending
avalanche, stop the download, sample a header, and then reconnect.]

It's really the only solution long term with any news software that will
allow killing on any of the headers. Easier with floods of a large
number than someone who posts a hundred and regularly morphs. Be aware
of the law of unintended consequences - choose something unique to the
flood posts - the nntp-posting-host in the headers, if there is one, is
helpful in this respect.

Not sure about other newsreaders. Doesn't take more than a couple of
seconds.

As I said, its only been particularly annoying here because I'm still
on standard snail-up. When I switch to a broadband connection soon
it'll become nothing more than a minor irritation.

You get a small hit on time when using killrules for any local software
as you have to download the headers first[1], match them to rules then
get the body of those not killed but it's less of a hit than downloading
all the bodies as soon as you get to somewhere between 50 and 100 that
need killing when on snail-up.

[1] Only if you kill on Message-ID: of their post and don't use Newnews
do you not have to download all the headers, it's only useful though if
the someone you want to kill has a unique Message-ID.

Hope that little lot's of a bit of use.
--
Pedt
uk.announce ~ moderated group to announce news / events of specific interest to
a wider uk.* readership than the group(s) which their subjects would naturally
place them. See charter at http://www.usenet.org.uk/uk.announce.html

Rupert wrote:

"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from Janet Tweedy contains these words:

In article , Flower Bobdew
writes

Just out of curiosity, Janet. Or anyone else, for that matter. What
criteria do you use to dump these?

My newsreader usually filters out most of them before I download my
groups. Otherwise

I go to the bottom of them, select all, scanning quickly every title in
case a short proper message is there, then just remove. Easy with
Turnpike. Not sure about other newsreaders. Doesn't take more than a
couple of seconds.

Ditto.

Janet

Come on then you two gigabrains, how do you scan *quickly* every title.
I got a couple of thousand duff messages.
I know us lot in Yorkshire are not renowned for being quick but.........

I simply read any postings that interest me (usually before or after
the hugh pile of junk postings) and then 'C'atchup the whole group so
that all are marked as read an I never see them again.

What's the problem?

--
Chris Green

wrote in message ...
Rupert wrote:

"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from Janet Tweedy contains these words:

In article , Flower Bobdew
writes

Just out of curiosity, Janet. Or anyone else, for that matter. What
criteria do you use to dump these?

My newsreader usually filters out most of them before I download my
groups. Otherwise

I go to the bottom of them, select all, scanning quickly every title
in
case a short proper message is there, then just remove. Easy with
Turnpike. Not sure about other newsreaders. Doesn't take more than a
couple of seconds.

Ditto.

Janet

Come on then you two gigabrains, how do you scan *quickly* every title.
I got a couple of thousand duff messages.
I know us lot in Yorkshire are not renowned for being quick but.........

I simply read any postings that interest me (usually before or after
the hugh pile of junk postings) and then 'C'atchup the whole group so
that all are marked as read an I never see them again.

What's the problem?

--
Chris Green

The problem with your technique is that valid messages are being posted at
the same time as the rubbish and thus they end up intermingled with the
crap. You can't just assume that all the relevant stuff is in one block.
This was particularly true yesterday when there was a constant trickle of
garbage over a long period.

Rupert wrote:

I simply read any postings that interest me (usually before or after
the hugh pile of junk postings) and then 'C'atchup the whole group so
that all are marked as read an I never see them again.

What's the problem?

--
Chris Green

The problem with your technique is that valid messages are being posted at
the same time as the rubbish and thus they end up intermingled with the
crap. You can't just assume that all the relevant stuff is in one block.
This was particularly true yesterday when there was a constant trickle of
garbage over a long period.

I did say "usually before or after the hugh pile of junk postings"
(complete with typo!), note the 'usually'. If I was really looking for
something I might quickly scan through the junk headers, as other people
have said it's easy enough to spot non-junk.

However if I do miss the odd thread it's hardly the end of the world,
if I'm desperate to follow a particular thread I can mark it so that
it's always put at the top (as happens automatically to threads I start
myself).


--
Chris Green

"La Puce" wrote
wrote:
Given that there are over 5000 posts on my news server for the next 7
days, I will be going to google groups and looking there.

It's the same here Dave! Zillions of posts .... unless someone replies
and the threads move down. If not, you've got a good hour of clicking
'older topics' before you get to someone you know (

Not at all. I've not been near the computer this last weekend so have
only just got round to catching up with ngs. It couldn't have taken more
than 5 or 6 mins of marking and deleting blocks of clearly nonsense
headers.

--
Sue

Sue wrote:
"La Puce" wrote
wrote:
Given that there are over 5000 posts on my news server for the next
7 days, I will be going to google groups and looking there.

It's the same here Dave! Zillions of posts .... unless someone
replies and the threads move down. If not, you've got a good hour of
clicking 'older topics' before you get to someone you know (

Not at all. I've not been near the computer this last weekend so have
only just got round to catching up with ngs. It couldn't have taken
more than 5 or 6 mins of marking and deleting blocks of clearly
nonsense headers.

Even quicker just to scroll past them. Unless you like to retain read
messages, rather than deleting all once you've got to the end, they
vanish at the end of the pane. N.i.n. and others got on top of this lot
very quickly, and I've seen only a handful of doubtfuls since the first
screenful of the nuisance. The kid may be back, but an occasional flood
of this kind of thing isn't really a problem compared to personal
vendettas, or loony crossposted "conversations", both of which can
damage a group's character and put off new members.

--
Mike.

"Mike Lyle" wrote
Sue wrote:
Not at all. I've not been near the computer this last weekend so have
only just got round to catching up with ngs. It couldn't have taken
more than 5 or 6 mins of marking and deleting blocks of clearly
nonsense headers.

Even quicker just to scroll past them. Unless you like to retain read
messages, rather than deleting all once you've got to the end, they
vanish at the end of the pane.

Absolutely, it's just that I like to keep read messages for a few days
in this group as I've found it's often useful to refer back to earlier
parts of threads sometimes.

N.i.n. and others got on top of this lot
very quickly, and I've seen only a handful of doubtfuls since the
first screenful of the nuisance. snip

I used to use n.i.n. when they allowed free accounts and always found it
reliable for completion and rock solid. At the moment readfreenews is
doing okay, but I'd certainly seriously consider having a subscription
with n.i.n. if it became necessary. My ISP's newsserver has the
irritating habit of missing posts in various groups so I couldn't rely
solely on that.

--
Sue

wrote:
Select the beginning of the junk???

Yes

Scroll down???

Yes

How do you get access to your news server to do this?

Considering you are a Blueyonder customer (from Telford if I'm not
mistaken), you have a choice of news servers, the most stable one being:
text.news.blueyonder.co.uk
highlight and copy the above line.
close google or any other web browsers you have open
open Outlook Express
go to toolsaccountsnewsadd
in the first screen put your screen name (oddball Dave)
in the next screen put your email address or a completly fictitious one like

in the next one paste the news address above
close everything, allow OE to download all the froups, subscribe to URG and
you're in.

Or are you saying download the headers, then select and delete from
them.

I don't want to download ANY of this garbage. Not even the headers.
I don't want to scroll through 300 headers looking for a genuine post.
I don't want to keep hitting the get next 300 headers button.

Not if you follow the above directions, they can all be deleted in about ten
seconds, maybe twelve.

Given that there are over 5000 posts on my news server for the next 7
days, I will
be going to google groups and looking there.

Which is the only place they are now showing...

Perhaps there is an argument for genuine posts here to have a header
[On topic]
or [NG] not garbage to highlight proper posts in deference to the
anarchists rubbish.

Yeah that'll fool 'em.

Mike Lyle wrote:
Sue wrote:
"La Puce" wrote
wrote:
Given that there are over 5000 posts on my news server for the next
7 days, I will be going to google groups and looking there.

It's the same here Dave! Zillions of posts .... unless someone
replies and the threads move down. If not, you've got a good hour of
clicking 'older topics' before you get to someone you know (

Not at all. I've not been near the computer this last weekend so have
only just got round to catching up with ngs. It couldn't have taken
more than 5 or 6 mins of marking and deleting blocks of clearly
nonsense headers.

Even quicker just to scroll past them. Unless you like to retain read
messages, rather than deleting all once you've got to the end, they
vanish at the end of the pane. N.i.n. and others got on top of this lot

You're not "deleting" them, you're just telling your newsreader that
you've read them. They're still there for how ever long your news
server retains them so you can go back and read them (if you really
want to!).

very quickly, and I've seen only a handful of doubtfuls since the first
screenful of the nuisance. The kid may be back, but an occasional flood
of this kind of thing isn't really a problem compared to personal
vendettas, or loony crossposted "conversations", both of which can
damage a group's character and put off new members.


--
Chris Green

Sue wrote:

"Mike Lyle" wrote
Sue wrote:
Not at all. I've not been near the computer this last weekend so have
only just got round to catching up with ngs. It couldn't have taken
more than 5 or 6 mins of marking and deleting blocks of clearly
nonsense headers.

Even quicker just to scroll past them. Unless you like to retain read
messages, rather than deleting all once you've got to the end, they
vanish at the end of the pane.

Absolutely, it's just that I like to keep read messages for a few days
in this group as I've found it's often useful to refer back to earlier
parts of threads sometimes.

They're still there, you just need to tell your newsreader to show you
all messages as opposed to just unread ones and they will magically
reappear as long as they're on the news server still.

In general when you read newsgroups your newsreader only maintains
statistics locally on your computer. It uses these to 'remember'
which messages you already read in each newsgroup. When you reconnect
(if you have it set up the usual way) it shows you only messages you
haven't read before. When you 'delete' a message all you are doing is
saying you have read it so you don't see it again. It stays available
on the news server until such time it passes the new server's expiry
time which may vary from group to group but is usually (for text only
servers) in the sort of 3 to 30 days range.

--
Chris Green

wrote:
Mike Lyle wrote:
[...]
Even quicker just to scroll past them. Unless you like to retain read
messages, rather than deleting all once you've got to the end, they
vanish at the end of the pane. N.i.n. and others got on top of this
lot

You're not "deleting" them, you're just telling your newsreader that
you've read them. They're still there for how ever long your news
server retains them so you can go back and read them (if you really
want to!).
[...]

No shit, Sherlock?

--
Mike.

The message
from contains these words:

In general when you read newsgroups your newsreader only maintains
statistics locally on your computer. It uses these to 'remember'
which messages you already read in each newsgroup. When you reconnect
(if you have it set up the usual way) it shows you only messages you
haven't read before. When you 'delete' a message all you are doing is
saying you have read it so you don't see it again. It stays available
on the news server until such time it passes the new server's expiry
time which may vary from group to group but is usually (for text only
servers) in the sort of 3 to 30 days range.

You're applying the behaviour of your newsreader with everyone else's.

When I delete an item, it's deleted, gone, disappeared into the big
bit-bucket in the sky. It is nowhere on my computer, and I can't go and
collect it from the server.

Though I do acknowledge your 'in general'.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

wrote
Sue wrote:

Absolutely, it's just that I like to keep read messages for a few
days in this group as I've found it's often useful to refer back to
earlier parts of threads sometimes.

They're still there, you just need to tell your newsreader to show you
all messages as opposed to just unread ones and they will magically
reappear as long as they're on the news server still.

In general when you read newsgroups your newsreader only maintains
statistics locally on your computer. It uses these to 'remember'
which messages you already read in each newsgroup. When you reconnect
(if you have it set up the usual way) it shows you only messages you
haven't read before. When you 'delete' a message all you are doing is
saying you have read it so you don't see it again. It stays available
on the news server until such time it passes the new server's expiry
time which may vary from group to group but is usually (for text only
servers) in the sort of 3 to 30 days range.

Yep I know, but I prefer to delete the idiotic flooding headers from my
downloaded list rather than scrolling past and deleting everything after
reading (i.e. the option Mike was talking about) precisely so that, in
the 'all messages' view, I don't have an enormous local file of zillions
to scroll past to check on relevant threads.

For other OE users, another tip from that tomsterdam site was to make a
message rule for deleting old posts after x number of days, which is
useful housekeeping for the busier ngs if your server retains old
messages longer than you want.

--
Sue

Rusty Hinge 2 wrote:
The message
from contains these words:

In general when you read newsgroups your newsreader only maintains
statistics locally on your computer. It uses these to 'remember'
which messages you already read in each newsgroup. When you reconnect
(if you have it set up the usual way) it shows you only messages you
haven't read before. When you 'delete' a message all you are doing is
saying you have read it so you don't see it again. It stays available
on the news server until such time it passes the new server's expiry
time which may vary from group to group but is usually (for text only
servers) in the sort of 3 to 30 days range.

You're applying the behaviour of your newsreader with everyone else's.

When I delete an item, it's deleted, gone, disappeared into the big
bit-bucket in the sky. It is nowhere on my computer, and I can't go and
collect it from the server.

But it never has been on your computer unless you are running your own
newsserver, you just have a copy inside your newsreader at the very
most.

.... and you *can* go and collect it from the server, your newsreader
may not be able to but that's not the same thing.

Though I do acknowledge your 'in general'.


--
Chris Green

The message
from contains these words:

You're applying the behaviour of your newsreader with everyone else's.

When I delete an item, it's deleted, gone, disappeared into the big
bit-bucket in the sky. It is nowhere on my computer, and I can't go and
collect it from the server.

But it never has been on your computer unless you are running your own
newsserver, you just have a copy inside your newsreader at the very
most.

Is that, or is it not, a newsitem?

.... and you *can* go and collect it from the server, your newsreader
may not be able to but that's not the same thing.

I can't. The server I use doesn't work like that: I'd have to use a
completely different newsfeed.

I do know - I've been using it for more than ten years now, and the
reader I'm using ATM isn't even beta, yet.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig