I find what is going on intolerable. Short of eliminating the problem, I do not see an exit to this, and it may be better to shut the NG down. Some of the offensive posts will certainly be tracked by Google, showing up associated with the names of some of the people currently under the most direct attack.
It may be best to move, at least temporarily, to another format of exchange, like a forum (yuck I know) rather than allow this to continue.
This does not amount to defeat guys. But when under attack one must go underground somehow and keep flexible and agile.
In any case it would be better to continue elsewhere than to simply personally stop using AFW, as I am tempted to do immediately.
You just need to be more willing to utilize the ability to killfile the offenders. Meeting elsewhere would surely result in losing some posters & lurkers who have been here for years. Don't give up yet.
I agree! rec.music.classical.recordings has been invaded by these half-wits for the last few days. If you are patient and use your killfile, they will eventually go away. rec.food.cooking suffered from fundie christian fools for a while but it seems to be relatively clear now. Remember, school starts in a few days time. Graham
I've never seen the posts from the fake Nils Gustaf Lindgren, had him killfiled long ago. I can't even be bothered with Uranium Comittee, no patience for closed-minded fools. Time is precious and life is short.
School starts soon, so most of the trolls will be busy during the day. I've seen groups where almost 1/2 of the posts were trolls, after a while they just go away. Feeding them and posting complaints just keeps 'em going, ignoring is the only way to go.
Hello; I hadn't noticed that somebody was trying to Joe-job ME until Mike started this thread. And, quite obviously, everybody seems to be able to figure where the real Nils Gustaf is. I hope so, at least. And if not, well, so be it. I am not easily flustered, having been tried for 30+ years by industrial grade flusterers. - But, as for closing down the afw - back in 2001, after 9/11, I was called to a meeting in Istanbul. My first thought was, hell no, I won't go, not with people flying airplanes into highrises and being fundamentalist muslims and so on and so forth. Then, having calmed down, I thought, YES. If I do not go, they have won.
As for the scumbag who is behind this, no doubt some day he'll get his - I am sufficiently sexist to claim it's a male.
I've placed a call to Mendell, Fishkin and La Starza, expert anti-hackers, who have developed a virus that wipes out your hard drive and your first born.
in article snipped-for-privacy@individual.net, Mike Tommasi at snipped-for-privacy@tommasi.org wrote on 8/24/06 10:34 AM:
I read the group via Outlook Express thru my local cable ISP. It took me just a couple of sessions to kill-file a dozen or so 'froms' and I have not seen ANY of the posts you mention. But I just took Nils' suggestion and read his recent posts at Google Groups. I do see how offensive this is and how those targeted could be damaged.
I have always posted to any newsgroup using an alias and a special e-mail account to avoid spam in my regular account mail. The additional 'benefit' seems to be anonymity. To the extent that much of the information I gleen from this group is based upon the consistent quality of individual posters' input, I would find this site less useful if posters had to change identity to maintain anonymity...... but I would prefer that to no group at all.
I'm ignorant as to how the content of this group could be moved to some safer place that would still be free, but would go on record as saying that I would be a paid subscriber if that were necessary to make it happen and preserve this resource.
I also understand Nils, I also continued my trips to places that appeared on TV to be chaos (they were not). But there is a difference.
Your decision to go to Istanbul was based on your calculating that beyond the media hype there was a very very low risk of being caught up in something really bad. The same calculation was made daily by passengers in London in the past weeks.
Here you can almost be CERTAIN that obscene messages will be associated with your name on a major search engine for years to come. It is much worse, and in that sense it makes sense to find an alternative. Have "they" won? That is not the question, it is irrelevant.
If you do not want your real name used by someone else, it is easy to avoid using it. Sign up with Google to post from there. You will need a working email address to do this. Set up an email account at Netscape, Yahoo, or any of many other places that offer free email. Use a name for your email address unrelated to your real name. After you are signed up at Google for groups, then you may either delete your email account if you do not want to receive any mail resulting from NG posts and resulting spam. Or keep the email account open but configure it so that mail can only be sent, but not received, or configure it so that mail is recieved only from addresses on a list you set up.
A phpBB is a good format for a group. It can be set up in many ways. The owner can allow reading by the general public, but require registration and sign-in for posting. Trouble makers are easily banned from posting and offensive posts are easily removed. It does not cost much to set up. In fact some domain hosts have a phpBB option built right into their control panel. It is easy to click a button and start setting it up. Bandwidth is not much of an issue anymore. I know of one hosts that, for under $US 20. per month, gives you 500 GB of monthly bandwidth and unlimited disc storage space. Thus, some of those who have a domain and post here likely could set up a phpBB with no extra cost to them. You could even allow posting of a limited number on images, if you wished to do so. The main problem is the time that it might take to keep the BB working smoothly. Not everyone has time to read all of the posts to see if some are out of bounds and need to be removed. Also, it is no fun to try to settle cat fights that often start out on topic, but get out of hand.
I use Netscape. In both cases we are reaching the exact same place - the alt.food.wine newsgroup. You are merely doing it "in drag", letting Google call it a "google group".
Someone a few years back used my name to make off hand comments about the French wine and implied humor :-)
Personally it is shameful the type of trolls that have been here and kill file has not worked on many cause they kept reappearing. Must have had different ways of access to the account with same names.
AFW has mostly been a good source however I think some of the regular posters have been quite harsh to others opinions. Likely someone was offended here and seeks to do harm to the group.
The "Netscape" I refer to is not a site. And that illustrates the problem. The way it works is:
These message boards are called "Usenet newsgroups". Usenet is not a site, it is more like a protocol and collection of threads; different servers (internet connected "master computers") carry different sets of threads. Some servers carry pretty much the entire bunch. The servers that carry (host) the threads usually only keep messages for a while - a week, a few days... and then they delete the older messages to make room for new ones. Some servers have backed them up (copied them and put the tapes in the back room) for posterity. Some don't.
To read the newsgroups, one typically uses a "news reader". That is a piece of software which knows how to request the messages, and keeps track of the topics you told it you are interested in ("subscribed to") and what you've read and what you haven't. It also displays the messages to you in a coherent fashion and lets you respond.
Netscape, the software company that developed its browser also developed a newsgroup newsreader, and an Email reader, and an HTML composer, and some other software. My newsreader is Netscape 7.2's newsreader. Another common newsreader is Outlook. Much better ones exist.
To use a newsreader, you need a newsgroup account. This is different from (but usually included with) your regular ISP account. You just have to set it up.
Alta Vista (the search engine) bought the Usenet archives, and Google bought them from AltaVista. Google developed a web site which will let you use a regular web browser (like IE or Opera, or even Netscape's browser, not to be confused with its newsreader) to access the groups. However, it all comes formatted like a web page, under Google's control. The interface is far inferior to a regular newsreader. However, it does let you go back a zillion years in its archive.
It is far better to read and post via a newsreader and a news account.
Newsreaders and news accounts are specialized to do one thing right, sort of like RSS feeds (the newfangled things coming out now with audio blogs and such) are for audio.
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