Re: Stats comp.os.linux.misc (last 7 days)

On Sun, 07 May 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.misc, in article
<bgv7g.412754$Z67.11416681@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Aragorn wrote:

Well, I'm willing to bet that most of the replying people use a real
newsreader and are aware of what Usenet or NNTP are... ;-)

Anecdotal evidence - yeah, that looks about right. I see some replies
via groups.google that contain helpful answers, but not that many.

The real pity about it, >95% of groups.google users don't have
the slightest clue that this isn't some internal google group.;(

This is actually my point... And it doesn't even seem to help that we
tell them otherwise...

But then, how many posters are even aware that some news groups are not
very active (which would be apparent if they looked at posting dates in
representative articles, but that doesn't happen that often) or that
it helps to post to _either_ the standard big-eight groups

[compton ~]$ grep linux big-eight.list.04.15.06 | cut -f1 | column
comp.os.linux.advocacy comp.os.linux.misc
comp.os.linux.alpha comp.os.linux.networking
comp.os.linux.announce comp.os.linux.portable
comp.os.linux.answers comp.os.linux.powerpc
comp.os.linux.development.apps comp.os.linux.security
comp.os.linux.development.system comp.os.linux.setup
comp.os.linux.embedded comp.os.linux.x
comp.os.linux.hardware comp.os.linux.xbox
comp.os.linux.m68k
[compton ~]$

which should be carried on every properly configured news server, OR the
appropriate alt.os.linux.$DISTRIBUTION group

[compton ~]$ grep '^alt\.os\.linux\.' .newsrc | column
alt.os.linux.best alt.os.linux.mandriva
alt.os.linux.caldera alt.os.linux.redhat
alt.os.linux.corel alt.os.linux.slackware
alt.os.linux.debian alt.os.linux.smoothwall
alt.os.linux.gentoo alt.os.linux.storm
alt.os.linux.libranet alt.os.linux.suse
alt.os.linux.lindows alt.os.linux.turbolinux
alt.os.linux.mandrake
[compton ~]$

which are carried by some BUT NOT ALL news servers. People also post to
'alt.linux' and 'alt.os.linux' but posting to the appropriate group is
likely to have your post seen by more people who are willing/able to help.
If the poster's isn't comfortable posting in English, there are a large
number of groups in other languages. Grabbing Red Hat as just one example,
I see

alt.fr.os.redhat cz.comp.linux.redhat-cz
alt.pl.comp.os.linux.redhat it.comp.os.linux.redhat

on my news server (and I suspect there are more), and that's not counting
the national linux groups like 'be.comp.os.linux', 'ch.comp.os.linux',
'cn.comp.os.linux', 'cz.comp.linux' on through to 'uk.comp.os.linux' and
'yu.os.linux'.

It's like they just don't care about any of it anymore. All they care
about is getting an answer to whatever it is they're asking. :-/

I know there are people who normally help who are now kill-filing the
groups.google postings. I haven't gotten to that stage yet (and it's
trivial to set up - kill on the 'Message-ID:' ending in 'googlegroups.com>')
but the 'spam-to-ham' (or 'noise-to-signal') ratio is getting fairly high.
Complaints to groups-abuse@xxxxxxxxxx do not provide relief yet. Perhaps
that will change - perhaps not.

I may be sounding disrespectful towards a number of lurkers - if there
still are any, that is; sometimes I just think they post their stuff
right away without looking for an answer and without lurking a group
for a while

More the pity, because they are posting from a freakin' search engine
that would provide the answer to their question in seconds if they just
use the damn thing.

And Google Groups seems to be a real idiot-magnet, if I may say so...

I don't know if that's because it's well known and free (and a larger
number of ISPs are no longer offering news service) or because they
can be a major fool without having everyone at their ISP pointing at
them and laughing. It's only those who know how to read the headers
and haven't killfiles groups.google who are laughing.

Old guy
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: hello to all
    ... On Tue, 09 Oct 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.suse, in article ... Posting from groups.google.com dramatically ... Find a real news server. ... While there are only 17 sanctioned Linux groups ...
    (alt.os.linux.suse)
  • Re: How can it be: cannot login as root when connected directly , but can login from other machines!
    ... On Sat, 08 Sep 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.setup, in article ... Posting from groups.google.com dramatically ... Find a real news server. ... Point your browser at this group, and read the article "A new reader? ...
    (comp.os.linux.setup)
  • Re: IP number question
    ... You *should* be talking about NNTP, because that is all that is ... The news server ACKs the windows by sending TCP ... You didn't read the original posting carefully. ... So how does google -know- that 192.70.172.31 was the posting host? ...
    (comp.security.misc)
  • Re: Censorship
    ... Microsoft's news posting filter which will auto-block certain content ... Topic subject matter the MS News Server admin. ... posts at Microsoft's discretion. ... Pass a Net Neutrality Law in the US!!!! ...
    (microsoft.public.security)
  • Re: eth1 breaks eth0
    ... On Sun, 4 Jan 2009, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.security.firewalls, in article ... Posting from groups.google.com dramatically ... beeing modified when I plug the cable in eth1 so I did ... Are you actually _using_ IPv6? ...
    (comp.security.firewalls)
Loading