Family Forum / Marriage / Marriage / March 2009

I see that you post through Google Groups.  So do I.  In many
ways it's the worst of all worlds.  It doesn't have kill files.

A "real" newsreader is software that retrieves posts one at a
time and filters - Get header, apply filters to see if it gets thrown
out, get body, apply more filters to see if it gets thrown out, only
then display it to the user.  Common functions are kill anything
that is cross posted, kill by author, kill by thread, apply the same
sort of spam filtering your e-mail software does.

I originally started posting with a web browser because I travelled
a lot and the location-du-jour had unknown network blocks that
never blocked web.  The price was not having kill files and thus
seeing just how horrible UseNet has become over the years.  A
person using killfiles carefully sees a *far* better colleciton of
posts.

Over time I came around to thinking that a "real" newsreader is
actually a browser.  I shouldn't need to install some extra
software to read newsgroups.  Not having killfiles is the price I
now pay.  One thing I am clear on - If I had not been on UseNet
for a decade with kill files there is no way would tolerate the
noise level now without them.  I would think it's not my job to
tolerate abusers and I would leave for web forums.  The vast
majority of new posters do exactly that nowadays.

So far I have found *one* web site that supports filtering.  It
only carries one group I read and that one isn't ASM.  Not
worth using until/unless they start carrying more groups.

The day I learn of an NSP that has web access with a browser
with filtering I will switch from google.  I've been pointed at
several but none have any sign in their docs that they actually
do have filtered reading on the web.  I'm not paying to find out
whether a site does that and I'm not spending a week exploring
a site only to discover that they don't.  So far all of them I have
found have a web page to sign up, a web server to display
without filtering, and use 'a "real" newsreader' software to
display filtered articles.  I currently have such software
installed on my PC and I have no interest in using it.  So I
glance at posts and decide who to ignore and who to read.
My wetware filtering is more effective than any software filter
but I would never stay if I hadn't learned about the advantages
so long ago.

Be cautioned - There are a fair number of people who automatically
filter all postings that originate at google.  The noise level from
folks who don't know UseNet from google groups and the lack
of any enforcement by google to remove spammers and abusers
is so high if I ever find a service that gives me filtering I'm likely
to do the same.  That and kill all articles that are cross posted
to any group I read.