It's a damn shame to see this happening.

database 4559 (20091030) __________

Then switch from giganews to eternal-september which does an excellent job of filtering.

Jerry

Or just set your reader up to filter EVERYTHING from googlegroups.com. When I saw this, I was just thinking how traffic seemed to have slowed down. Thus the usefulness of filters (grin)

With a higher priority watch filter for the few google users you want to hear from.

I get lumped in with that wide assed paintbrush.

I have an Eternal September account but I also have a few details to work out yet to make it useful.

I _have_ been bitched at others for using Google Groups before.

berk

NOTE: Posting from groups.google.com (or some web-forums) dramatically reduces the chance of your post being seen. Find a real news server.

I haven't seen it necessary to go that far yet, though I am filtering on "Message-ID: googlegroups.com" in 14 of the 76 Usenet newsgroups I try to scan daily.

It's more than that. If you look at the number of articles that are being _offered_ by your news server (before filtering), even that is decreasing. For this group, the annual figures are:

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Offered 27902 21770 17900 18862 12430 7473 3870 Killed 1905 1504 1746 4321 3855 1888 2178

(figures are to 1400 UTC 31 Oct 2009 - annualized estimates for 2009 would be 4464 offered, 2614 killed.) The number of articles that hit the filter isn't that far from my historical average, but the overall number of articles is down substantially. This makes it appear that the spam level is worse. The _ratio_ is, but not so much the absolute numbers. (This overall decline is true across Usenet.)

[compton ~]$ grep '^Score:' /var/spool/slrnpull/score | sort | uniq -c | column 11 Score: =-9999 22 Score:: =-9999 1 Score:: =10 [compton ~]$

Very little is scored up - but I don't seem to miss much that I would be interested in. With this news tool, a single colon is an "AND" rule meaning all conditions for that rule have to be met before the score applies - the :: is an "OR" rule meaning that any rule match triggers the score.

Which is why my news reader automatically inserted that 'NOTE:' at the top of this post. One of the characters on Usenet - the late "Blinky the Shark" - operated "The Usenet Improvement Project" which used to be at

It's been mirrored elsewhere, so the shark's philosophy lives on.

Contrary to popular belief, googlegroups.com is not the only alternative.

ALL of google is an advertising service. Their data mining and archiving is done solely to better tailor the advertisements they are targeting at you. Regrettably, they intentionally ignore spam complaints - apparently they feel the increased number of items they are able to show will increase their sales revenue. This is in spite of the fact that they could virtually eliminate the abuse originating on their server with _trivial_ effort on their part. They have also ``improved'' their search engine in such a way as to destroy much of the usefulness it once had. You have no doubt seen responses to frequently asked questions referring the poster to 'JFGI' (Just F* Google It). I'm no longer recommending people try to search at google simply because it has become so useless. Hell, in some cases the ads they show don't even match the topic I'm looking for. There really are a lot of other search engines out there, and most are not as obnoxious as google. Google's time has passed.

Old guy

I wonder at their business model. Sooner or later their advertisers are going to realise that nobody reads their ads pretty much like nobody reads email spam ads.

On a similar note, I don't buy from companies which voicemail spam me

- for example Dish Network who were at one time calling me two or three times a week. I will never use their product.

k

Old Guy, thx for the well reasoned, well spoken reply.

I am currently 'improving' the networking here at base camp, until it doesn't break more than it adds I can't get 'at" Eternal September in a meaningful way.

(But the 'fix' is in.)

In any case; Happy Halloween!

berk

Meanwhile, at the alt.internet.wireless Job Justification Hearings, Christopher A. Lee chose the tried and tested strategy of:

Wonder all you like, but I know a guy who operates a couple of online shops, and

90% of his visits come from Adwords and organic search. People even ring him up on a weekly basis, claiming to know how to improve his rankings.

I can't even remember the last time I used a search engine that wasn't Google. Google is far from dead yet.

I've stolen their "product" in the past, f*ck em.

If you think about it, this is somewhat true of advertising in general. Do you remain in your chair watching when a commercial comes on TV? Most people use that time to do more important things.

In some ways, google is looking like spammers, recognizing that the ads are (relatively) cheap to deliver, and that there is a huge potential audience. With some web browsers, you can control what is displayed - to the extent that you can eliminate the ads entirely. Eventually advertisers will realize they are going to have to come up with something better - either more appealing, or less obnoxious.

You are using an 'optonline.net' address - are you in the USA? If so, get onto your state and federal 'no-call' lists. See

and/or If you are not in the USA, your country may have similar rules - some of which have teeth that can make it worth your while to complain.

Old guy