On Saturday, November 4, 2023 at 9:53:08 AM UTC, Neil Rieck wrote:

> That's when I noticed that the google nerds had added a tool that I just noticed:
> (1) display a page of 30 messages
> (2) click on the colored icon of any message you wish to flag (you can click up to 30)
> (3) click on the icon containing a circled exclamation (a dialog will pop up)
> (4) SPAM will usually be selected by default so click the button "submit report"
>
> I have no idea if/when google's algorithms will kick in to stop this ridiculous non-sense at the source BUT I am hoping that if multiple visitors of this newsgroup do the same as me, then this activity will set off a few alarms somewhere.
> Neil Rieck
> Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
> https://neilrieck.net
> https://neilrieck.net/OpenVMS.html

I've automated it somewhat with cypress and have started flagged the batches of messages as 'hateful content' especially as they're now advertising spells that kill people. The hindi drivel is none too pleasant either.

There was a brief period when the 'Marked as spam etc.' blanking disappeared, along with the message a few hours later. It now seems that I have to scroll through pages of this to get to a legitimate post.

Does Google actually care about this?

K

On Saturday, November 4, 2023 at 5:53:08 AM UTC-4, Neil Rieck wrote:
> On Monday, October 23, 2023 at 6:32:53 AM UTC-4, Henry Crun wrote:
> > If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love potions" spam, please let me know.
> > Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with VMS after something like three decades
> > --
> > No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
> > Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#befor
> It is now Saturday morning and I was preparing to write a python program which would scan "https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.vms", detect trigger phrases, then mark the message as SPAM.
>
> That's when I noticed that the google nerds had added a tool that I just noticed:
> (1) display a page of 30 messages
> (2) click on the colored icon of any message you wish to flag (you can click up to 30)
> (3) click on the icon containing a circled exclamation (a dialog will pop up)
> (4) SPAM will usually be selected by default so click the button "submit report"
>
> I have no idea if/when google's algorithms will kick in to stop this ridiculous non-sense at the source BUT I am hoping that if multiple visitors of this newsgroup do the same as me, then this activity will set off a few alarms somewhere.
> Neil Rieck
> Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
> https://neilrieck.net
> https://neilrieck.net/OpenVMS.html
I've been doing this manually and also reported to Google thru other channels. No difference so far.

John Reagan <xyzzy1959@gmail.com> wrote:
>I've been doing this manually and also reported to Google thru other channe=
>ls. No difference so far.

Google is not the solution. Google is the problem. Expecting anyone at
Google to ever do anything about their customers' constant and incessant
abuse of Usenet is futile. It has been going on for decades now and
complaints to Google have never done any good.

Get off Google, and get onto a legitimate Usenet service. Many of them
block postings from Google, and the ones that don't will allow you a
normal newsreader which has services to block this stuff.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 04/11/2023 15:25, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> John Reagan <xyzzy1959@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've been doing this manually and also reported to Google thru other channe=
>> ls. No difference so far.
>
> Google is not the solution. Google is the problem. Expecting anyone at
> Google to ever do anything about their customers' constant and incessant
> abuse of Usenet is futile. It has been going on for decades now and
> complaints to Google have never done any good.
>
> Get off Google, and get onto a legitimate Usenet service. Many of them
> block postings from Google, and the ones that don't will allow you a
> normal newsreader which has services to block this stuff.
> --scott

Who would you recommend as a legitimate Usenet service? Eternal
September seem to do what they can, but of late have swamped...

I also have an issue with news readers. I use Thunderbird, but for news
it is fairly rubbish

--
Chris

Chris Townley wrote:

> Who would you recommend as a legitimate Usenet service?

<https://individual.net>

> Eternal September seem to do what they can, but of late have
> swamped...
>
> I also have an issue with news readers. I use Thunderbird, but for news
> it is fairly rubbish

It's "good enough", if you use v115 and find the new GUI is a bit of a
surprise, pop in to a.c.s.thunderbird for tips on making it look like it
used to

On Sat, 4 Nov 2023 15:46:25 +0000
Chris Townley <news@cct-net.co.uk> wrote:

> On 04/11/2023 15:25, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> > John Reagan <xyzzy1959@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I've been doing this manually and also reported to Google thru other channe=
> >> ls. No difference so far.
> >
> > Google is not the solution. Google is the problem. Expecting anyone at
> > Google to ever do anything about their customers' constant and incessant
> > abuse of Usenet is futile. It has been going on for decades now and
> > complaints to Google have never done any good.
> >
> > Get off Google, and get onto a legitimate Usenet service. Many of them
> > block postings from Google, and the ones that don't will allow you a
> > normal newsreader which has services to block this stuff.
> > --scott
>
> Who would you recommend as a legitimate Usenet service? Eternal
> September seem to do what they can, but of late have swamped...

news.eternal-september.org is excellent, just going through some improvements
right now so a little downtime is to be expected. The admin is very competent.

Try news.i2pn2.org if you like (note: I'm the admin). It's filtered.
There are others also.

> I also have an issue with news readers. I use Thunderbird, but for news
> it is fairly rubbish

I agree with that. I'm not a fan of Thunderbird for news. I'm pretty happy
with sylpheed. It's not perfect, but much better than thunderbird. On Windows
40tude Dialog is pretty nice and has a lot of features. Runs in wine on Linux
also.

--
Retro Guy

Chris Townley <news@cct-net.co.uk> wrote:
>On 04/11/2023 15:25, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> John Reagan <xyzzy1959@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I've been doing this manually and also reported to Google thru other channe=
>>> ls. No difference so far.
>>
>> Google is not the solution. Google is the problem. Expecting anyone at
>> Google to ever do anything about their customers' constant and incessant
>> abuse of Usenet is futile. It has been going on for decades now and
>> complaints to Google have never done any good.
>>
>> Get off Google, and get onto a legitimate Usenet service. Many of them
>> block postings from Google, and the ones that don't will allow you a
>> normal newsreader which has services to block this stuff.
>
>Who would you recommend as a legitimate Usenet service? Eternal
>September seem to do what they can, but of late have swamped...

Eternal September is fine. They are good people. They can't filter
everything and they don't drop all Google postings, but they clear a
good fraction of the trash out.

>I also have an issue with news readers. I use Thunderbird, but for news
>it is fairly rubbish

HERE is your problem. You need a newsreader that will let you set up
regular expressions for killfiles. I am still using the ancient tin
which may not have a very modern UI but has very effective killfilling.
Other folks here can probably recommend others. Two lines in your killfile
will clear out all of the current spew.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 11/4/2023 11:25 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> John Reagan <xyzzy1959@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've been doing this manually and also reported to Google thru other channe=
>> ls. No difference so far.
>
> Google is not the solution. Google is the problem. Expecting anyone at
> Google to ever do anything about their customers' constant and incessant
> abuse of Usenet is futile. It has been going on for decades now and
> complaints to Google have never done any good.
>
> Get off Google, and get onto a legitimate Usenet service. Many of them
> block postings from Google, and the ones that don't will allow you a
> normal newsreader which has services to block this stuff.
> --scott

Some one has to be providing Google with a feed. The answer is to get
all of them to stop providing any kind of connection to Google.

bill

On 04/11/2023 16:42, bill wrote:
> On 11/4/2023 11:25 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> John Reagan  <xyzzy1959@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I've been doing this manually and also reported to Google thru other
>>> channe=
>>> ls.  No difference so far.
>>
>> Google is not the solution.  Google is the problem.  Expecting anyone at
>> Google to ever do anything about their customers' constant and incessant
>> abuse of Usenet is futile.  It has been going on for decades now and
>> complaints to Google have never done any good.
>>
>> Get off Google, and get onto a legitimate Usenet service.  Many of them
>> block postings from Google, and the ones that don't will allow you a
>> normal newsreader which has services to block this stuff.
>> --scott
>
> Some one has to be providing Google with a feed.  The answer is to get
> all of them to stop providing any kind of connection to Google.
>
> bill
>
I reckon they get there own feed

--
Chris

On 11/4/2023 1:52 PM, Chris Townley wrote:
> On 04/11/2023 16:42, bill wrote:
>> Some one has to be providing Google with a feed.  The answer is to get
>> all of them to stop providing any kind of connection to Google.
>
> I reckon they get there own feed

We have two parties here:
* X NNTP servers
* Google

If *all* of the X NNTP servers stop talking to Google, then
the X NNTP servers will not see posts from Google and Google
will not see posts from the X NNTP servers.

If only X-1 stop talking to Google, then no impact.

Note that I am not recommending the solution. It actually happens
that relevant stuff get posted via Google and spam should be handled
by spam filter not be splitting up.

Arne

In article <kqnajqFashU2@mid.individual.net>,
bill <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 11/4/2023 11:25 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> John Reagan <xyzzy1959@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I've been doing this manually and also reported to Google thru other channe=
>>> ls. No difference so far.
>>
>> Google is not the solution. Google is the problem. Expecting anyone at
>> Google to ever do anything about their customers' constant and incessant
>> abuse of Usenet is futile. It has been going on for decades now and
>> complaints to Google have never done any good.
>>
>> Get off Google, and get onto a legitimate Usenet service. Many of them
>> block postings from Google, and the ones that don't will allow you a
>> normal newsreader which has services to block this stuff.
>
>Some one has to be providing Google with a feed. The answer is to get
>all of them to stop providing any kind of connection to Google.

The UDP against Google was attempted back in 2005 or so. The general
feeling at the time was that although more posts from Google were trash
than legitimate, the backbone cabal felt that that the legitimate posts
justified the feed.

In the past when a UDP had been proposed, the mere threat of the UDP
caused the site admins to take notice and start dealing with their
problems, so the UDP is primarily more effective as a threat than
anything else. Unfortunately Google doesn't really have anyone actually
running Google Groups. It seems to be mostly unattended, and news admins
have never been able to get in touch with anyone there. So as a threat,
the UDP is useless. It is only useful in action to disable all traffic
and whether or not this is a real benefit is a thing that can be discussed.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 11/4/2023 2:40 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 11/4/2023 1:52 PM, Chris Townley wrote:
>> On 04/11/2023 16:42, bill wrote:
>>> Some one has to be providing Google with a feed.  The answer is to get
>>> all of them to stop providing any kind of connection to Google.
>>
>> I reckon they get there own feed
>
> We have two parties here:
> * X NNTP servers
> * Google
>
> If *all* of the X NNTP servers stop talking to Google, then
> the X NNTP servers will not see posts from Google and Google
> will not see posts from the X NNTP servers.
>
> If only X-1 stop talking to Google, then no impact.
>
> Note that I am not recommending the solution. It actually happens
> that relevant stuff get posted via Google and spam should be handled
> by spam filter not be splitting up.
>

I take it you have never had to admin a USENET News Server. :-)

Chris was right. When one wants to setup a News server one of the
main requirements is to find peers (at least one!). This involves
a person to person agreement to send and receive news. While it is
theoretically possible to run a receive only news server there is no
other way to inject messages into the News system without having a
peer who is already in the system and willing to accept your posts.
When I did this (and my time with USENET goes back to when we were
doing it over POTS) one of the first things a peer was likely to
require was SPAM control. I do not understand why Google gets away
with this crap. I guess like everything else in the IT world there
really are no more rules. Welcome to anarchy.

bill

On 11/4/2023 3:48 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> In article <kqnajqFashU2@mid.individual.net>,
> bill <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 11/4/2023 11:25 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> John Reagan <xyzzy1959@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I've been doing this manually and also reported to Google thru other channe=
>>>> ls. No difference so far.
>>>
>>> Google is not the solution. Google is the problem. Expecting anyone at
>>> Google to ever do anything about their customers' constant and incessant
>>> abuse of Usenet is futile. It has been going on for decades now and
>>> complaints to Google have never done any good.
>>>
>>> Get off Google, and get onto a legitimate Usenet service. Many of them
>>> block postings from Google, and the ones that don't will allow you a
>>> normal newsreader which has services to block this stuff.
>>
>> Some one has to be providing Google with a feed. The answer is to get
>> all of them to stop providing any kind of connection to Google.
>
> The UDP against Google was attempted back in 2005 or so. The general
> feeling at the time was that although more posts from Google were trash
> than legitimate, the backbone cabal felt that that the legitimate posts
> justified the feed.

I certainly would not agree with that.

>
> In the past when a UDP had been proposed, the mere threat of the UDP
> caused the site admins to take notice and start dealing with their
> problems, so the UDP is primarily more effective as a threat than
> anything else. Unfortunately Google doesn't really have anyone actually
> running Google Groups. It seems to be mostly unattended, and news admins
> have never been able to get in touch with anyone there. So as a threat,
> the UDP is useless. It is only useful in action to disable all traffic
> and whether or not this is a real benefit is a thing that can be discussed.

Then, it is time to impose the UDP. It takes no action on the part of
Google to do this.

bill

On 2023-11-04 22:02, bill wrote:
> On 11/4/2023 2:40 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 11/4/2023 1:52 PM, Chris Townley wrote:
>>> On 04/11/2023 16:42, bill wrote:
>>>> Some one has to be providing Google with a feed.  The answer is to get
>>>> all of them to stop providing any kind of connection to Google.
>>>
>>> I reckon they get there own feed
>>
>> We have two parties here:
>> * X NNTP servers
>> * Google
>>
>> If *all* of the X NNTP servers stop talking to Google, then
>> the X NNTP servers will not see posts from Google and Google
>> will not see posts from the X NNTP servers.
>>
>> If only X-1 stop talking to Google, then no impact.
>>
>> Note that I am not recommending the solution. It actually happens
>> that relevant stuff get posted via Google and spam should be handled
>> by spam filter not be splitting up.
>>
>
> I take it you have never had to admin a USENET News Server.  :-)

I certainly have...

> Chris was right.  When one wants to setup a News server one of the
> main requirements is to find peers (at least one!).  This involves
> a person to person agreement to send and receive news.  While it is
> theoretically possible to run a receive only news server there is no
> other way to inject messages into the News system without having a
> peer who is already in the system and willing to accept your posts.
> When I did this (and my time with USENET goes back to when we were
> doing it over POTS) one of the first things a peer was likely to
> require was SPAM control.  I do not understand why Google gets away
> with this crap.  I guess like everything else in the IT world there
> really are no more rules.  Welcome to anarchy.

You can have expectations of your peers, but usenet is a distributed
system. There are peers to the peers, cross connections, and in a sense
complete anarchy. You can *not* easily lock anyone or anything out.
And it has always been like this.

And if you've been around, you should also remember the kill wars on
newsgroup creations that happened from time to time. Which is a very
good example of how much of anarchy it was/is.

Johnny

Something to try:
(from the OP of "a cry for help")

using Thunderbird I banned all NNTP articles with "From contains gmail"
Seems to have cut down on this particular brand of spam.
And if it means missing anything that I would be seeing otherwise, I'll just have to live with the consequences.

Fingers crossed, HTH

Mike
-- No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message. Recommended reading:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#befor

On 24/10/2023 01:49, Mark Daniel wrote:
> On 24/10/2023 00:05, bill wrote:
>> On 10/23/2023 8:14 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> On 2023-10-23, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>> On 10/23/2023 6:32 AM, Henry Crun wrote:
>>>>> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love
>>>>> potions"
>>>>> spam, please let me know.
>>>>> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact with
>>>>> VMS
>>>>> after something like three decades
>>>>
> 8< snip 8<
>> The newest version of Thunderbird doesn't appear to have filtering
>> capabilities any more (or at least not in an easily discovered
>> method) so I may have to go back to Knews for reading USENET.
>
> You can open a message, right-click (or double tap if using a pad) on
> the "From" in the header panel, select "Create Filter From..." from the
> popup menu, uncheck "[ ]Manually Run" and hit [OK] button.
>
> You get a "Message Filters" popup listing all the current filters, hit
> the [Run Now] button at the bottom.  Voila!  Gone and also gone
> automatically from thereon.
>
> Bit tedious and a little whack-a-mole but seems to work.  Compound
> filters can be built if so inclined but the basic few clicks seem to
> work well enough.  I've only needed to (re)discover this mechanism over
> the last week or two.
>
> (Now I just have to [Delete] and "Confirm [OK]" the 'From is:
> bill.gunshannon@gmail.com' filter from the "Message Filters" popup :-)
>
> 8< snip 8<
>> bill

Well of course this got unmanageable and very tedious very quickly,
making nuke-a-mole the only option. For Thunderbird...

Created a filter "match all of the following" with "From contains
@gmail.com" + "From isn't in my address book" then perform "Delete message".

There is a significant risk of nuking a friendly mole but desperate
times... Ensure you have added the likes of gunshannon@gmail and
turner.gmail, etc. to insulate as many inoffensive gmail posters as
necessary. I also only [x]Manually Run after casting my eye over the
spam (if not too great a quantity).

PS. Thunderbird says it supports "Customize"d message headers such as
Injection-Info and User-Agent which would have been *very* useful with
"contains gmail.com" parameters but I couldn't get it to work (and the
few posts a search engine could muster suggested that was the long-time
consensus). Pity.

/A pox on the houses of all spammers. Make that two poxes./

--
Anyone, who using social-media, forms an opinion regarding anything
other than the relative cuteness of this or that puppy-dog, needs
seriously to examine their critical thinking.

Mark Daniel wrote:

> Created a filter "match all of the following" with "From contains
> @gmail.com" + "From isn't in my address book" then perform "Delete
> message".

That's too strong a filter, it will kill posts from people who just
happen to have a google email address, but don't post from google groups.

Better to filter on "message-id contains @googlegroups.com"

Op 19.nov.2023 om 03:03 schreef Mark Daniel:
> On 24/10/2023 01:49, Mark Daniel wrote:
>> On 24/10/2023 00:05, bill wrote:
>>> On 10/23/2023 8:14 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>> On 2023-10-23, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>>> On 10/23/2023 6:32 AM, Henry Crun wrote:
>>>>>> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love
>>>>>> potions"
>>>>>> spam, please let me know.
>>>>>> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact
>>>>>> with VMS
>>>>>> after something like three decades
>>>>>
>> 8< snip 8<
>>> The newest version of Thunderbird doesn't appear to have filtering
>>> capabilities any more (or at least not in an easily discovered
>>> method) so I may have to go back to Knews for reading USENET.
>>
>> You can open a message, right-click (or double tap if using a pad) on
>> the "From" in the header panel, select "Create Filter From..." from
>> the popup menu, uncheck "[ ]Manually Run" and hit [OK] button.
>>
>> You get a "Message Filters" popup listing all the current filters, hit
>> the [Run Now] button at the bottom.  Voila!  Gone and also gone
>> automatically from thereon.
>>
>> Bit tedious and a little whack-a-mole but seems to work.  Compound
>> filters can be built if so inclined but the basic few clicks seem to
>> work well enough.  I've only needed to (re)discover this mechanism
>> over the last week or two.
>>
>> (Now I just have to [Delete] and "Confirm [OK]" the 'From is:
>> bill.gunshannon@gmail.com' filter from the "Message Filters" popup :-)
>>
>> 8< snip 8<
>>> bill
>
> Well of course this got unmanageable and very tedious very quickly,
> making nuke-a-mole the only option.  For Thunderbird...
>
> Created a filter "match all of the following" with "From contains
> @gmail.com" + "From isn't in my address book" then perform "Delete
> message".
>
> There is a significant risk of nuking a friendly mole but desperate
> times...  Ensure you have added the likes of gunshannon@gmail and
> turner.gmail, etc. to insulate as many inoffensive gmail posters as
> necessary.  I also only [x]Manually Run after casting my eye over the
> spam (if not too great a quantity).
>
> PS. Thunderbird says it supports "Customize"d message headers such as
> Injection-Info and User-Agent which would have been *very* useful with
> "contains gmail.com" parameters but I couldn't get it to work (and the
> few posts a search engine could muster suggested that was the long-time
> consensus).  Pity.
>

For me
> Injection-Info contains: google-groups.googlegroups.com
works very well in Thunderbird 115.4.2.

Fred Zwarts wrote:

> For me Injection-Info contains: google-groups.googlegroups.com works
> very well in Thunderbird 115.4.2.

I works, but "injection-info" isn't among the header fields returned by
the LIST OVERVIEW.FMT command while "message-id" is included, so the
filtering can happen sooner in the process and with fewer fetches from
the server.

On 19/11/2023 20:52, Fred. Zwarts wrote:
> Op 19.nov.2023 om 03:03 schreef Mark Daniel:
>> On 24/10/2023 01:49, Mark Daniel wrote:
>>> On 24/10/2023 00:05, bill wrote:
>>>> On 10/23/2023 8:14 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>> On 2023-10-23, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>>>> On 10/23/2023 6:32 AM, Henry Crun wrote:
>>>>>>> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and 'Love
>>>>>>> potions"
>>>>>>> spam, please let me know.
>>>>>>> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose contact
>>>>>>> with VMS
>>>>>>> after something like three decades
>>>>>>
>>> 8< snip 8<
8< snip 8<
>> PS. Thunderbird says it supports "Customize"d message headers such as
>> Injection-Info and User-Agent which would have been *very* useful with
>> "contains gmail.com" parameters but I couldn't get it to work (and the
>> few posts a search engine could muster suggested that was the
>> long-time consensus).  Pity.
>>
>
> For me
>> Injection-Info contains: google-groups.googlegroups.com
> works very well in Thunderbird 115.4.2.

It DOES! 115.4.3 for mine.

Thought I'd previously tried this without success. Go figure.

Much less of a sledgehammer.

--
Anyone, who using social-media, forms an opinion regarding anything
other than the relative cuteness of this or that puppy-dog, needs
seriously to examine their critical thinking.

On 11/19/2023 6:28 AM, Mark Daniel wrote:
> On 19/11/2023 20:52, Fred. Zwarts wrote:
>> Op 19.nov.2023 om 03:03 schreef Mark Daniel:

>>> Injection-Info contains: google-groups.googlegroups.com
>> works very well in Thunderbird 115.4.2.
>
> It DOES!  115.4.3 for mine.
>
> Thought I'd previously tried this without success.  Go figure.
>
> Much less of a sledgehammer.
>

As a Thunderbird user with no filters, I've seen no spam posts all week.

--

--- Rob

On Sun, 19 Nov 2023 21:58:07 +1030
Mark Daniel <mark.daniel@wasd.vsm.com.au> wrote:

> On 19/11/2023 20:52, Fred. Zwarts wrote:
> > Op 19.nov.2023 om 03:03 schreef Mark Daniel:
> >> On 24/10/2023 01:49, Mark Daniel wrote:
> >>> On 24/10/2023 00:05, bill wrote:
> >>>> On 10/23/2023 8:14 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> >>>>> On 2023-10-23, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> >>>>>> On 10/23/2023 6:32 AM, Henry Crun wrote:
> >>>>>>> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and
> >>>>>>> 'Love potions"
> >>>>>>> spam, please let me know.
> >>>>>>> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose
> >>>>>>> contact with VMS
> >>>>>>> after something like three decades
> >>>>>>
> >>> 8< snip 8<
> 8< snip 8<
> >> PS. Thunderbird says it supports "Customize"d message headers such
> >> as Injection-Info and User-Agent which would have been *very*
> >> useful with "contains gmail.com" parameters but I couldn't get it
> >> to work (and the few posts a search engine could muster suggested
> >> that was the long-time consensus).  Pity.
> >>
> >
> > For me
> >> Injection-Info contains: google-groups.googlegroups.com
> > works very well in Thunderbird 115.4.2.
>
> It DOES! 115.4.3 for mine.
>
> Thought I'd previously tried this without success. Go figure.
>
> Much less of a sledgehammer.
>

I wonder why so many people here are trying to re-invent a wheel with
very expected consequences of their wheels being square instead of
leaving filtering to professional.
What prevents people from following an advice of Retro Guy?
What he proposes works. It works well. And it's far easier than setting
up your own filter.

On 20/11/2023 01:00, Michael S wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Nov 2023 21:58:07 +1030
> Mark Daniel <mark.daniel@wasd.vsm.com.au> wrote:
>
>> On 19/11/2023 20:52, Fred. Zwarts wrote:
>>> Op 19.nov.2023 om 03:03 schreef Mark Daniel:
>>>> On 24/10/2023 01:49, Mark Daniel wrote:
>>>>> On 24/10/2023 00:05, bill wrote:
>>>>>> On 10/23/2023 8:14 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>>>> On 2023-10-23, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 10/23/2023 6:32 AM, Henry Crun wrote:
>>>>>>>>> If anyone has a remedy for the slew oc 'Black Magic' and
>>>>>>>>> 'Love potions"
>>>>>>>>> spam, please let me know.
>>>>>>>>> Otherwise I am going to have to -- unwillingly -- lose
>>>>>>>>> contact with VMS
>>>>>>>>> after something like three decades
>>>>>>>>
>>>>> 8< snip 8<
>> 8< snip 8<
>>>> PS. Thunderbird says it supports "Customize"d message headers such
>>>> as Injection-Info and User-Agent which would have been *very*
>>>> useful with "contains gmail.com" parameters but I couldn't get it
>>>> to work (and the few posts a search engine could muster suggested
>>>> that was the long-time consensus).  Pity.
>>>>
>>>
>>> For me
>>>> Injection-Info contains: google-groups.googlegroups.com
>>> works very well in Thunderbird 115.4.2.
>>
>> It DOES! 115.4.3 for mine.
>>
>> Thought I'd previously tried this without success. Go figure.
>>
>> Much less of a sledgehammer.
>>
>
> I wonder why so many people here are trying to re-invent a wheel with
> very expected consequences of their wheels being square instead of
> leaving filtering to professional.
> What prevents people from following an advice of Retro Guy?
> What he proposes works. It works well. And it's far easier than setting
> up your own filter.

I guess it is a matter of; having a pretty elementary setup for reading
just c.o.v. which worked without any attention for years until just
recently... Folk are trying to massage what they have already in place
and now this advice from Fred seems to address the immediate issue.

The wheels are (now) roughly circular. Spoke-spanner back in the toolkit.

Kudos to Usenet feeds that have this under control. Mine does not.

Prepared to give it a go but doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence
downloading from a source that has a server cert expired 35 days ago
(https://osdn.dl.osdn.net/sylpheed/).

Might stay with my tack-hammer a little longer but will keep these in mind.

PS. My mail provider uses Process Software PMAS which works well-enough.
Occasionally I need to go hunting for an expected email and have
noticed the majority of spam to my account originates from gmail. While
claiming 99.9% of spam does not reach gmail recipients the same effort
should be applied to gmail spam origination. There I go again; pissing
in the wind.

--
Anyone, who using social-media, forms an opinion regarding anything
other than the relative cuteness of this or that puppy-dog, needs
seriously to examine their critical thinking.

On 11/19/2023 4:52 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
> Mark Daniel wrote:
>
>> Created a filter "match all of the following" with "From contains @gmail.com"
>> + "From isn't in my address book" then perform "Delete message".
>
> That's too strong a filter, it will kill posts from people who just happen to
> have a google email address, but don't post from google groups.
>
> Better to filter on "message-id contains @googlegroups.com"

I'm not sure of what you write. At least in Thunderbird, the filter can be
solely on c.o.v, or newsgroups in general, and would not affect your inbound
e-mail. So, yeah, perhaps one would not get posts from a poster with a gmail
email account, not really sure.

Guess the question is, just how important is c.o.v posts, vs, do you like all
the spam? I chose to avoid the spam.

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

On 11/19/2023 9:19 AM, Robert A. Brooks wrote:
> On 11/19/2023 6:28 AM, Mark Daniel wrote:
>> On 19/11/2023 20:52, Fred. Zwarts wrote:
>>> Op 19.nov.2023 om 03:03 schreef Mark Daniel:
>
>>>> Injection-Info contains: google-groups.googlegroups.com
>>> works very well in Thunderbird 115.4.2.
>>
>> It DOES! 115.4.3 for mine.
>>
>> Thought I'd previously tried this without success. Go figure.
>>
>> Much less of a sledgehammer.
>>
>
> As a Thunderbird user with no filters, I've seen no spam posts all week.
>

There was a recent post mentioning that the Eternal-September moderator had
disconnected from google groups until he could figure out spam assassin, or
something like that. So for now, it might be reasonable to not see the spam.

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486