How can we prevent the relentless spam targeting usenet groups?

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It may or may not be useful to also press the "I have the same question"
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https://support.google.com/groups/thread/231067143/how-can-we-prevent-the-relentless-spam-targeting-usenet-groups?hl=en

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Seems to me the best way to stop seeing spam is to set up a filter to
delete all posts with a gmail.com email address.

--
~rdh

I think you must mean "posted using Google's User-Agent G2/1.0" .

To killfile all From: addresses using " *@gmail.com " means that you
will be discarding many worthwhile posters. The From: address and
the User-Agent are ~not~ the same thing.

Regrettably, you won't see this valuable clue, which was provided
to you at no cost, gratis, absolutely free, by the SnipeCo WWWB
Internet Clue Foundation. You're very welcome.

--
^Ï^. – Sn!pe – <https://youtu.be/_kqytf31a8E>

My pet rock Gordon just is.

I have to denounce the narrow views of Mister RDH as not only impractical, but also UNFAIR to those of us who are forced to access Usenet not by a dedicated client through a server of News Network Protocol, but by the Usenet to Web interface of Google Groups. As Mister Sn!pe indicates, many worthwhile posters would be discarded by the too simplistic method of filtering out those who post from an address of Google GMail, although as he correctly informs, the address of origin and the client used are different concepts. However, blocking Google is not a solution AT ALL.

In my case I am practically forced to work with an Apple IPad tablet. There is no good NNTP software for IPad. No executables have been created by Apple itself. Only three of them by independent programmers, available at the Apple Store and in other places, but NONE of the three is good. They are all very defective, accessing News Groups with them is a pain. So, there is no other solution than the infamous Google Groups portal between the protocols NNTP and HTTP (or HTTPS) used by the two services, respectively Usenet and World Wide Web. And NOTHING ELSE.

The fortunate individual who works with Linux, or BSD, or Solaris, or another suitable system of the Unics family, has not such a problem, because he has plenty of good software available for NNTP. Even the mass of ignorants who use Microsoft Windows have not such a problem, they also have software. But those of us in IPad HAVE such a problem.

What would Mister RDH recommend to us ? To build our own software from scratch ? It is in theory possible, but it would be like recommending to someone who wants to travel across the Atlantic Ocean to build his own transatlantic ship. Surely, reinventing the ocean-going raft is also an alternative in the pure theory, but not free of very serious risks.

At the moment, we have no other solution than Google Groups, no matter what people like Mister RDH may say of us.

Dixieland for ever !

CSS Dixieland

[Original newsgroups restored.]

CSS Dixieland <cssdix...@gmail.com> wrote:

N.B. Please try to set your line length to some more reasonable value.
I'm sure the Google Groups web UI can do that.
Agreed. I have always objected to people judging other people for the
tools they use.

Anyway, as I just posted in a thread in news.admin.net-abuse.usenet,
in most newsreaders, one can easily filter on people using Google Group
or/and having a gmail.com address and whitelist the good guys. That's
what I do for another group which is frequented by gmail.com 'spammers'.
IIRC from a discussion in the Android and iPhone groups, I understand
there is an 'app' for iOS which offers some Unix/Linux like environment
and which can probably have some Unix-origin CUI (Character/'Console'
UI) newsreaders like slrn and tin (which I use) and maybe even GUI
newsreaders like Thunderbird. IIRC, the name of the app is something
like 'ashell' (Apple shell). If you can't find that app, it's probably
best to post to the iPhone group (misc.phone.mobile.iphone).

BTW, please don't talk about "the mass of ignorants who use Microsoft
Windows", because that makes you sound exactly like those you are
criticising.

I cannot do that without a Google account.

No, only combined with injected via Google Groups, some people use
@gmail.com with other news servers that care about spam.

And you're wrong. It is impossible for a Google Groups user to post
a conventional plain text article through the Google Groups Web interface.

It's not "judgemental" but observation. It's always extra work to post a
followup or, more likely, to post a followup to someone who quoted in
followup an article from Google Groups. I have to find the non-printing
non-ASCII characters which violate the plain text convention and remove
them. There are plenty of newsreaders in use that don't adequately
translate non-ASCII into the character set they are using, so the
non-ASCII characters are turned into gobledegook. This is a
long-standing well known problem with incompatibility in Usenet that
Google Groups makes worse with its inability to produce plain text.

When one doesn't post a plain-text article to Usenet, it's a matter of
telling the rest of us, "It looks fine on my screen. I don't care how it
appears on your screen. I don't care if it's likely to get mistranslated
by others."

Stop defending it. It's indefensible. Non-printing characters DO NOT
belong on Usenet. It's ridiculous that they are in such wide-spread use
on the Web and in word processing but those aren't comparable network issues.

And then there's use of non-ASCII characters in lieu of ASCII characters
where the exist, like open and close single and double quote and
non-ASCII points of suspension and non-ASCII em dash. Again, there are
plenty of people using newsreaders that do not properly translate UTF-8
characters (or the character set they didn't set in the newsreader).
This is a known problem. This can be turned off in Google Groups by
overriding one of the defaults.

You yourself pointed out that the user posted with a long line, probably
because he's using a proportional font and cares only about how it
appears on his screen and not to others. But that's how Google Groups
produces a Usenet article by default.

For better or worse, Usenet works best on laptop and desktop computers.
An 80x24 display is very difficult to produce on a smart phone screen
even if one can find an appropriate newsreader. Of course I'm using the
newsreader from the character cell terminal and not with a graphical
interface, but most people use GUIs. With a properly-designed newsreader,
it is possible to output plain text even using a GUI, even using a Web
interface. But Google Groups goes another way.

"I'm not using a desktop computer" is not the same as "I have no choice
but to use Google Groups." Give me a break.
You made a point that there should be on filtering based on use of a
Gmail address, so I disagree that you offered such a filter.

Finally, the main problem with spam and Google Groups is that Google
Groups had been the main point of peering with certain servers in China
that were major spam sources. The user isn't in position to kill file
spam from peers. That must be handled at the server level but again,
Google Groups went another way, causing trouble for the whole network.
>>There is no good NNTP software for IPad. . . .

I use more than one computer. Big deal. Even if I used a tablet, I'd use
a different computer for Usenet and email.
This doesn't explain why you cannot use another computer in addition to
your tablet.
I use Windows for certain purposes because I have certain mission-critical
applications that require Windows. I don't use Windows for Mail and News
because I don't like the clients. I like my Unix clients, so I access
News and Mail from a terminal window.

I don't use a butterknife to cut meat. I have more than one knife
available to me in the kitchen. I don't use a slotted screwdriver bit to
turn a Philips-head screw. I don't use a sledgehammer to pound nails.

>>. . .

I think I've seen some reasonable plain text articles from Google
Groups users. Not perfect and not even great, but reasonable. But that
experience might depend on the groups or/and posters.
Being old-school myself, I mostly agree with what you're saying, but
in this day and age, 'plain text' does not (no longer) equate to no
non-ASCII and no non-printing. The war on that has long been lost.

Even (very) technically competent posters mess up their posts, often
because - as you mention - it looks OK on their screen, so they're not
aware that something is wrong.

So I just accept reality and move on.
If you know how to change those defaults, then please speak up, so we
can show Google Groups users how to become better Netizens.
Fully agreed.
Note that the poster (CSS Dixieland) is using a *tablet* (iPad), not a
smartphone, so he probably has a screen which is quite capable of doing
80x24 characters.

[...]
Sorry, but I don't understand what you mean here (even after deleting
the first 'on').

[...]
As my User-Agent header shows, I also use a Unix(-origin) newsreader
(tin) and because it runs 'under' Cygwin, I can do/use all kinds of
other Unix stuff on Windows. For *me* that's the best of both worlds and
I do not need two machines, multi-booting, VM or anything like that. (My
use of Cygwin predates WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) by nearly two
decades. If I'd had to start now, I might use WSL instead of Cygwin.)

[...]
I've done a simple Google search and found that the 'app' is called
'a-Shell':

'a-Shell'
<https://apps.apple.com/us/app/a-shell/id1473805438?platform=ipad>

The App Store page contains further pointers, like to the Developer
Web Site, which in turn contains pointers to GitHub, etc..

N.B. The Reviews on the App Store page indicate that there are also
other 'shells' for iOS, like 'iSH'.

[...]

The attribution line has a nonbreaking space in it, always. It's part of
the timestamp. 5:14<NBSP>PM

>. . .
The Google use of <NBSP> cannot be turned off. There are settings that
sometimes turn off non-ASCII quotes and use ASCII quotes, sometimes.
That helps. It's turning off the Rich Text feature. But I've seen Google
Groups posters who insist they have this turned off but sometimes post
non-ASCII quotes.

The long line? The user has to turn off both Rich Text and choose a
fixed-width font, then set the line length correct. Actually, one line
per paragraph, making the paragraph a single very long line (whether or
not it's marked as Format=Flowed), causes less trouble than a paragraph
with long lines with interstitial breaks.
Good point. There are older Apple newsreaders that haven't been
supported in years but they may not work on the latest operating
systems. Do tablets have the ability to start up in linux?

>[...]

CSS Dixieland <cssdix...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I have to denounce the narrow views of Mister RDH as not only impractical, =
>but also UNFAIR to those of us who are forced to access Usenet not by a ded=
>icated client through a server of News Network Protocol, but by the Usenet =
>to Web interface of Google Groups. As Mister Sn!pe indicates, many worthwhi=
>le posters would be discarded by the too simplistic method of filtering out=
> those who post from an address of Google GMail, although as he correctly i=
>nforms, the address of origin and the client used are different concepts. H=
There are other web interfaces to Usenet. They are not spam sources the
way google groups is. Feel free to use one of them if you are worried about
people blocking Google Groups. I am definitely inclined to support a UDP
against Google Groups although I think it's probably too late to do much
good.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

O 30/08/23 ás 17:03, Adam H. Kerman escribiu:
Which means those newsreaders are broken. Their authors should fix them
or their users should find better working implementations.
Usenet is plain text. Line size doesn't matter, it can be easily wrapped.

And 'short' lines can be easily *unwrapped* into long lines, if the
(human) reader wishes.

As ~72-80 character lines have been the standard since the beginning,
'modern' newsreaders have no excuse for breaking 'old' newsreaders.
NetNews rule number one: "Don't break old clients!".

Parodper <paro...@disroot.org> wrote:
>O 30/08/23 as 17:03, Adam H. Kerman escribiu:

You managed to create an attribution line with a non-ASCII character in
it. Brilliant move, there.
Don't be an asshole. This is a well-known issue. Use of these
newsreaders long predates UTF-8's use on Usenet. In some cases, these
newsreaders predate character set declaration. The newsreaders tend to
be abandoned by their authors and certain platforms don't have other
choices in newsreaders that users find acceptable. I know any number of
Usenet users who deliberately use long out-of-date MacOS's in order to
continue using a specific newsreader that they like.
No, moron, line wrapping does not solve the long line problem. Long lines
tend to break awkwardly. Again, this is a well-known problem. Format=Flowed
standard was developed for the Blackberry, if I recall correctly, but
it's a poorly implemented standard. Most clients that claim to implement
it choke on reflowing quoted text. Very few output line length at 78
characters or less so it displays properly where flowed text isn't
implemented.

Anyone who has been on Usenet for more than a few minutes has
encountered everything I've mentioned. Knock off the trolling here.

I'm not really judging anyone for using Google Groups. Do you remember
what happened to the IRC in the 90s? A single host was behaving poorly,
and because the operators would not do anything to stop the griefers, it
was eventually quarantined.

Today (and for the past 5+ years), Google Groups is operating as a haven
for spammers. If they won't fix it, it's up to us, but our only recourse
is to just can all posts from them.

For what it's worth: I didn't come up with this idea. It was one that
someone told me makes Usenet a much better experience. I haven't
actually done it yet, but I know there exists a subset of people already
blocking Google Groups. My suggestion to any person who wants to
communicate on Usenet is to not use Google Groups. It's just too spammy.

--
~rdh

An unofficial UDP against Google Groups is almost as good. Drop the
messages and tell your peers you're dropping them. Note it on your
peering page. If it becomes known that a high percentage of servers are
dropping GG messages, the best-case scenario is that *good* posters find
new servers and the *bad* posters continue to use GG (and get ignored).

Every time I see a terrible post, hit 't' for headers and confirm that
yep, it came from Google... I get one step closer to just adding that rule.

john

We've been telling people that for years, but you can't tell anyone who
is reluctant to subscribe to a News server and use a newsreader as the
client. Other people have to chose to overcome their own ignorance and
apathy.

It's about getting google to stop the flood coming from their googlegroups.

I filter on all of: user-agent = G2, message-id = googlegroups and from
= gmail.com
(some people use GG to post but don't use a gmail address, so all three
works well for me)

GG used to be useful for searching, but they broke that too.

[...]
I don't think so. But see my second response with details about
'a-Shell', which offers a Unix like environment. That allows the user to
compile C/C++ programs, so can probably be used to build (make/compile/
link?) newsreaders like slrn or tin.

Well, Mister Slootweg, then for not sounding like an ignorant I may have to say:

"The highly intelligent, deeply knowledgeable, and always sophisticated Computing experts who wisely choose the advanced tools generously offered by Microsoft Windows, and make impressive feats programming with them..."

Sorry for the piece of good humour, I could not resist the joke. I do not intend to offend, I know that You work with Cygwin. I can only say that I worked with MS-DOS until its last release in 1994, and with Windows until Windows 98, later versions of Windows were not of my liking for various reasons. I moved first to Free-DOS, later I experimented with Minix, BSD and Linux. Now I am temporarily attached to an Apple IPad that I made the BLUNDER of acquiring.

I am aware of the long lines, character set (page code) issues, and the other presentation problems that Mister Kerman mentions. I know that my text appearing correctly on the screen of my tablet IS NO GUARANTEE of also appearing correctly on the screens of other devices. Unfortunately, though I have carefully read the help of Google Groups, I do not recall having read how to solve those problems. That information seems to be absent from the help.

You are correct, Mister Slootweg, that ISH and A-Shell are the best options for working with a semblance of the Linux command line in Apple IPad. I have not tried accessing News Groups via NNTP from those Linux emulators, I have the two installed in my tablet but I use them for other purposes. It may be better than accessing Google Groups via WWW (HTTP or HTTPS). So far I do not know. Important warning: Once installed in the tablet, ISH should not be updated to newer versions, because if updated, it loses communication with the 'Files' executable. It becomes then necessary to uninstall and install again, but of course losing all the data that were stored in the previous installation. It is a known problem of ISH, mentioned in the documentation, but probably not to be solved upstream any time soon.

This is a very brief resume of past or present projects for TRYING to emulate Linux in Apple devices:

Asahi Linux: for Apple Macintosh, not for Apple IOS.

A-Shell: Linux emulator. Files works. Better keyboard than Ish but impossible package installation.

Blink Shell: basic commands. SSH, Mosh, Blink Code dev for VSCode. Free for 7 days, then paid.

Checkra1n/PongoOS: jailbreak for IPad, not system or emulator. Usable from Linux or Macintosh.

Ish: Alpine Linux emulator. Files works only at first installation, not after update. Poor keyboard.

JingOS: Chinese project for Linux in Apple, incomplete and discontinued.

Linux Apple Resources: Asahi creator gives very succint ideas for Linux via Checkra1n/PongoOS

NewTerm: real terminal emulator for IOS, jailbreak required. It fully controls the Apple device,
much more than what A-Shell can do. Functions, tab-based interface, font support.

PostmarketOS: of 2010. Alpine Linux for IPad first generation. Very limited, almost discontinued.

QMole: of 2017. Linux compatibility container layer for IPad 1 version 8 or older. Discontinued.

Sandcastle: Android Linux for IPhone or IPod Touch, not for IPad. Unreliable and undocumented.

Termux: terminal emulator for Android supporting other Linux systems. Not for Apple IOS.

UTM: Arch, Debian, Fedora, Kali, Ubuntu Linux or others in jailbroken IPad 14. Prefer Debian 10.4
(about 10 Gigabytes) and ARM64 via 'Open in UTM', but if necessary use X64 or use 'Download':
https://mac.getutm.app/gallery/

It may be possible to install .IPA data set without external computer by some of these services:
https://www.diawi.com/
https://testflight.apple.com/
https://www.installonair.com/

I hope to have been useful with the succint information given above. Receive a Confederate Salute, Gentlemen.

First off, why did you again strip the other original groups? Is that
yet another quirk of Google Groups?

[...]
If you "experimented with Minix, BSD and Linux", do you still have the
machine(s)? If so, you could use that/those to access NetNews/Usenet in
a proper way.

[...]
[...]
Looking at the Developer Website and the linked GitHub pages, package
installation looks quite easy to me. What problems do you have? Have you
tried a-Shell's 'App Support' site? Etc..

Do you need any additional packages at all to compile a newsreader?

[...]

All-in-all, to me, a-Shell looks like your best bet.

Finally, have you looked into other (than GG) web interfaces to Usenet
which Scott Dorsey referred to? That would be a much easier solution
(than Unix/Linux emuators). Scott didn't give any specific examples, but
I'm sure he or others would be able to help with that (and there's
always Google! :-)).

Frank Slootweg <th...@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

[...]
Many Usenet users with iOS devices use Newstap to post with, available
from the iOS App Store, also on MacOS App Store for those using Apple
Silicon machines.

Yes, I've heard about good/reasonable experiences with Newstap.

But poster 'CSS Dixieland' seems to have rejected it, unless Newstap
was not amongst the three apps he did look at, which is quite unlikely.

O 31/08/23 ás 16:38, Adam H. Kerman escribiu:
Yes? That's a key on my keyboard, it's not hard at all.
Software rots. What else's new.
On the contrary, your short lines puts a limit on how much I can reduce
my screen, because the line breaks leave dangling words.
Right, so they *are* broken.
I don't. My client works well enough. Also, stop the namecalling.

Well, *my* 'stone-age' newsreader can set the attribution line based
on the newsgroup (or a regular expression of newsgroups). I.e. it can
show 'On','at' and 'wrote' instead of you local language (Galician?)
equivalents. Why can't your 'modern' newsreader do that?
Software doesn't 'rot'. It just keeps working like before. (FWIW, as
I said before, *I* don't object to UTF-8, when it's called for.)
As I said before, unwrapping 'short' lines is easy. If you want that
feature, but your newsreader can't do it, then get your newsreader fixed
or get another newsreader. Don't blame the standard.
No, the design of Format=Flowed is so that one can display (non-F=F)
short lines correctly and can unwrap them if desired.

But, as Adam explained, most Format=Flowed *implementations* don't
properly reflow quoted text. Again: Don't blame other newsreaders for
your broken one.
Apparently your client does *not* "work well enough", otherwise you
wouldn't be complaining about issues resulting from *its* limitations.

["Followup-To:" header set to alt.culture.usenet.]
> https://support.google.com/groups/thread/231067143/how-can-we-prevent-the-relentless-spam-targeting-usenet-groups?hl=en
>

Use killfiles in your usenet client. For instance, with SLRN
under Linux/BSD you can set it up in a near "graphical" way
by pressing "k" and making choices in text menues.

O 01/09/23 ás 20:41, Frank Slootweg escribiu:
> Parodper <paro...@disroot.org> wrote:
>> O 31/08/23 ás 16:38, Adam H. Kerman escribiu:
Because I don't care, like I also don't care what your newsreader can do.
Software rots because the world keeps changing under it. An accounting
DOS program might have been feature-complete, but that doesn't matter if
I can't use it after the 2000.
I didn't. And wrapping long lines is a lot easier than unwrapping short
lines. If vi can do it, why can't you?
If «most Format=Flowed *implementations*» don't do what they are
supposed to do, then they are broken. Thanks for agreeing.
You've got that backwards. MY newsreader properly reflows text. It's
just that YOUR newsreader doesn't enable format=flowed. If you don't
tell it to reflow, then it doesn't. Working as expected.

And again, I'm not blaming anyone.
I never said it didn't work. And the only thing I'm complaining about is
that you want to keep using Usenet like it's still the 80s, when
encodings were a pain to use and the only screens available were CRT.

[...]
But that's the whole point. Yes, the world is changing, but that
doesn't mean 'old' clients can not be used anymore, especially in
English-language groups, which these groups 'happen' to be.
Bingo! vi can not only wrap long lines, but it can also unwrap short
lines. So there's no reason that your - or anybody else's - newsreader
can't do it.
Sadly, "what they are supposed to do" is in the eye of the beholder. I
(and probably Adam and you (?)) think that they should be able to handle
(multiple levels of) quoted lines. But some (most?) of the
*implementers* think differently or/and can't be bothered. Good luck,
changing that.
So yours works and my one works and neither one has a problem with the
other? Great, glad we sorted that one out.
Well, you seem to be blaming users of 'old' clients or/and users who
want other users to stick to established standards (unless there's a
very good reason not to).
Nope. I already explained my stance on the use of non-ASCII character
sets and while *I* wish to see/read short lines (Clue-by-four: Why do
you think newspapers, etc. use short lines?), other users can do what
*they* want, as long as they don't violate established standards.

But, I've think we've covered everthing backwards and forwards.
Probably no point in continuing. So, AFAIC, EOD. Have a nice day.

Parodper <paro...@disroot.org> wrote:
>01/09/23 20:41, Frank Slootweg escribiu:
>>Parodper <paro...@disroot.org> wrote:
>>>31/08/23 16:38, Adam H. Kerman escribiu:
>>>>Parodper <paro...@disroot.org> wrote:
>>>>>O 30/08/23 17:03, Adam H. Kerman escribiu:
I know you don't give a shit. You made that clear from the beginning
when you created that attribution line to deliberately cause things to
break for other Usenet users.

It's not about how it looks on your screen but how it looks on everybody
else's. You're communicating on a network with other people. You aren't
posting to your own blog on a Web page, publishing on your own server in
which you control how it's laid out.

On text Usenet, we post in plain text, and when writing in English, we
use ASCII. Why? ASCII is universal. ASCII is never mistranslated by
anybody's newsreader.

We don't write an article entirely in English that requires no ASCII
characters in it at all, then create an attribution line that has a
single non-ASCII character in it in order to force the issue of
declaring the use of a non-ASCII character set that won't be correctly
quoted in followup when using certain newsreaders.

That's trolling.

When called out on bad behavior, we don't argue the point in followup
after followup, denying reality. You're just seeking attention.

You're a troll.

>>>>>>. . .
Nope. You don't get to redefine words with well-known definitions like
"rot", then declare that you've won the argument. It doesn't work like
that.

>>. . .
I didn't send short lines. I never do. Line length between 72 and 79
characters (or 78 characters when using Format=Flowed) is the expected
line length. Longer than that is a long line; shorter than 72 is a short
line.

I'm using vim which doesn't typically end the line within the paragraph
with the trailing space required for Format=Flowed. Because
Format=Flowed is broken on too many implementations, I don't bother.
Even if I were to quote Format=Flowed, the lines are received in poor
condition and don't allow text already quoted from a precursor article
to flow. To get it to work right requires reformatting all the quoted
text, which is extra work I'm not going to bother doing.
>If most Format=Flowed implementations don't do what they are
You didn't make that point. I did. That's why I generally don't bother
outputting Format=Flowed.
You have no evidence that Frank's newsreader failed to correctly
implement Format=Flowed. You're just running your mouth.
You're blaming everybody else, actually.
You're blaming everybody else, actually. Quite a few CRTs were well
designed and their well-liked features influenced implementations that
came later.

You're just running your mouth.

O 02/09/23 ás 16:47, Adam H. Kerman escribiu:
I didn't. My attribution line is the same everywhere. And if some
software breaks for multibyte characters, they should file a bug report.

I still haven't read any responses by anyone who's newsreaders are being
broken by my attribution line. You and Frak obviously don't count, since
you are able to followup to my message. Seems like you're the only one
who cares.
UTF-8 is also universal, and it's backwards compatible with ASCII.
Never knew that attribution lines were so important that a single
character merited five paragraphs.
«bad behavior»? Sorry, Mr. Usenet Police. I didn't know you aren't
supposed to debate in a forum.
Show your definition then:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_rot#Environment_change>.

And this is not a race, there are no winners or losers.
Not implement, include. His Content-Type doesn't include format=flowed,
like mine does.
I'm not blaming. I'm arguing that in this day and age you can use
Unicode in text posts, and that lines can be more than 72 chars wide.
What am I blaming them (who?) of, then?
Pot calling the kettle black.

This has been going on for years. Plenty of Usenet sites and probably
most Usenet users drop Google Groups postings. It has helped a lot, but
not enough, and a plateau was reached long ago.

If you want the rules changed, start a new RFC and get them changed.

In the meantime, if people use high bit characters or long lines or
base64 encoding, their posts are not likely to be read. If you want to
do these things, there's nothing I can do to stop you, but if your goal
is for people to read what you post, it is likely a good idea to follow
the rules.

Parodper <paro...@disroot.org> wrote:
>02/09/23 16:47, Adam H. Kerman escribiu:
>I didn't. . . .

You did. You're gaslighting now, so not reading the rest of your
misrepresentations.

[Most deleted. Only (re-)addressing one point, which is - again - a
misrepresentation - or at least a severe misunderstanding - of the
actual situation/facts.]
Yes, you *can* use non-ASCII characters when *needed*. But often,
people - including you in your local-language attribution line - use
non-ASCII characters for no reason (and in your case, it actually makes
things *worse* - i.e. using local-language words in an English-language
group - instead of better).

And yes, lines *can* be more than 72 characters wide, but again, *if*
that adds value for the poster *and* does not adversely affect other
users. That's why Format=Flowed uses (read: should use) long *logical*
lines, consisting of 'short' *physical* lines ending in an invisible
soft break, followed by a hard break (spaceCRLF).

Trust us, smart people have figured this all out a long, long time
ago and designed the RFCs in a way to make the above requirements
possible.

That's all we (now three) are saying: Be a good Netizen and make sure
that your posts can be read and read easily by the audience you're
addressing.

If you don't want to be a good Netizen, then just say so, but don't
hide behind bogus arguments that other people's newsreaders are at fault
and they should get with the program.

Mister Slootweg, You are becoming FASTIDIOUS, and I am not very patient with people who DO NOT WANT to understand.

And as for me, I do not understand what You mean by "stripping again the other original groups", because Your words seem to assume that I know something, but I have no idea of what that 'something' may be. Write more complete explanations, AS I DO. Do not leave the reader wondering what You may have meant.

It is OBVIOUS that I have not the machines on which I experimented Minix, BSD and Linux. If I had any of those machines until today, there would be no need of using Apple IPad. Then I could access NNTP 'in the proper way'. But currently I cannot, as far as I know it is only possible to me via Google Groups or, perhaps, via one of the two Linux emulators for IPad, which are ISH and A-Shell, both already installed in my IPad.

Of course I have read a considerable part of the documentation of A-Shell and of ISH. Maybe not every detail, but my procedure is ALWAYS to begin by reading the available documentation of the software that I install. I have experience of YEARS with computers, I am not an ignorant born yesterday.

The only interface between World Wide Web and Usenet of which I am aware is Google Groups. Deja News does not exist anymore, and I have no idea of which may be the other interfaces suggested by Mister Scott Dorsey, if indeed any other interfaces exist.

In stead of formulating useless questions without providing any valid information, Mister Slootweg, You could do much more service to every one by INFORMING of which are those Web to Usenet interfaces, or by providing other solutions for accessing Usenet 'in the proper way' from Apple IPad.

Google is NOT the only search engine for the World Wide Web, there are better options available. One is Duck Duck Go, and there are others.

Do not ask again a battery of unnecessary questions. Put Yourself in the place of an experienced person whose only devices are, at present, an Apple IPad tablet and a Galaxy mobile telephone running Android Linux.

[Stripped newsgroups restored, again.]
Step away from that mirror, *NOW!* :-(
Sigh! The original posting was posted to:

> Newsgroups: news.groups,alt.fan.usenet,alt.culture.usenet

But *your* responses were only posted to alt.fan.usenet. So the
question was/is, who/what stripped the other newsgroups, you or Google
Groups?

To add insult to injury, this time you even managed to respond to the
wrong article. Your response references (References: header) one of my
responses to *Parodper*, instead of to you. Even GG should be able to
show/perform the correct threading.

[...]
But, even with all that experience, you can't be bothered saying what
went wrong, what errors you got, etc.. Got it!
Sigh! *If* I had specific information about other (than GG) web
interfaces to Usenet, I would of course have given that. Because I don't
- because I have no need for them -, I pointed to Scott. So if you have
questions, ask Scott, that's how these things work on Usenet.
You don't say!
Ah, more info popping up, even without me asking "unnecessary
questions"!

As to "an experienced person", you still have show evidence to back up
that claim.

QED. HTH. EOD. HAND. NC.

Slootweg, keeping now all the headers so that my reply could reach thy repugnant eyes:

Thou art a SON OF A BITCH !!!

I try to do my best, but I have no patience with HATEFUL SONS OF BITCH like thee.

If thou wert not a MISERABLE COWARD hiding behind a computer, I should SMASH THY ODIOUS FACE, and throw thy dead body to the pigs.

I am not going to ask Mister Scott or anyone, if they had that information, they should already have posted it.

I am simply abandoning this group FOR EVER, meaning that all Members simply lose the knowledge that in many other aspects of Computing I could have provided to them.

And meaning that thou canst rant as much as thou wantest. Thy STUPIDITIES WILT NEVER reach me. Thou rather seemest a kike or a kaffer, and I DEEPLY HATE kikes and kaffers.

Dixieland for ever !!!

CSS Dixieland

Last transmission. Signing off...

On Sat, 2 Sep 2023 14:47:24 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com>
wrote in <ucvhtr$esg2$1...@dont-email.me>:
("TINW". ;) (But this post is only 7-bit.)

I'm not sure, but there might be an RFC expanding on that
definition to include usage of UTF-8...and indeed,
one GNKSAI newsreader (pan) includes the
ability to insert an emoji in its editor.

Wrote about this back in March in alt.fan.usenet:

Message-ID: <pan$c9574$eaa8c0ab$897a78a7$8b3...@vallor.earth>

One can also use emojis on an xfce4-terminal. I think most modern terminals
will render them. The Linux tool "gnome characters" is helpful for
copying emojis to the clipboard, if your newsreader is older.

--
-v

vallor <val...@vallor.earth> wrote:
>Sat, 2 Sep 2023 14:47:24 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <a...@chinet.com>:
Even you are admitting that use of emojis isn't universal because those
with other newsreaders aren't set up to insert or display them.
Why would I want to do that if other people cannot receive it for
display?

Way to completely miss the point.

On Tue, 5 Sep 2023 14:47:05 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com>
wrote in <ud7f19$20qo6$1...@dont-email.me>:
_Which_ "other people" are you speaking for?

Hey, this doesn't have to be complicated. Some people like plain
ASCII. Some people enjoy emojis, and can view them with their
newsreader.

Some people like listening to the radio, some people
like watching TV.
If you say so.

--
-v

vallor <val...@vallor.earth> wrote:
>Tue, 5 Sep 2023 14:47:05 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <a...@chinet.com>:
That would be people who are other than me, who aren't using a character
set including emojis (regardless of whether it's displayable in their
terminal emulation) and who just want to receive plain text characters.
No one not using a character set that includes emojis wants to receive
emojis. Furthermore, if they quote characters they cannot display, the
followup is messed up. Emojis are not plain text. It's not complicated
to understand.
You're acting like someone whose has a radio can receive a television
broadcast.
You've convinced me. You didn't miss the point. You are being obtuse,
willfully.

On Tue, 5 Sep 2023 16:11:38 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com>
wrote in <ud7jvq$21q0c$1...@dont-email.me>:
I was pointing out "TINW". But yes, there are some newsgroups where
UTF-8 isn't welcome. I'm not suggesting posting them
to (say) comp.lang.c. (Or news.groups, where I'm studiously remaining
with ASCII emoticons. :) )
I do see your point, that is a problem. In some groups,
they aren't appropriate. As more and more newsreaders modernize,
this will be less of a problem, I dare say.

(Last commit for pan was August 27th.)
Or someone is acting like we should stick with radio, and never have
television on any of the spectrum. :/

Or we should stick with analog TV, instead of HDTV.
No, I just don't share your views. And I don't think I've been
rude to you, that wouldn't be called-for -- I just disagree.

BTW, if it matters: my first newsreader was rn
on HP/UX 8. That was 1991. A lot has changed
since then: it's a new millenium.

--
-v

vallor <val...@vallor.earth> wrote:
>Tue, 5 Sep 2023 16:11:38 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <a...@chinet.com>:
It's not really about a newsreader modernizing. It's about whether one
is communicating in plain text. If one requires an emoji to communicate,
that's not plain text communication.
Radio and television are two entirely different media of communication.
I listen to radio comedies and dramas from decades ago because it was
entertaining. I watch television because it can be entertaining
(although all too rarely these days). I listen to modern radio
broadcasts. It's not either/or.
Change doesn't require anybody to change well-known definitions nor to
throw out existing media of communications just because other people
communicate differently.
Of course the world has changed. That doesn't require me to stop
listening to radio or stop watching tv. You're clearly around my age, as
you ignore that kids today DO NOT watch tv. Everything they watch is on
the smart phone screen. They don't even use laptop computers and have no
idea what a desktop computer is, let alone a work station or (gasp) a
minicomputer or a mainframe. But because they use smart phone screens
doesn't require you to dispose of your tv sets.

Plain text is its own medium of communication. It uses words to
communicate. It doesn't rely on specific fonts nor enhancements like bold
and italic and underline. Emojis are something else entirely. So many
are created so quickly that it eludes me how anybody uses them to
communicate.

On Tue, 5 Sep 2023 19:15:37 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com>
wrote in <ud7uop$23kbh$1...@dont-email.me>:
This is my second draft of this article, the first being lost in a tragic
pan accident.

I've set Followup-To: news.software.readers , since this discussion should
go there. (See RFC citations below.)
Executive summary: Standards for netnews user agents changed in 2009.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5536 [...]
2.3. MIME Conformance

User agents MUST meet the definition of MIME conformance in [RFC2049]
and MUST also support [RFC2231]. This level of MIME conformance
provides support for internationalization and multimedia in message
bodies [RFC2045], [RFC2046], and [RFC2231], and support for
internationalization of header fields [RFC2047] and [RFC2231]. Note
that [Errata] currently exist for [RFC2045], [RFC2046], [RFC2047] and
[RFC2231].
[...snip...]
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
And RFC 2049 section on MIME conformance:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2049#section-2 It's long; I won't
quote it, except for this part:

-- Recognize other character sets at least to the
extent of being able to inform the user about what character
set the message uses.

[ As an aside: if it's going to inform the user, it might as well ask if
it should run some helper program to display the RFC-compliant message
that the news agent can't handle. ]

Anyway, I wonder: what is the ratio of compliant to non-compliant
user agents on Usenet?

And we're talking about an RFC dtd 2009 -- how much longer
will the sage gentlepersons of Usenet yore be
demanding "ASCII only"...another 14 years? ;)

Followup-To: news.software.readers

--
-v

vallor <val...@vallor.earth> wrote:
>Tue, 5 Sep 2023 19:15:37 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <a...@chinet.com>:
I have no interest in having any further discussion with people who play
Followup-To games. You crossposted, dude. If you thought the discussion
was off topic, then don't crosspost yourself. Control your own behavior.
Do not attempt to control anybody else's.

You can write all the RFCs you like. It doesn't force the user to change
newsreaders. This is a well-known issue that you simply refuse to
discuss. Your call.

There's nothing to read here. Adding emojis to UTF just because there's
"unlimited" room to encode new characters was entirely irrelevant to
internationalization, even if the way internationalization was done in
RFCs was actually desireable as was done.

You don't want to discuss what we're discussing. Your call.

And other people like Fakebook and TicTack.
I'll stick to 7 bits, myself...

--
A host is a host from coast to coast...............wb8foz@panix.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close..........................
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

On Tue, 5 Sep 2023 23:53:19 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com>
wrote in <ud8f1f$25rsc$1...@dont-email.me>:
By continuing to crosspost, Adam tacitly indemnifies
that it belongs in the groups. So if you don't think this belongs
in news.groups -- blame Adam.

Further, he has expressed his displeasure with an
advisory header about where discussion about non-compliant
newsreaders would be on-topic. Rookie maneuver.
Adam is apparently confused: they aren't "my" RFCs,
they are _our_ RFCs. They are _the_ RFCs,
standards without which we wouldn't have a Usenet.

Since Adam snipped the portion about
his newsreader being obsolete, there's no
further discussion to be had with him: he
is not communicating in good faith. What
a shame.

--
-v