Handling SPAM posts

[Michael C]

I am glad we can cancel. Removes all the spam quite quickly, so that
most users never get to see it. We can also remove unwanted content
(copyrighted code, severe insults, etc.) that way. Oh, it is a little
more work, and not every cancel is appreciated, but I can live with
that.

I really dislike that kind of forum. Almost always the opinion of a few
people as to what is acceptable is forced apon everyone.

Michael

 

[Rudy Velthuis]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpgravity/

(I have a custom modified version which spits out my "short but
complete program" request when I hit Ctrl+1.)

Shows how far I knew. <g> Thanks for the info.

 

[Rudy Velthuis]

I really dislike that kind of forum. Almost always the opinion of a
few people as to what is acceptable is forced apon everyone.

No, on our server every opinion is welcome. We don't cancel messages
for the opinions they represent, even if we don't particularly like
them.

I can imagine that this is not true for all such newsgroups, though. <g>

 

[Peter Macej]

(OT: if anybody can tell me how to get Thunderbird to delete, rather

than attempt to revoke, I'd be grateful...)

AFIAK, you cannot delete local copy in TB. But you can mark it as
ignored (menu Message - Ignore Thread or just press K). I have set
filter so it marks most spam messages automatically. Then just hide all
ignored threads (View - Threads - uncheck Ignored threads). That's all.
You won't see bad threads anymore.

 

[Marc Gravell]

[Peter's TB usage notes...]

Cheers

 

[Ben Voigt [C++ MVP]]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpgravity/

(I have a custom modified version which spits out my "short but
complete program" request when I hit Ctrl+1.)

What about the custom version for the rest of us, the one with the drop down
menu of URLs to your blog/FAQ -- like most especially the passing by
reference vs reference types topic -- that end up in 50% of replies on this
group?

 

[Peter Bromberg [C# MVP]]

Right Peter,
but I like to use the web-based reader from msdn and it has no filtering
capability.
A better solution would be to give a few trusted MVPs or other souls
permission to clean out the offending messages daily, since Microsoft doesn't
seem to care.

--Peter
Site: http://www.eggheadcafe.com
UnBlog: http://petesbloggerama.blogspot.com
Short Urls & more: http://ittyurl.net

[...]
If somebody doesn't come up with a good idea or take the bull by the
horns
and get control over this stuff fast, I am gonna simply go somewhere
else.

I for one would be very very sorry to see you go. But I really don't see
how any of us are going to change the spam coming in. It's advertising
web sites based in China, posted through Google. A couple of entities
that don't care about the spam problem.

That said, you could probably improve your own perception of the problem
quite a lot by just filtering out posts that include the words "paypal"
and "www" in the subject. There'd be the occasional false positive I'm
sure and of course those keywords won't catch all of the spam, but on the
whole I'd say it's likely to "fix" the most obvious part of the problem.

Pete

 

[Barry Kelly]

What about the custom version for the rest of us, the one with the drop down
menu of URLs to your blog/FAQ -- like most especially the passing by
reference vs reference types topic -- that end up in 50% of replies on this
group?

And how about a Bayesian classifier to automate the whole thing?

-- Barry

 

[Michael C]

No, on our server every opinion is welcome. We don't cancel messages
for the opinions they represent, even if we don't particularly like
them.

I thought you'd say something like that. I'd have to see the reality of what
you are actually cancelling. I suspect if you say some are not happy then
you're cancelling what some think you shouldn't, which was exactly my point.

I can imagine that this is not true for all such newsgroups, though. <g>

Hardly. Try rx7club.com. They will block your posts for arguing with the
moderators.

Michael

 

[Michael C]

I can't imagine that Microsoft would grant message cancel privileges to
the MVPs. MVPs don't have any other moderator-like authority. It's an
award, not an admin position.

That said, even if MVPs did have the authority to cancel posts, at best
Microsoft would only be able to grant that authority on the
msnews.microsoft.com server (i.e. Microsoft's own NNTP server). Since the
posts are distributed globally, removing the posts from Microsoft's server
would have relatively little benefit. Even allowing an NNTP cancel would
have little effect, since most ISPs have disabled post canceling due to
the lack of any security/authentication for the operation.

It would benefit those who connect directly, which I would imagine is a
fairly large number.

Michael

 

[Michael C]

Well, as near as I can tell, Microsoft is already removing most of the
spam posts from their own server. One of the biggest offenders is the
"paypal accept" messages, and a quick search on Microsoft's current server
state shows none of those messages to be present.

But as I pointed out earlier, removing the messages manually is still
going to result in a wide window of time during which someone would still
wind up downloading the messages. So even with Microsoft removing the
messages, there's a good chance someone using their server will still wind
up getting the messages.

As I said previously, they need to remove them faster. Currently it is
taking days, if it took a few minutes then it would be pretty much
eliminated.

Michael

 

[Christopher Ireland]

Peter,

I don't know how much money you think Microsoft wastes on a daily
basis, but I think even for them that'd be excessive.

I think I'm right in saying that Rudy Velthuis and the other teamb members
( http://www.teamb.com ) don't get paid for keeping CodeGear's newsgroups
clean. Certainly they are not CodeGear employees.

--
Thank you,

Christopher Ireland
http://shunyata-kharg.doesntexist.com

"There is no way to peace; peace is the way."
A. J. Muste

 

[Christopher Ireland]

Peter,

I don't know how much money you think Microsoft wastes on a daily
basis, but I think even for them that'd be excessive.

I think I'm right in saying that Rudy Velthuis and the other teamb members
( http://www.teamb.com ) don't get paid for keeping CodeGear's newsgroups
clean. Certainly they are not CodeGear employees.

--
Thank you,

Christopher Ireland
http://shunyata-kharg.doesntexist.com

"There is no way to peace; peace is the way."
A. J. Muste

 

[Rudy Velthuis]

I thought you'd say something like that. I'd have to see the reality
of what you are actually cancelling.

Perhaps, but in many cases, you didn't know the background. So your
opinion is based in incomplete information.

 

[Rudy Velthuis]

That said, even if MVPs did have the authority to cancel posts, at
best Microsoft would only be able to grant that authority on the
msnews.microsoft.com server (i.e. Microsoft's own NNTP server).
Since the posts are distributed globally, removing the posts from
Microsoft's server would have relatively little benefit.

Borland's groups are also distributed globally, but they wisely refuse
feeds from Usenet servers. People not subscribing to the original
server are doing themselves a disservice, since not many people will
see their posts. IOW, we only care about the original server, not about
the (unauthorized) Usenet mirrors. Some of the Usenet groups do not
even exist anymore (or have never existed, except as root for other
groups), on the original server.

I subscribe to the MS newsgroups on the MS server too, not to some
Usenet mirror of them.
--
Rudy Velthuis http://rvelthuis.de

"The mistakes are all waiting to be made."
-- chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)
on the game's opening position

 

[Rudy Velthuis]

Well, as near as I can tell, Microsoft is already removing most of
the spam posts from their own server. One of the biggest offenders
is the "paypal accept" messages, and a quick search on Microsoft's
current server state shows none of those messages to be present.

But as I pointed out earlier, removing the messages manually is still
going to result in a wide window of time

Can't say that for the Borland (CodeGear) server. Spam is generally
removed very quickly.

 

[Rudy Velthuis]

For it to take "a few minutes", they'd have to have someone sitting
there just watching the newsgroup, deleting posts from the server as
they come in.

Since MVPs are all over the world, one of them would be awake and see
them in time. That's how we do it. <g>

 

[Rudy Velthuis]

Peter,


I think I'm right in saying that Rudy Velthuis and the other teamb
members ( http://www.teamb.com ) don't get paid for keeping
CodeGear's newsgroups clean. Certainly they are not CodeGear
employees.

Indeed. I am a dentist with a busy clinic in Germany and a very strong
interest in programming. <g>

--
Rudy Velthuis http://rvelthuis.de

"When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I
only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have
finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."
-- Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)

 

[Willy Denoyette [MVP]]

I can't imagine that Microsoft would grant message cancel privileges to
the MVPs. MVPs don't have any other moderator-like authority. It's an
award, not an admin position.

That said, even if MVPs did have the authority to cancel posts, at best
Microsoft would only be able to grant that authority on the
msnews.microsoft.com server (i.e. Microsoft's own NNTP server). Since the
posts are distributed globally, removing the posts from Microsoft's server
would have relatively little benefit. Even allowing an NNTP cancel would
have little effect, since most ISPs have disabled post canceling due to
the lack of any security/authentication for the operation.

Pete

Me as an MVP would never accept this moderator-like authority, nor would
most of the other MVP's I know.

Willy.

 

[Rudy Velthuis]

That's not newsgroups, that's a web forum.

No, the Borland server (news://newsgroups.borland.com) is an NNTP
server, not a web forum (although it has a very - very! - basic web
interface too, but hardly anyone uses that).

The URL http://www.teamb.com is our version of
, it is not the server.