OT but curious about 'Web Portals'

The other day I asked a question about what is wrong with posting to the list by way of 'web portals' (not that I had even heard the term till it was used here).

I didn't get an answer but I would really like to know. It's costing me a packet to keep 2 ISPs fed and watered but I persist as only one of them (the dreaded dial up service) offers a newsgroups option. I'd love to drop this service but have clung on because of the newsgroups provision.

Reply to
FarmI
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This isn't a "list", it's Usenet.

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by way of 'web portals' (not that I> had even heard the term till it was used here).>

$3.94/month for a Supernews feed would probably be cheaper than the second ISP:

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Beverly

Reply to
BEI Design

Is there a problem? Is it real or just something people like to whinge about when feeling particularly curmudgeonly or when the Moon is in the wrong quarter?

Reply to
FarmI

I don't know about sewgirls.com TOS/AUP in terms of their cutting off abusers (although it is one of the ugliest sites I've ever seen), but Google will do absolutely nothing to terminate abusive users. Posting through one's own ISP, there is a certain restraint brought about by the knowledge one may lose connectivity if too many complaints are filed. However, people use Google and gmail to spam, post off-topic garbage (see the new thread "Email me your tit size" for an example) with no fear at all of losing internet access. Google has become the biggest spam/abuse-facilitator on the internet, IMHO. I would hate to miss interesting messages from regulars on alt.sewing, but I'm really tempted to kilfile all google-gmail-sewgirls messages.

JMHO,

Beverly, why no, I'm not at all curmudgeonly tonight....

Reply to
BEI Design

From my point of view, if you use a web portal like Google or that sewgirls thing, you have no control at all over what pops up on your computer. Using a news reader, I can set filters to keep posts from appearing at all or to appear marked "read." I can label posts that I want to refer back to, also. Plus, I can download the messages, and sort them by threads, by poster, by date -- however I want -- whereas with Google, they present them in threads and that's that. Plus which, they don't show the whole thread at one time if it's longer than two or three posts. It's just very awkward to use, and takes a lot of time.

There is a perception that people who use Google or another web portal that the person who is doing that doesn't know what they're doing or what it is that they're reading. They think it's a board or forum, and don't know what Usenet is at all. It gets really old trying to explain to them, when they pop up, ask a bunch of questions, then disappear forever -- perhaps because they haven't figured out how to get back to the thread.

It also seems that all the trolls and spammers access through a web portal, probably because they think they can't be traced.

Reply to
Pogonip

"FarmI" wrote in news:47ede10a$0$17327$ snipped-for-privacy@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net .au:

it is much slower. most thread very poorly, if at all. you cannot filter spam, or posters you don't want to see. in the case of Google, they track what you view (to target the ads, they say) because portals are "free" they attract the sorts who like to cause mischief that gets them kicked off a real ISP, such as massive crossposting, posting binaries in non-binary groups, spamming, trolling etc. because the portals don't police this stuff, those of us who get tired of it easily just killfile anything from that domain, so pretty soon the only people you can 'talk' to are those on the same portal, or those who don't know how to killfile. personally i'm >

Reply to
enigma

I have in kfed GG in all my groups and it's worked wonders on the signal to noise ratio! :-)

Reply to
The Wanderer

Yes, I see your point. From the time I first found usenet, I thought it was one of the great all time inventions. Like you I have also thought that perhaps its days are numbered as it appears to being attacked on all sides.

I've tried on a number of occasions to explain to people about usenet and even people who are reasonably computer savvy and who also use a MickeySox mail prog like I do can't seem to get their head around even the basic bit of info that they can access usenet by way of their e-mail program.

My husband, who worked got into computing in the late 60s and stayed there till he moved late in his career into a management role can't seem to get his head around it. (Mind you, being involved in computing in a huge organisation means he also can't do many of the home computer things such as searches for obscure subjects as well as I can either - he is useful for technical things, but less so since DOS seems to have bitten the dust).

Snap! Although I'm a recent arrival here, I too read all sewing (and followup thread drift) posts here.

My news

:-)) I actually plonked you (and by accident, Mary Fisher) at some stage when I was plonking some of the spammers. You replied to one of their posts when I was doing a bulk plonk. I had to go offf to google groups archives to get your details to unplonk you after I figured out that you weren't a bozo. Sorry about that.

Yes. That makes sense. I had wondered why some posts showed up in such a strange way but hadn't done a properties check on them to see where they originated.

No. I've seen some recommended that I thought sounded interesting but when I've investigated, I thought they were more trouble than they were worth.

I've joined and left quite a few over

Thank you for your post. The info you and others have given makes sense to me.

Reply to
FarmI

:-)) If posting using google is as time consuming and irritating as doing an archives search at google, then I can certainly see your point.

Yep. I've seen similar comments about something called "webTV" (I think that's what its called, but since we don't have anything like that in this country I've never bothered to ask about it)

Probably :-)) I've always just thought that trolls were a natural part of usenet. It perhaps serves a purpose for many people in our societies who need to vent in one way or another and at least it keeps them off the streets for some of the time.

Reply to
FarmI

LOL. Are you saying that Jon Ball didn't use a 'real ISP'? When it comes to trolls, he must have been a blue ribbon, serial and non stop troller. I think I only ever saw about 2 non troll posts from him in the time that he posted to any of the groups I saw him in and given that he posted non stop for about 14 hours a day, that is some record. Interestingly,he has now popped up in a gardening groups you and I both read and has made at least 2 non troll posts. Perhaps he has finally had some counselling about his problems with being so short.

because the portals don't police this

I don't think I can do a bulk plonk such as that, but then I find that just the occasional plonk of individuals seems to work for me.

Thanks Lee.

Reply to
FarmI

I already have, since I also belong to a few medium-traffic newsgroups that are very attractive to malicious posters. I usually notice when a regular has been marked read and download the post anyway -- but that's because people who aren't on gmail have responded to the post. If *everybody* killfiles google etc., then there won't be any responses to attract my attention.

I have put a "mark for retrieval" filter on snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com to counter-act the kill filter, but this idea has obvious limitations.

Joy Beeson

Reply to
Joy Beeson

I do not consider spam a top be a situation where "only real objection" applies. Spam is a huge problem, it may very well disable e-mail for all legitimate communication. When ISPs have to contend with *millions* of spams, trying to deliver desired e-mail to their real customers becomes problematical. Spam may also overwhelm Usenet if it continues to accelerates at recent rates. ISPs have only so much equipment, buying additional facilities to deal with spam just doesn't sound like a good business plan. I suppose my take on the situation is colored by having read news.admin.net-abuse.email for several years.

Google archives are useful for researching prior messages, or trying to find a "sort remembered" discussion.

I have a strong aversion to anyone who steals other's resources/possessions/time. :-|

Beverly

Reply to
BEI Design

Ah, then the time has come to move on from OE as your news reader! Yes, I know it works, yes I know it's much easier to carry on with something you're comfortable with, but......

When you move to a purpose-built and fully functioned news reader you'll wonder why on earth you stuck with OE for so long. Honest! I moved away from OE to 40tude Dialog in 2003. How can I be precise? I keep all emails in a special folder that have passwords, etc associated with them. :-)

Dialog has more features than you shake a stick at, including the ability to semi-automate it using scripts. Personally I've not found it necessary, but its filtering abilities are superb.

There are quite a few other news readers out there. Most of them are freeware or shareware. They all have their champions, people who will tell you why the one they use is better than any other. You have the discomfort of having to learn how to drive it properly, but once you get over that particular hurdle you begin to appreciate why so many long-term posters criticise OE as a news reader.

FWIW, I also moved away from OE as an email client, in favour of T'bird, that was after I had been using Dialog for a while. I also ditched IE in favour of Firefox, although I do keep IE on my pc as some sites still don't like FF, but those are few and far between these days, even M$ seems to accept FF on its pages.

I tried setting up news accounts in T'bird in parallel with Dialog, but I wasn't overly impressed with it as a news reader. Conversely, Dialog can be used as an email client, but I like to keep the two functions completely separate.

And finally..... :-)

With a new laptop coming next week for my wife, I've decided to go with as much open source software as possible on that.

Reply to
The Wanderer

That's no longer necessary, since there is now a FF add-on for those sites:

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Reply to
Pogonip

How did you do that?

We've loaned a pc to a grand daughter (21) who's living with us temporarily, so that she can do college work. We've asked her not to use web-based mail but suspect that she is doing because her boy-friend says it's OK. Since our pcs are networked to 'hers' we really don't want her to do it.

I'd appreciate your dvice.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

I should have added that I set up a zetnet account for her so there's no need for anything else.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

I use 40tude dialog. It's very easy to set rules in that prog. There's a separate drop-down menu option that lists all scoring and plonk rules.

[*] !markread Message-ID googlegroups

The first line applies the rule to *all* groups. The second line instructs the prog to mark as read any messages downloaded that have a message ID containg googlegroups.

I normally have my news reader set only to show new (unread) posts, so any new post that has a message ID containing googlegroups is already marked as read so I don't see it.

Rules can be applied to individual NGs. Hence

[alt.sewing] !delete From "Gwyneð Bennet"

will apply whatever rule follows only to alt.sewing, deleting rather than marking as read any posts from that source. I'm sure regulars will recollect the nature of that posters contributions! There are a few others that rule applies to!

also under alt.sewing I have another rule

-10 Xpost %>3

this applies a negative score to articles posted to more than three groups. Dialog has black and white rules, like deleting or marking read, but it can also assign positive or negative scores, so if you feel like playing you can apply selective filtering depending on your criteria.

Sewing, a positive score, ladies problems, a negative score! I jest! :-)

Negative scores mark articles as read, so I didn't see the OP by Red Dog, nor Beverly's initial response to it, only your post about not continuing the xposting.

Having said all of that, it's so long since I used OE that I just can't remember how to apply filters in that prog. Time for you move on to a decent news reader! :-)

Reply to
The Wanderer

"BEI Design" wrote in news:Bdydnagh94npo3LanZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

no kidding. i track my spam email & it's running a full 80% of my incoming mail. there are days when i get 280+ emails and only 2 or 3 are legitimate. last December my spam rate was

74%, so this is really a rather large increase in a short time, a sad state of affairs. the reason many ISPs no longer offer a news server is because of the spam. even if they don't carry binary groups, usenet takes up a lot of server space. lee
Reply to
enigma

"FarmI" wrote in news:47eebefa$0$17377$ snipped-for-privacy@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net .au:

he used several ISPs actually. he kept getting booted, until he found one that didn't enforce a TOS (there are quite a few of those now, unfortunately). he's posting in wreak.gardens? i have him in the killfile, but i don't remember if it's the permanent one or the up to

100 days one... you think Jon is worse than Sheldon? hmmm. well, there's a troll on alt.mothers that calls my kid a retard because of the autism. he's a piece of work too... ;)

it depends on if you read on the portal or through a newsreader. i think it's freeusenet.org that has directions to kill googlegroups in various newsreaders. i find googlegroups lacks a lot of the search functionality that Deja had in looking for posts, plus they do not have most of the old Deja archives available. i can't go look at things written in 93 anymore, unfortunately... lee

Reply to
enigma

Pogonip wrote in news:47ef498f$ snipped-for-privacy@news.bnb-lp.com:

Reply to
enigma

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