On 2023-12-03, Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
> On 12/3/23 06:56, Andy Burns wrote:
>> You shouldn't rely on google to preserve the archive forever (n.b. a few
>> years ago google users started spamming uk.telecom with credit card
>> data, in response google removed the group from G2, which made the
>> archive inaccessible).
>
> My personal opinion is that Google is going to eventually deprecate the
> Google Groups Usenet gateway and any / all history that they had will
> disappear. Probably more silently than we would like.
>

Have you noticed how Google keeps killing the products that people still
use, but will not kill the product that many wish _would_ disappear. :-)

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On 12/4/23 07:53, Simon Clubley wrote:
> Have you noticed how Google keeps killing the products that people still
> use, but will not kill the product that many wish _would_ disappear. :-)

Yes. Very much so.

Have you noticed that they keep making the surviving products less useful?

--
Grant. . . .

On Mon, 04 Dec 2023 08:25:50 -0500, Ken Robinson <kenrbnsn@rbnsn.com>
wrote:

>At 04:52 PM 12/3/2023, Subcommandante XDelta via Info-vax wrote:
>
>>Hello Ken,
>>
>>How does one currrently subscribe to Info-VAX? - Thank you.
>
>Send an email to info-vax-request@rbnsn.com
>with a subject of "subscribe" (no quotes)
>
>Ken
>

Thank you, Mr Robinson.

On 2023-12-04, Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
> On 12/4/23 07:53, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> Have you noticed how Google keeps killing the products that people still
>> use, but will not kill the product that many wish _would_ disappear. :-)
>
> Yes. Very much so.
>
> Have you noticed that they keep making the surviving products less useful?
>

Yes :-( and it seems to be a trend everywhere these days, including normally
high-quality stuff you buy in the physical world... :-(

(It's a _very_ sore subject for me at the moment, because I just bought a new
walking backpack as my current one is showing its age. I ended up buying the
same one again, which is now made directly by Rab instead of the company it
acquired. Fortunately, none of the "improvements" turned out to be deal
breakers.)

At one time "improvements" really were improvements...

Simon.

PS: Sorry, rant over. :-) Grant just picked a very bad time to bring
this up. :-)

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On 12/3/23 10:11 AM, Ken Robinson wrote:
> Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 12/3/2023 7:56 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
>>> Subcommandante XDelta wrote:
>>>
>>> Does info-VAX keep an archive of the mailing list traffic?
>>
>> Neither http://rbnsn.com/pipermail/info-vax_rbnsn.com/ nor
>> https://comp.os.vms.narkive.com/ seems to go back to the
>> beginning.
>>
>
> I took over the Info-VAX mailing in 2008 and, unfortunately,
> didn't copy the archives from theprevious owner of the list.

An archive of Info-VAX from 1996 to 2008 can be found here:
https://theberrymans.com/decus/info-vax/

Mark Berryman

On Tue, 2023-12-05 at 08:14 -0700, Mark Berryman wrote:
> > I took over the Info-VAX mailing in 2008 and, unfortunately,
> > didn't copy the archives from theprevious owner of the list.
>
> An archive of Info-VAX from 1996 to 2008 can be found here:
> https://theberrymans.com/decus/info-vax/

Happily this is also preserved on the Wayback Machine as well.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

WTF++!!

SPAM penetrating conversation threads, now? :-(

On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 05:28:13 -0800 (PST), theme around
<topmoviewatch@gmail.com> wrote:

>????????????????????????????
>
>
>?? Read ???? ??? https://www.themearound.com
>
>
>?????????? ???? ??? https://www.themearound.com
>

SPAM
SPAM
SPAM
: :
:

On 12/5/23 15:30, Subcommandante XDelta wrote:
> SPAM penetrating conversation threads, now? :-(

I'm not surprised.

It was bound to happen at some point.

I honestly wondered if / when spammers would simply glom onto the most
recent X messages and use them as the seed.

>> ?? Read ???? ??? REDACTED
>>
>>
>> ?????????? ???? ??? REDACTED

Aside: Please make sure to redact any URLs in spam when quoting it.

--
Grant. . . .

On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 17:49:32 -0600, Grant Taylor
<gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:

>On 12/5/23 15:30, Subcommandante XDelta wrote:
>> SPAM penetrating conversation threads, now? :-(
>
>I'm not surprised.
>
>It was bound to happen at some point.
>
>I honestly wondered if / when spammers would simply glom onto the most
>recent X messages and use them as the seed.
>
>>> ?? Read ???? ??? REDACTED
>>>
>>>
>>> ?????????? ???? ??? REDACTED
>
>Aside: Please make sure to redact any URLs in spam when quoting it.

10-4! - With apologies. :-)

On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 08:14:46 -0700, Mark Berryman
<mark@theberrymans.com> wrote:

>On 12/3/23 10:11 AM, Ken Robinson wrote:
>> Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>> On 12/3/2023 7:56 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
>>>> Subcommandante XDelta wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Does info-VAX keep an archive of the mailing list traffic?
>>>
>>> Neither http://rbnsn.com/pipermail/info-vax_rbnsn.com/ nor
>>> https://comp.os.vms.narkive.com/ seems to go back to the
>>> beginning.
>>>
>>
>> I took over the Info-VAX mailing in 2008 and, unfortunately,
>> didn't copy the archives from theprevious owner of the list.
>
>An archive of Info-VAX from 1996 to 2008 can be found here:
>https://theberrymans.com/decus/info-vax/
>
>Mark Berryman

Well, isn't that a mighty fine thing? - Thank you for the
preservation.

On Wednesday, December 6, 2023 at 9:16:30 AM UTC, Subcommandante XDelta wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 08:14:46 -0700, Mark Berryman
> <ma...@theberrymans.com> wrote:
>
> >On 12/3/23 10:11 AM, Ken Robinson wrote:
> >> Arne Vajhøj <ar...@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> >>> On 12/3/2023 7:56 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
> >>>> Subcommandante XDelta wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Does info-VAX keep an archive of the mailing list traffic?
> >>>
> >>> Neither http://rbnsn.com/pipermail/info-vax_rbnsn.com/ nor
> >>> https://comp.os.vms.narkive.com/ seems to go back to the
> >>> beginning.
> >>>
> >>
> >> I took over the Info-VAX mailing in 2008 and, unfortunately,
> >> didn't copy the archives from theprevious owner of the list.
> >
> >An archive of Info-VAX from 1996 to 2008 can be found here:
> >https://theberrymans.com/decus/info-vax/
> >
> >Mark Berryman
> Well, isn't that a mighty fine thing? - Thank you for the
> preservation.
Nice, been looking for that

Here's another way to utilize Thunderbird (I'm using 115.6.0 currently)
with comp.os.vms that I have not seen mentioned yet. It may be of use to
others using Eternal September, but if not please just ignore this post.

I'm using Thunderbird on Windows, so I don't know if it works
consistently across operating systems.

Thunderbird can use saved "Search Folders" on a newsgroup such as
comp.os.vms, which is essentially a different "view" onto comp.os.vms
with a particular search criteria applied to restrict what is shown.

In your Thunderbird newsgroup hierarchy, if you right click on c.o.vms,
and choose Search, you'll get a dialog for setting up search criteria to
match against. You can come back and update your search criteria in a
minute, after you've saved it, but the key to setting up the "Search
folder" view underneath c.o.vms, is to click "Save as Search Folder" at
the bottom right. You can give each Search Folder a meaningful name.
They'll show up in the hierarchy as a sub-folder beneath comp.os.vms,
with a tiny magnifying glass icon on the folder picture.

I set up two such Search Folders for comp.os.vms, one called "including
googlegroups", and the other called "filtered-out-googlegroups".

To refine the search criteria on one of the saved "Search folders",
right-click on it, and choose properties.

For the "filtered-out-googlegroups" search folder, I added the following
properties for "Configure the search criteria used for this saved search
folder":
- Match all of the following
In the specific search criteria:
Message-Id doesn't contain googlegroups

Click Update, to save your search criteria.

That search folder view of comp.os.vms is immediately free of the spam
that originated at google groups. This is just a spam-free view, and all
the posts are still available above in the comp.os.vms folder.

Unfortunately, that search folder view also excludes the posting from
comp.os.vms regulars that had been using, or continue to use, google
groups to post. The second search folder, the "including-googlegroups"
search folder, can help with that. It requires more one-time
configuration steps though.

For the "including-google-groups" search folder, I added the following
properties for "Configure the search criteria used for this saved search
folder":
- Match all of the following
In the specific search criteria:
Message-Id contains googlegroups
From doesn't contain FIRST.LAST@vmssoftware.com
From doesn't contain n.rieck@bell.net
You can continue to manually exclude From entries in this manner.
If you find that too tedious to do manually, there is a way to add
entries, which I describe near the end of this post). There are 117
addresses that contributed topical posts over the past few years. It's a
very big list, but it is not infinite. I added them all.

The nice thing about getting all the 117 real contributor's From
addresses added to the search view, is that they are excluded from the
search folder view, and the only thing left in there is the spam.

Just select it all, press delete, and all the spam is gone. It is gone
from the "including-googlegroups" search view, and it is also gone from
the parent comp.os.vms as well. That's because the search folder is just
a view, but the delete operation acts on the postings themselves in the
parent folder.The parent comp.os.vms folder has all the content, and
none of the spam at this point. The "including-googlegroups" search view
now shows as empty.

Periodically, when new stuff shows up in the "including-googlegroups"
folder, I quickly scan the titles to see if any of it looks like
legitimate comp.os.vms stuff. It usually isn't, because all the 117
valued past-contributors were excluded from that view by the search
criteria. I just select all the entries and delete it. Once again, it's
gone from the search folder, and also from the parent comp.os.vms
folder. The parent comp.os.vms folder is free of spam, once again.

The one-time tedious part was setting up all the "From doesn't contain"
entries in the search criteria for the "including-googlegroups" search
folder.

For the brave, who might want to attempt things under the hood in a less
manual fashion, read on...

There's a Profile Folder for your Thunderbird. One way to get to it is
to start up Thunderbird, and choose Help, Troubleshooting Information.

In the list that ensues, locate Profile Folder, and press the Open
Folder button beside that. That will start up a normal Windows Explorer
folder containing your Profile Folder.

You can shut down Thunderbird now, and probably should, if you are going
to attempt what follows. So WITH THUNDERBIRD NOT RUNNING...

In your Profile Folder, there should be a file called
"virtualFolders.dat" (without the quotes), and that is where your search
folder criteria are kept. It is an ASCII text file, with lines that
start with keyword= entries similar to those shown below

version=1
uri=news://news.eternal-september.org/comp.os.vms/including-googlegroups" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">news://news.eternal-september.org/comp.os.vms/including-googlegroups
scope=news://news.eternal-september.org/comp.os.vms
terms=AND ("message-id",contains,googlegroups) AND (from,doesn't
contain,FIRST.LAST@vmssoftware.com)
searchOnline=false
uri=news://news.eternal-september.org/comp.os.vms/filtered-out-googlegroups
scope=news://news.eternal-september.org/comp.os.vms
terms=AND ("message-id",doesn't contain,googlegroups)
searchOnline=false

The line starting with "terms=" is actually one huge, long line
containing all the legitimate posters' entries as "AND (from,doesn't
contain, email@domain.com)", but I truncated most of it for posting.
You'll need an editor that will preserve the long, single lines.

> There are 117 addresses that contributed topical posts over the past few
> years. It's a very big list, but it is not infinite. I added them all.

That list of 117 might be very useful to the community. E.g. I
think I could also add that list to my tin filter.

De