The FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for this group is at https://sites.rootsweb.com/~medieval/. The FAQ is somewhat out of date but still has useful information and suggestions.

Op 19-10-2023 om 20:14 schreef Darrell E. Larocque:

> SOMEBODY is the owner of this group. Every group had an owner who started it. If the owner abandoned the group then it cannot fight the spam. So it's either start over with a new group and leave this one up or use this one and on a daily basis mark 8 kabillion messages as abuse.

And/or find a usenet provider that does the filtering for you. The one
that I use let only 1 message get through. The ones with POKER in the
title didn't make it, and I omly see those on Google.

On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 11:14:51 AM UTC-7, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
> On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 2:06:58 PM UTC-4, Will Johnson wrote:
> > On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 3:41:47 PM UTC-7, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
> > > On Monday, October 2, 2023 at 12:15:46 AM UTC-4, Don Stone wrote:
> > > > The FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for this group is at https://sites.rootsweb.com/~medieval/. The FAQ is somewhat out of date but still has useful information and suggestions.
> > > We are drowning here in spam at the moment, 140 straight spam posts I just had to delete for one day.
> > >
> > > We need your help to BLOCK these accounts, or they will keep doing it every single day.
> > This group has always been unmoderated.
> SOMEBODY is the owner of this group. Every group had an owner who started it. If the owner abandoned the group then it cannot fight the spam. So it's either start over with a new group and leave this one up or use this one and on a daily basis mark 8 kabillion messages as abuse.

There is NOBODY who is the owner of this group. NOBODY! This is not how Usenet works. Someone made a proposal, there was a vote, it got more votes in favor of creating it than against, and a message was distributed across Usenet to create a folder corresponding to the group. That's it. There was never any owner of soc.genealogy.medieval.

On Thu, 19 Oct 2023 22:41:45 +0200, Enno Borgsteede
<ennoborg@gmail.com> wrote in soc.genealogy.medieval:

>Op 19-10-2023 om 20:14 schreef Darrell E. Larocque:
>
>> SOMEBODY is the owner of this group. Every group had an owner who started it. If the owner abandoned the group then it cannot fight the spam. So it's either start over with a new group and leave this one up or use this one and on a daily basis mark 8 kabillion messages as abuse.

I missed this post !

I think I am now the only participant in this newsgroup who was in the
team that re-organized the genealogy newsgroups from soc.roots years
ago. And I can say that there is no owners. Perhaps creators or
organizers, but not owners.

Denis

--
Denis Beauregard - généalogiste émérite (FQSG)
Les Français d'Amérique du Nord - http://www.francogene.com/gfan/gfan/998/
French in North America before 1722 - http://www.francogene.com/gfna/gfna/998/
Sur cédérom/DVD/USB à 1790 - On CD-ROM/DVD/USB to 1790

Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
> On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 5:25:57 PM UTC-4, taf wrote:
>> On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 11:14:51 AM UTC-7, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
>>> On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 2:06:58 PM UTC-4, Will Johnson wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 3:41:47 PM UTC-7, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
>>>>> On Monday, October 2, 2023 at 12:15:46 AM UTC-4, Don Stone wrote:
>>>>>> The FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for this group is at https://sites.rootsweb.com/~medieval/. The FAQ is somewhat out of date but still has useful information and suggestions.
>>>>> We are drowning here in spam at the moment, 140 straight spam posts I just had to delete for one day.
>>>>>
>>>>> We need your help to BLOCK these accounts, or they will keep doing it every single day.
>>>> This group has always been unmoderated.
>>> SOMEBODY is the owner of this group. Every group had an owner who started it. If the owner abandoned the group then it cannot fight the spam. So it's either start over with a new group and leave this one up or use this one and on a daily basis mark 8 kabillion messages as abuse.
>> There is NOBODY who is the owner of this group. NOBODY! This is not how Usenet works. Someone made a proposal, there was a vote, it got more votes in favor of creating it than against, and a message was distributed across Usenet to create a folder corresponding to the group. That's it. There was never any owner of soc.genealogy.medieval.
>
> This is Google Groups that I am using, NOT Usenet. Someone should have been set up as the owner under Google Groups. I've been using newsgroups since 1991, and spam is nothing new to me whatsoever, but somewhere along the line when the group was added to Google Groups an owner should have been established.
>
If you've been using Usenet so long you'll remember that Deja News used
to be an archive of many if not all newsgroups including this. Google
took over Deja and turned it into Google Groups, S.S.M was just swept in
with all the rest with, AFAIK, no participation from group members at
all. From the point of the newsgroup this was entirely passive.

On Sunday, October 22, 2023 at 5:00:29 PM UTC-7, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
> On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 5:25:57 PM UTC-4, taf wrote:
> > On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 11:14:51 AM UTC-7, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
> > > On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 2:06:58 PM UTC-4, Will Johnson wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 3:41:47 PM UTC-7, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
> > > > > On Monday, October 2, 2023 at 12:15:46 AM UTC-4, Don Stone wrote:
> > > > > > The FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for this group is at https://sites.rootsweb.com/~medieval/. The FAQ is somewhat out of date but still has useful information and suggestions.
> > > > > We are drowning here in spam at the moment, 140 straight spam posts I just had to delete for one day.
> > > > >
> > > > > We need your help to BLOCK these accounts, or they will keep doing it every single day.
> > > > This group has always been unmoderated.
> > > SOMEBODY is the owner of this group. Every group had an owner who started it. If the owner abandoned the group then it cannot fight the spam. So it's either start over with a new group and leave this one up or use this one and on a daily basis mark 8 kabillion messages as abuse.
> > There is NOBODY who is the owner of this group. NOBODY! This is not how Usenet works. Someone made a proposal, there was a vote, it got more votes in favor of creating it than against, and a message was distributed across Usenet to create a folder corresponding to the group. That's it. There was never any owner of soc.genealogy.medieval.
> This is Google Groups that I am using, NOT Usenet. Someone should have been set up as the owner under Google Groups. I've been using newsgroups since 1991, and spam is nothing new to me whatsoever, but somewhere along the line when the group was added to Google Groups an owner should have been established.

Actually, it IS Usenet you are using - Google has just hidden that fact from you.

When they took over the archives from Deja, they created Google Groups-like interfaces for the Usenet archive, and set up a gateway so that posting and reading of the Usenet groups behaved as if one was using a Google group. Further, because Google at the time wanted to be thought of as synonymous with the internet rather than just a way to access information on the internet, they made the decision not to indicate in any way to their users that some of the 'groups' listed under Google Groups were truly Google-created and -hosted entities, while others were just web-based interfaces to access Usenet groups existing entirely independent of Google.

As such, for these Usenet groups they never did any of the things that would normally be done upon the creation of a Google group, because they have never been Google groups. They are Usenet interfaces displayed within Google Groups in a manner indistinguishable from how Google groups are.

taf

On Sunday, October 22, 2023 at 5:00:29 PM UTC-7, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
> On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 5:25:57 PM UTC-4, taf wrote:
> > On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 11:14:51 AM UTC-7, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
> > > On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 2:06:58 PM UTC-4, Will Johnson wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 3:41:47 PM UTC-7, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
> > > > > On Monday, October 2, 2023 at 12:15:46 AM UTC-4, Don Stone wrote:
> > > > > > The FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for this group is at https://sites.rootsweb.com/~medieval/. The FAQ is somewhat out of date but still has useful information and suggestions.
> > > > > We are drowning here in spam at the moment, 140 straight spam posts I just had to delete for one day.
> > > > >
> > > > > We need your help to BLOCK these accounts, or they will keep doing it every single day.
> > > > This group has always been unmoderated.
> > > SOMEBODY is the owner of this group. Every group had an owner who started it. If the owner abandoned the group then it cannot fight the spam. So it's either start over with a new group and leave this one up or use this one and on a daily basis mark 8 kabillion messages as abuse.
> > There is NOBODY who is the owner of this group. NOBODY! This is not how Usenet works. Someone made a proposal, there was a vote, it got more votes in favor of creating it than against, and a message was distributed across Usenet to create a folder corresponding to the group. That's it. There was never any owner of soc.genealogy.medieval.
> This is Google Groups that I am using, NOT Usenet. Someone should have been set up as the owner under Google Groups. I've been using newsgroups since 1991, and spam is nothing new to me whatsoever, but somewhere along the line when the group was added to Google Groups an owner should have been established.

You are correct in a generic sense, that *if* a person creates a Google Group (I've made several), they are the owner. However this specific group (and many others) were not created when Google Groups existed. This group far far pre-dates the existence of Google Groups. It was not created in that same way. Way back in the far away, Usenet existed decades before.

Read some history here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet

I've used Usenet since, maybe 1986 I guess

On Mon, 23 Oct 2023 13:33:11 -0700 (PDT), taf <taf.medieval@gmail.com>
wrote in soc.genealogy.medieval:

>that some of the 'groups' listed under Google Groups were truly Google-created and -hosted entities, while others were just web-based interfaces to access Usenet groups existing entirely independent of Google.

I think I am not alone to use a true Usenet agent to read newsgroups
without any web interface. My very old Forte Agent is still working
after switching to Windows 95, 98, 7, 8, 10 and 11.

And the debates to create new genealogy newsgroups from soc.roots
was with emails, and again no web interface. I think this part is
important for readers who are recent to Internet !

In usenet, there was no room for large scale advertisment, so the
large providers switched to web where they can put banners. And
since many of us were already there about 25 years ago, when this
newsgroup was created, I guess many old timers (geez, I am now of
that kind !) still remember how it was working !

Denis

--
Denis Beauregard - généalogiste émérite (FQSG)
Les Français d'Amérique du Nord - http://www.francogene.com/gfan/gfan/998/
French in North America before 1722 - http://www.francogene.com/gfna/gfna/998/
Sur cédérom/DVD/USB à 1790 - On CD-ROM/DVD/USB to 1790

Denis Beauregard wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Oct 2023 13:33:11 -0700 (PDT), taf <taf.medieval@gmail.com>
> wrote in soc.genealogy.medieval:
>
>> that some of the 'groups' listed under Google Groups were truly Google-created and -hosted entities, while others were just web-based interfaces to access Usenet groups existing entirely independent of Google.
>
> I think I am not alone to use a true Usenet agent to read newsgroups
> without any web interface. My very old Forte Agent is still working
> after switching to Windows 95, 98, 7, 8, 10 and 11.
>
> And the debates to create new genealogy newsgroups from soc.roots
> was with emails, and again no web interface. I think this part is
> important for readers who are recent to Internet !
>
> In usenet, there was no room for large scale advertisment, so the
> large providers switched to web where they can put banners. And
> since many of us were already there about 25 years ago, when this
> newsgroup was created, I guess many old timers (geez, I am now of
> that kind !) still remember how it was working !

Thunderbird and several other applications will combine a Usenet client
with email client and RSS feed reader. Seamonkey will also ad a
web-browser.

On a more immediate appoint can anyone recommend a Usnet feed that's
satisfactorily filtering the junk? For some years I've been using my
ISP's feed which is simply sold-on Giganews. I'm not ever sure my
attempt to warn Giganews of the situation got through their support
system. They've certainly not not acted on it.

Op 27-10-2023 om 14:28 schreef Ian Goddard:

> On a more immediate appoint can anyone recommend a Usnet feed that's
> satisfactorily filtering the junk?  For some years I've been using my
> ISP's feed which is simply sold-on Giganews.  I'm not ever sure my
> attempt to warn Giganews of the situation got through their support
> system.  They've certainly not not acted on it.

I'm currently using a server named Eternal September, that you can find
here:

https://www.eternal-september.org/

You need to register to get an account, but otherwise it's free, and at
the moment, it looks like they kill most of the spam.

I also tried

https://solani.org/

but found that the feed on Eternal September is better.

Regards,

Enno

Enno Borgsteede wrote:
> Op 27-10-2023 om 14:28 schreef Ian Goddard:
>
>> On a more immediate appoint can anyone recommend a Usnet feed that's
>> satisfactorily filtering the junk?  For some years I've been using my
>> ISP's feed which is simply sold-on Giganews.  I'm not ever sure my
>> attempt to warn Giganews of the situation got through their support
>> system.  They've certainly not not acted on it.
>
> I'm currently using a server named Eternal September, that you can find
> here:
>
> https://www.eternal-september.org/
>
> You need to register to get an account, but otherwise it's free, and at
> the moment, it looks like they kill most of the spam.
>
> I also tried
>
> https://solani.org/
>
> but found that the feed on Eternal September is better.
>
> Regards,
>
> Enno
>
Thanks, Enno. I used Eternal September long ago when I was with a
different ISP. Time to go back, I think.

Ian

On 28-Oct-23 8:57 AM, Ian Goddard wrote:
> Enno Borgsteede wrote:
>> Op 27-10-2023 om 14:28 schreef Ian Goddard:
>>
>>> On a more immediate appoint can anyone recommend a Usnet feed that's
>>> satisfactorily filtering the junk?  For some years I've been using my
>>> ISP's feed which is simply sold-on Giganews.  I'm not ever sure my
>>> attempt to warn Giganews of the situation got through their support
>>> system.  They've certainly not not acted on it.
>>
>> I'm currently using a server named Eternal September, that you can
>> find here:
>>
>> https://www.eternal-september.org/
>>
>> You need to register to get an account, but otherwise it's free, and
>> at the moment, it looks like they kill most of the spam.
>>
>> I also tried
>>
>> https://solani.org/
>>
>> but found that the feed on Eternal September is better.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Enno
>>
> Thanks, Enno.  I used Eternal September long ago when I was with a
> different ISP.  Time to go back, I think.

I don't know of a good reason to persist with Google Groups, though
given my ignorance of IT that doesn't mean much.

Eternal September helpfully filters out most, though not quite all, of
the recent spam - now, for instance, notifying that there were 101 posts
today unread by me but showing just three of these, your exchanges with
Enno.

Peter Stewart

--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com

Peter Stewart wrote:
> On 28-Oct-23 8:57 AM, Ian Goddard wrote:
>> Enno Borgsteede wrote:
>>> Op 27-10-2023 om 14:28 schreef Ian Goddard:
>>>
>>>> On a more immediate appoint can anyone recommend a Usnet feed that's
>>>> satisfactorily filtering the junk?  For some years I've been using
>>>> my ISP's feed which is simply sold-on Giganews.  I'm not ever sure
>>>> my attempt to warn Giganews of the situation got through their
>>>> support system.  They've certainly not not acted on it.
>>>
>>> I'm currently using a server named Eternal September, that you can
>>> find here:
>>>
>>> https://www.eternal-september.org/
>>>
>>> You need to register to get an account, but otherwise it's free, and
>>> at the moment, it looks like they kill most of the spam.
>>>
>>> I also tried
>>>
>>> https://solani.org/
>>>
>>> but found that the feed on Eternal September is better.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Enno
>>>
>> Thanks, Enno.  I used Eternal September long ago when I was with a
>> different ISP.  Time to go back, I think.
>
> I don't know of a good reason to persist with Google Groups, though
> given my ignorance of IT that doesn't mean much.
>
> Eternal September helpfully filters out most, though not quite all, of
> the recent spam - now, for instance, notifying that there were 101 posts
> today unread by me but showing just three of these, your exchanges with
> Enno.
>
> Peter Stewart
>
>
I'm not using Google Groups. My ISP redistributes Giganews which is a
Usenet server. As it was included in my ISP subscription I went along
with that. But big as Giganews are they haven't taken due note of this
problem.

On Monday, October 30, 2023 at 1:06:25 PM UTC, Ian Goddard wrote:
> Peter Stewart wrote:
> > On 28-Oct-23 8:57 AM, Ian Goddard wrote:
> >> Enno Borgsteede wrote:
> >>> Op 27-10-2023 om 14:28 schreef Ian Goddard:
> >>>
> >>>> On a more immediate appoint can anyone recommend a Usnet feed that's
> >>>> satisfactorily filtering the junk? For some years I've been using
> >>>> my ISP's feed which is simply sold-on Giganews. I'm not ever sure
> >>>> my attempt to warn Giganews of the situation got through their
> >>>> support system. They've certainly not not acted on it.
> >>>
> >>> I'm currently using a server named Eternal September, that you can
> >>> find here:
> >>>
> >>> https://www.eternal-september.org/
> >>>
> >>> You need to register to get an account, but otherwise it's free, and
> >>> at the moment, it looks like they kill most of the spam.
> >>>
> >>> I also tried
> >>>
> >>> https://solani.org/
> >>>
> >>> but found that the feed on Eternal September is better.
> >>>
> >>> Regards,
> >>>
> >>> Enno
> >>>
> >> Thanks, Enno. I used Eternal September long ago when I was with a
> >> different ISP. Time to go back, I think.
> >
> > I don't know of a good reason to persist with Google Groups, though
> > given my ignorance of IT that doesn't mean much.
> >
> > Eternal September helpfully filters out most, though not quite all, of
> > the recent spam - now, for instance, notifying that there were 101 posts
> > today unread by me but showing just three of these, your exchanges with
> > Enno.
> >
> > Peter Stewart
> >
> >
> I'm not using Google Groups. My ISP redistributes Giganews which is a
> Usenet server. As it was included in my ISP subscription I went along
> with that. But big as Giganews are they haven't taken due note of this
> problem.

a lot of the groups i use seem to be free of the spam, at least its not appearing.
whether becos google has jammed it or the spammers have stopped i dunno.
in some of the groups which had the most, not only has it stopped but newbies
will wonder what people are on about, as all the old spam has dissapeared
from the lists, as if it never was. not sure why its persisting here, if it is real
spam, no ones reading it especially in indonesian. my guess its just a soft
attack on google; china has been trying to block access to google for
years.

mike