Handling SPAM posts

[Rudy Velthuis]

I don't understand. Are your volunteers canceling posts from the
teamb.com web site? Or from the news server itself?

We were given cancel rights on the public Borland news server (with the
exception of a few announcement-only read-only groups).

The http://www.teamb.com site does not carry any newsgroups or web
forums. It is only a site presenting who we are, what we do, etc., just
like the http://mvp.support.microsoft.com site does for the MVP program.

 

[Rudy Velthuis]

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

To each his own. <g>

 

[Michael C]

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

Naturally I can't tell what you or others did in your group but your not
going to tell me the full story either. I still stand by my original
point in that I don't think it is a good solution because the opinions of
what others think is appropriate gets forced apon others. IMO this is worse
than dealing with the spam.

Michael

 

[Michael C]

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.

Really? I thought it was going to happen by magic.

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.

Hardly. It would be 10 or so employees to benefit their users across the
world. How many people do you reckon they put on that dancing paperclip?

Michael

 

[Michael C]

That's not newsgroups, that's a web forum. They can and do have complete
control over the state of the message store. As I've already pointed out,
manually cancelling messages on just one news server would be a waste of
time,

It's already been pointed out why it is not a waste of time. I'd also be
interested to see if deleting of posts propogates or not. Do the removed
messages get removed elsewhere too?

 

[Michael C]

It's also already been pointed out why it IS a waste of time. So?

Right, I responded to your statement that it was a waste of time giving
reasons why I though it wasn't. You didn't reply to this but went straight
back to the assumption that it is a waste of time. You need to actally come
up with an arguement in response instead of assuming you opinion is gospel.
The FACT is a large number of people connect direct to the MS servers and
whenever someone says they're using another server everyone directs them to
news.microsoft.com. The FACT is deleting the posts will benefit these
people.

No, they don't.

In theory, _canceling_ a post (which for NNTP is different from deletion)
would propagate. But in practice, since practically no NNTP server
respects cancel posts any more due to rampant abuse of them, that won't do
anything either.

Can anyone confirm that the removed posts don't get removed from other
servers?

Michael

 

[Michael C]

Michael, please feel free to contact Microsoft with your suggestion. I'm
sure that if there's even an ounce of sensibility in what you're saying,
they would be more than happy to comply with your wishes and implement
your proposal. When they do, please feel free to post back here with a
"told you so" directed at me. I'll happily admit I was wrong.

What a load of rubbish. Them implementing this has nothing to do with
sensibility of what I'm saying. It might be the best idea in the world but
they will ignore it because they can't be bothered or don't want to spend
the money or it's a friday.

Continuing to argue about it here is just stupid, especially if you can't
bother to be civil about it.

I suggest that if you try being civil to others you might get more civil
responses to your posts.

Michael

 

[Stephany Young]

Yes!

Right, I responded to your statement that it was a waste of time giving
reasons why I though it wasn't. You didn't reply to this but went straight
back to the assumption that it is a waste of time. You need to actally
come up with an arguement in response instead of assuming you opinion is
gospel. The FACT is a large number of people connect direct to the MS
servers and whenever someone says they're using another server everyone
directs them to news.microsoft.com. The FACT is deleting the posts will
benefit these people.


Can anyone confirm that the removed posts don't get removed from other
servers?

Michael

 

[Willy Denoyette [MVP]]

Really? I thought it was going to happen by magic.


Hardly. It would be 10 or so employees to benefit their users across the
world. How many people do you reckon they put on that dancing paperclip?

Michael

Let's see 10 employees, there are even more NG languages supported than
that, do you think that 10 employees can managed all these languages on all
NG's (more than 1200) running on the MS managed NNTP servers? and this
24X365!
Even if they throw 100 employees on it, this won't solve the problem, as the
spam is propagated to thousands of NNTP servers not managed by them.

Willy.

 

[Willy Denoyette [MVP]]

Right, I responded to your statement that it was a waste of time giving
reasons why I though it wasn't. You didn't reply to this but went straight
back to the assumption that it is a waste of time. You need to actally
come up with an arguement in response instead of assuming you opinion is
gospel. The FACT is a large number of people connect direct to the MS
servers and whenever someone says they're using another server everyone
directs them to news.microsoft.com. The FACT is deleting the posts will
benefit these people.


Can anyone confirm that the removed posts don't get removed from other
servers?

They don't get removed, as Pete pointed out only cancels do propagate (to a
certain extend)!

Willy.

 

[Rudy Velthuis]

Okay. Well, it's fine if Borland decides they want to grant that
kind of access to their "MVP equivalents". But I just don't see
Microsoft doing that with their MVP program. There are way too many
MVPs, with the MVP qualifications have zero to do with anything that
indicates whether a person would make a good moderator, or would
even want to be one

OK. Borland (and now Codegear) let TeamB choose new members, and we
choose them based on such and other qualities as well.
--
Rudy Velthuis http://rvelthuis.de

"To understand a man you should walk a mile in his shoes. If what
he says still bothers you that's ok because you'll be a mile away
from him and you'll have his shoes." -- Unknown

 

[Sam]

Folks,
We *really* need to get a handle on how to eliminate the SPAM posts making
their way into this group and related group like ASP.NET. It has gotten to
the point where it just isn't any fun anymore, having to wade through this
crap to post a question or to help somebody.

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

Peter,

I think you can report to google about spam. Some groups have a
moderator whcih may also help...

Sam
Site: http://www.mydedications.com