One sign of the death of a newsgroup

[Peter Seiler]

in another NG I read:

"One of the signs that a newsgroup is dying, or becoming more or less
useless, is when the number of posts devoted to ad hominem attacks
exceeds the number of on-topic posts. rec.audio.opinion reached that
point years ago; alt.comp.freeware is getting dangerously close. These
attacks usually center around two or three persons, each of which has a
few allies. Together, they constitute "war parties" sort of like
Quantrell's raiders, only without guns."

Could this concern this NG a.c.a-v. too?

 

[James Morrow]

in another NG I read:

"One of the signs that a newsgroup is dying, or becoming more or less
useless, is when the number of posts devoted to ad hominem attacks
exceeds the number of on-topic posts. rec.audio.opinion reached that
point years ago; alt.comp.freeware is getting dangerously close. These
attacks usually center around two or three persons, each of which has a
few allies. Together, they constitute "war parties" sort of like
Quantrell's raiders, only without guns."

Could this concern this NG a.c.a-v. too?

Round up the usual suspects. Yes, we all know who they are. Most of
them have resided in my Bozo bin for lengthy sentences. The purpose of
a newsgroup should be first and foremost to help users. Those not
amenable to that idea can leave. We all should ignore these troll
threads. When troublesome people are ignored they become bored and move
elsewhere.


"I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy
me."

- Noel Coward

 

[Offbreed]

in another NG I read:

"One of the signs that a newsgroup is dying, or becoming more or less
useless, is when the number of posts devoted to ad hominem attacks
exceeds the number of on-topic posts.

<snip>

That's what kill files and filters are for. I use nfilter to drop
anything cross posted to more than two groups or to specific groups, and
that kills about 75% of the crap, more in specific groups. Then using
the Thunderbird kill file for specific idiots and the functions "mark
thread read" and "ignore thread" gets rid of most of the rest.

I've had as few as 3 posts out of 200+ on the server make it through.