Re: Filtering replies to filtered posts


Ralph Fox <-rf-nz-@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:00:32 -0400, in message
<BMopk.15551$Bt6.6453@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Crash" Dummy wrote:

It is easy to write a rule in OE or NewsProxy to block posts by an
annoying poster, but then I'm left with dangling replies to the
blocked posting. Is there a way to filter out an entire thread started
by a blocked post?

I use "Ignore subthread" for that.

I can't remember if OE has "Ignore subthread". If it doesn't,
there are several alternatives which do.

(With NFilter/NewsProxy, you would flag the annoying poster's posts
and let your newsreader do the "ignore subthread" from this flag.)

Better yet, drop by per newsgroup(s) combined with offending substring
present in the "references" header, using regular expressions. That
way, you'll never see replies in threads containing the offending
substring.

For example, if I wanted to filter replies containing the message id
referring to the "4ax.com" server, which I am not, but only for this
example, I might consider adding this line to my nfilter.dat file:

news.software.* drop references:*@4ax.com>*|*xxx.com*|*yyy.net*|*zzz.org*|...

Employing pipeline separators with wildcards keeps the nfilter.dat
file just as small and efficient as possible. Including at-sign "@"
or carrot ">"/"<" is just another example of how to avoid filtering
coincidental substrings from other servers. This works like a charm on
most headers, at least on news.motzarella.org and drooper.mixmin.net
it does, and on more headers than those listed on the telnet "overview"
but I have no idea why. Like the "nntp" header appears to work, but
is not listed in the "drooper.mixmin.net" overview. Some other headers
seem to work, too, but still others do not. It's a mystery to me.

The only downside is that this filters all replies to anyone posting
in any of the "news.software.*" groups through the "4ax.com" server,
whether they "deserve" it or not. In busy groups where popular servers
are being used by dozens of contributors, this "blanket" kill-file
method may not be the most practical choice, expect for the global
"googlespam" udp, which has become commonplace.

I find flags helpful for highlighting things I want to read, but not
for flagging things I don't want to read. Most of the time, I just
use my newsreader to "ignore" threads which don't necessarily elicit
my own interests, but are not obvious flamers, spammers or trolls.
That's when I use the group/server combination filtering method, and
in rare cases using other identifying headers, since spammers tend to
morph by using "sock puppets." They don't get by me twice. In the
busiest news groups that are notorious for spammers and trolls, I'm
getting up to 300-to-1 s/n ratio. NewsProxy has got their number.

--
Ckyp

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: OT: Newsreaders
    ... Wayne Boatwright wrote: ... to filter based on "From" headers that are quoted in the body. ... You want to block someone and all the replies to them, ... if you traditionally just download headers it won't work. ...
    (rec.food.cooking)
  • Re: What king of newsgroup is this ??
    ... replies to those posts. ... Use a news client that can filter on message content, not just headers, ... then as long as replies include correct attributions they get filtered ...
    (uk.rec.cycling)
  • Re: Server Side filtering (as pertains to Google Groups)
    ... headers are included in the overview headers, ... don't need a proxy to filter on that header). ... The effect is to retrieve bodies only for articles whose headers have ... the user can choose to download it or not. ...
    (news.software.readers)
  • Re: Spam and using a real email address
    ... the person who had reported on individual modems. ... run into spam filters, or firewalls - it's a "best effort" mechanism ... to look at the headers on the POP server, ... still seeing maybe one in twenty that get past the filter being spam. ...
    (news.software.readers)
  • Re: Blocking emails from Asia
    ... The remaining mail is passed to a very harsh filter where I automatically ... kill HTML, Multi-Part, non-standard character sets, before looking at the ... 'Received:' headers and killing mail from unresolvable, generic, or rather ...
    (alt.computer.security)
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