Killfiling Google usenet posts

Until February, 2006 I had been killfiling Google followup posts in a selected number of the newsgroups I participate in. Now this 'selective' killfiling has become The Rule here -- across all ng's -- killing original posts.

This was the final Google followup that finally provoked me into killfiling Google posts across all of usenet:

From: "byrnecut" <steve531@$MUNGED$> Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.antenna Subject: Re: antenas no its off a 4 wheel drive spring mounted with detail on spring part, terlin aerials w.a. on aerial it has got lencom antennas pty ltd  s/no f 113  i have tryed theses sites no go

It was posted to a newsgroup whose participants are (or, should be) devoted to clear, concise, accurate communications! That's it in its entirety -- no contextual quoting, bad spelling (it was a .au ISP), bad composition, a lame Subject: (it was a thread he started), and all. It made my eyes bleed. My only change was to mung his ISP address above.

Sure enough, inspecting the headers:

Message-ID: <1139220938.892265.296820@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> X-Trace: posting.google.com 1139220944 10510 127.0.0.1 (6 Feb 2006 10:15:44 GMT)

OBTW, I use `slrn` as my newsreader.  Feature-rich and recommended.
slrn provides a `score` file by which one can rank ("score") articles by Subject: , by From: , etc. One can effectively killfile by assigning a maximum negative score and the article will never appear in the list of unread articles when entering a newsgroup.
To wit, at the very top of my score file, I now have:

% Just simply kill Google postings.  Enough aggravation.  6-Feb-06 [*]  Score: =-9999   X-Trace: posting\.google\.com   ~References: .+

This kills only original posts from Google Gropers (as they have been named by someone else). It does not kill the followups -- if any. The followups could be interesting -- if not for content, then possibly for humor.

I will continue to killfile Google posts on usenet until Google changes its dysfunctional interface (unlikely), or until all Google posters start conforming to the quarter-century-long conventions and etiquette established on usenet (way unlikely.)

---

X---Xbanter.com and travel.com

Sometime late in 2007 I started seeing google-like postings originating from x---xbanter.com. It was radiobanter.com in the rec.radio.* ng's. It was travelbanter.com in the rec.travel.* ng's. It was photobanter.com in the rec.photo.digital ng. I raise the same complaints as I made against Google posts above.

Here are the pertinent headers:

From: $FORUMUSERID <$FORUMUSERID.387fcba@radiobanter.com> Message-ID: <$FORUMUSERID.387fcba@radiobanter.com> Organization: RadioBanter.com

The mothership seems to be newsgroupbanter.com. The blog at that site was last updated on April 16, 2006. I fear the whole POS is running on autopilot.
(Note: the domain banter.com belongs to IBM and is not associated with this mess.)

Beginning in 2008 I started seeing google-like postings originating from forums at travel.com. sigh...
Here are the pertinent headers:

From: $FORUMUSERID <$FORUMUSERID.3mdzq4@no-mx.forums.travel.com> Message-ID: <$FORUMUSERID.3mdzq4@no-mx.forums.travel.com> Organization: TRAVEL.com User-Agent: TRAVEL.com - Usenet Gateway X-Newsreader: TRAVEL.com - Usenet Gateway

Much the same crap as oozes from gg and x---xbanter.com...

---

Enough ranting from me.  I have a life to move on with, and I've already expended way too much time on this. Others have already expounded on this topic far more lucidly than I, so I'll leave you with a few references to this topic by them.

First up we have Blinky's "Usenet Improvement Project". (Jan'09: RIP, Blinky) He gives a pretty thorough overview of the aggravations caused by Google usenet posters, and the frustrations felt by long-time usenet denizens. Every viewpoint there is shared by me -- together with several not mentioned above.


Next we have a guide for Google posters that wish to 'play nice' on usenet. Although, your efforts will be lost on me (and an increasingly growing number of others), since I will be killfiling Google postings for A VERY LONG TIME TO COME.


Here is a very concise example of how Google posters should do followups. But, again, your access to the larger population on usenet is getting smaller and smaller each day.


Even Google has "help" in this area. Though, the world would be A Better Place if they designed their interface properly in the first place.

http://groups.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=9253

And, for those of you that never got a good grounding in usenet to begin with, start here:

Read each of the entries under "article Menu" in the left-hand list. Good Stuff there.

---