From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals


The Big-8 newsgroups are being swamped with spam. Please, do something about the spam.

Now comes the part where someone makes excuses and tells me to get a newsreader that can filter out the spam, so I can that no one posts here anymore because usenet is a spam ridden hole.

Do something.

1. Makes yourselves the default moderators and implement some simple generic spam filters. You don't have to get involved in policing off topic posts and flame wars.
2. Find real moderators for groups. Some are easy.
comp.os.msdos.djgpp and comp.lang.python are mirrors of mailing
lists. Make the mailing list admins the moderators.
3. Complain. Contact news servers that inject too much spam.
Complain to Google about Google Groups. They might listen to an
official complaint from the Big-8.
4. Issue a statement to news server providers asking them to block
news servers that inject too much spam.
5. Supply spam filters to new servers and issue updates the way
anti-malware software does.

Please do something.

Thank you
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

Wanderer <dont@emailme.com> wrote:

The Big-8 newsgroups are being swamped with spam.
Please, do something about the spam.

Now comes the part where someone makes excuses and tells
me to get a newsreader that can filter out the spam, so I
can that no one posts here anymore because usenet is a spam
ridden hole.

First you should learn how to format your posts on USENET :)

Do something.

You can set your own filters, in tin this works for me:

group=*
case=0
score=kill
msgid_last=*<*@googlegroups.com>*

1. Makes yourselves the default moderators and implement
some simple generic spam filters. You don't have to get
involved in policing off topic posts and flame wars.

2. Find real moderators for groups. Some are easy.

Maybe you can volunteer to moderate some groups

comp.os.msdos.djgpp and comp.lang.python are mirrors of mailing
lists. Make the mailing list admins the moderators.

I believe many admins are aware of this.

<snip>

Please do something.

Thank you

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

Wanderer<dont@emailme.com> writes:

The Big-8 newsgroups are being swamped with spam. Please, do something
about the spam.

4. Issue a statement to news server providers asking them to block
news servers that inject too much spam.

The primary injector of Usenet spam? Google Groups. Since not allowing
them through my door at the end of October, the number of articles that
make it to my news spool has not noticibly decreased, but the amount of
work cleanfeed is doing at weeding out spam has significantly reduced.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

In article <867596@dontemail.com>, dont@emailme.com says...

The Big-8 newsgroups are being swamped with spam. Please, do something
about the spam.

Now comes the part where someone makes excuses and tells me to get a newsreader that can filter out the spam, so I can that no one posts
here anymore because usenet is a spam ridden hole.

Do something.

I'm not sure if you're addressing the Big-8 Board here? If so, I think
you're greatly overestimating its powers, and assuming a kind of central administration that does not exist on Usenet.

The Board acts as a trusted source for group-creation (and occasionally deletion) notices within the "Big 8" hierarchies[*]. It also does some
other minor administrative work such as investigating when a group
moderator has gone missing for a long time, and moderating a small
handful of admin-related groups such as this one. It has power only in
as much as news server administrators think it's worth listening to
about these fairly specific things. It is the news server administrators themselves who "run" the Big-8, as its newsgroups only exist because a
bunch of news servers on a big distributed network agree that they do.
By the very design of Usenet, there is no central point of control.

[*] Some Usenetters think that even this is too much power concentrated
in one place. The alt.* and free.* hierarchies demonstrate other ways to handle such matters.

1. Makes yourselves the default moderators and implement some simple
generic spam filters. You don't have to get involved in policing off
topic posts and flame wars.

Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on your perspective), this would
not be workable at all. Most groups are unmoderated; that is, there is
no way to moderate the group even if someone wants to. Neither the Board
nor anybody else can simply decide to moderate all the existing groups
in the Big 8.

The only thing way to make something like this happen would be to issue control messages to change the moderation status of all 2000-ish
unmoderated groups. This would be an unprecedented and ludicrous power
grab that would rightly be ignored by many server administrators: at
best it would have no effect because the attempt would be universally
ignored, and at worst it would fragment all discussion as some servers
would send messages to the moderators and some wouldn't, and some
servers would reject unmoderated messages and some would accept them.

2. Find real moderators for groups. Some are easy.
comp.os.msdos.djgpp and comp.lang.python are mirrors of mailing
lists. Make the mailing list admins the moderators.

Converting an individual unmoderated group to moderated (again by
sending a control message to do so) has occasionally been proposed, and
even implemented, in the past. Objections have been raised on the basis
that some servers might fail to implement the change, leading to the aforementioned problems with the group existing in a different state on different servers. However, in practice, a bigger problem seems to be
that many moderated groups eventually fail because the moderators
disappear, leaving the group unusable.

This exact sequence of events happened to comp.ai: it was originally
created as unmoderated, later converted to moderated after holding a
vote to do so, and then became unusable for over eight years when the moderator lost access to their account. In this case, a new moderator volunteered in 2020 and the group is now active again, but often once a moderated group is abandoned it stays that way.

3. Complain. Contact news servers that inject too much spam.
Complain to Google about Google Groups. They might listen to an
official complaint from the Big-8.

Yes, the more people who complain to Google the better (assuming
anyone's found a reliable way to do so, as they go to great lengths to
avoid any interaction with the general public).

I'm not sure a complaint from the Board would carry more weight than
anyone else's, though. We don't have any contacts there, and they don't
even act on our group-creation messages. If anyone does know how to
contact a human with any influence over Google Groups, please let us
know.

It does, however, look like someone at Google has finally noticed the
spam problem in the last few days. I've seen reports that Google Groups
has entirely disabled posting access for some groups or is requiring
CAPTCHAs to post. This is at least faintly encouraging, and I hope it
will be the start of an ongoing active effort to drive spammers off
Google Groups.

4. Issue a statement to news server providers asking them to block
news servers that inject too much spam.

A lot of Usenet providers are already aware of the problem, and there
has been considerable discussion in news.software.nntp and news.admin.net-abuse.usenet about how to combat the floods of spam from
Google Groups. This has included calls to de-peer Google, and for news providers and end-users to block any messages originating there. De-
peering and blocking of articles from a rogue provider has been done successfully in the past, but it requires widespread co-operation among
news providers in order to be effective, particularly if the problematic provider is a very large and well-connected one.

5. Supply spam filters to new servers and issue updates the way
anti-malware software does.

This is a very practical approach. Efforts in this direction already
exist: there are cancelbots and the NoCeM protocol, which exist to allow co-operative, automated removal of spam at the server level by providing
feeds that identify which articles are spam. I don't know if anyone is currently sharing lists of spam-filtering rules, but I agree that it
sounds like a good idea.

Please do something.

Thank you

Broadly speaking, things happen on Usenet by working out a general
consensus among the server administrators who run it. This anarchic decentralisation is both Usenet's strength and its weakness. It means
Usenet is highly resistant to some classes of problem such as server
failures and censorship, but on the other hand, sufficiently determined
bad actors can cause a lot of harm before they can be dealt with.

There is a parallel here with email, another decentralised messaging
system. Well over half of all email is still spam, despite the fact that people have been trying to solve the problem for decades with far more manpower and resources than are available for Usenet.

Despite all this, there are news providers that do a very good job of filtering out the vast majority of spam. For example, comp.lang.python
on Eternal September (my provider) has only a handful of spam posts,
despite being 99% garbage on Google Groups.

HTH,
Rayner
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

Am 19.11.2023 um 18:10:05 Uhr schrieb Wanderer:

3. Complain. Contact news servers that inject too much spam.
Complain to Google about Google Groups. They might listen to an
official complaint from the Big-8.

They don't care about abuse of their services at all and only sometimes
they do a little bit against it.

They implemented captchas for posting in some groups, but not in all.
I also heard that they blocked posting in some groups at all.

Although, Google is not fussed about abuse of their services, even when
ISPs tell them about abuse.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

On 11/20/2023 10:20 AM, Marco Moock wrote:

Am 19.11.2023 um 18:10:05 Uhr schrieb Wanderer:

3. Complain. Contact news servers that inject too much spam.
Complain to Google about Google Groups. They might listen to an
official complaint from the Big-8.

They don't care about abuse of their services at all and only sometimes
they do a little bit against it.

They implemented captchas for posting in some groups, but not in all.
I also heard that they blocked posting in some groups at all.

Although, Google is not fussed about abuse of their services, even when
ISPs tell them about abuse.

I've held the position for a long time, this is all intentional. Google
wants complete control over everything. They've done their best to ruin usenet, but it didn't work. They will make little efforts to make it
appear they are doing something when all of the abuse comes from their
groups, but it is only for show. They don't like this free speech
platform, and will not do anything to support it's health. They can't
control it, so they will help with it's demise.
They will fail!
--
Stand With Israel!
NOTE: If you use Google Groups I don't see you,
unless you're whitelisted and that's doubtful.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> writes:

They will fail!

I'd miss some GG users in some groups and so have not yet filtered GG completely, but the longer that problem persists I see them not even considering switching away from GG as hostile action and will change my
mind.
--
Pasta & Ramen!
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

On 11/20/2023 5:07 PM, yeti wrote:

sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> writes:

They will fail!

I'd miss some GG users in some groups and so have not yet filtered GG completely, but the longer that problem persists I see them not even considering switching away from GG as hostile action and will change my
mind.

I do have a whitelist set up for them, but it only has one name in it
for now. I should have given GG my personal UDP a long time ago.
--
Stand With Israel!
NOTE: If you use Google Groups I don't see you,
unless you're whitelisted and that's doubtful.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

On 11/20/23 18:09, sticks wrote:

On 11/20/2023 5:07 PM, yeti wrote:

sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> writes:

They will fail!

I'd miss some GG users in some groups and so have not yet filtered GG
completely, but the longer that problem persists I see them not even
considering switching away from GG as hostile action and will change my
mind.

I do have a whitelist set up for them, but it only has one name in it
for now.-a I should have given GG my personal UDP a long time ago.

I personally have a GG filter.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

Am 20.11.2023 um 17:07:47 Uhr schrieb yeti:

I'd miss some GG users in some groups and so have not yet filtered GG completely

Did you tell them to switch their news provider?
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> writes:

Did you tell them to switch their news provider?

I tried a few times, they refused, I gave up.
--
| Googlegroups user? Good. Out || Googlegroups Benutzer? Gut. |
| of the door. Line on the left. || Durch die T|+r hinaus, zur linken |
| One cross each. || Reihe, jeder nur ein Kreuz. |
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> writes:

They will fail!

I'd miss some GG users in some groups and so have not yet filtered GG completely, but the longer that problem persists I see them not even considering switching away from GG as hostile action and will change my
mind.

I used this tin filter:

group=*
case=0
score=hot
msgid_last=*<*@googlegroups.com>*

which floats all threads involving GG posters to the top and highlights
posts by GG posters. I then went through and made special rules for the genuine posters, then I went back and changed the rule to 'score=kill' and
that got rid of the rest of the spam.

Theo
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> writes:

Did you tell them to switch their news provider?

I tried a few times, they refused, I gave up.

Which providers?
--
"Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days." --Psalm 90:14. Stupid old body that peed during a dream and already peed >1 hr. earlier.
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

Greetings.

On 2023-11-20 01:10, Wanderer wrote:

The Big-8 newsgroups are being swamped with spam. Please, do something about the spam.

In addition to the excellent responses already provided by others, I
just wanted to point out that there is a newsgroup dedicated to the
discussion of spam on Usenet and what to do about it: news.admin.net-abuse.usenet. (And yes, the recent spam flood from
Google is being discussed there.)

Regards,
Tristan
--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2