I received a few private "thank you" emails for posting this in the context of another thread. I thought it might be of use to some of you to call attention to this by starting another thread.
The problem is defined very simply as the distracting and useless "Beavis and Butthead" routine that Jon and Cliff subject this newsgroup to. The solution is to use your news reader application to never even see posts coming from either of them. After this, it will be like they never existed!
Here's how to do it.
The following assumes you are using Outlook Express as your news reader. Pretty much all readers have similar tools. I'm not sure about reading through a Google, Yahoo or similar account.
Two ways to do it: rules or blocked senders.
Blocked Sender is the easiest:
Double click on a message from a sender you wish to block. This will open the message. Got to the "Message" menu. Click on "Block sender..."
That's it, messages from that sender will not be downloaded any more.
If you made a mistake and blocked the wrong person:
In the main Outlook Express window, open the Tools menu. Click on "Message Rules..." Click on "Blocked senders list..." You can then remove someone from the block list.
You can also block email as well as news messages from this person.
The "rules" approach is a little different.
In the main Outlook Express window, open the Tools menu. Click on "Message Rules..." Click on "News..." Click the "New" button Choose "Where the From line contains people" In section 3 click on the underlined "contains people" Type the email address in question and add it. Click OK. In section 2 choose "Delete it"
There you go, save the rule and never see this guy on your screen again.
You can even use "Apply Now" to run the filter immediately and delete all instances of messages by the blocked sender.
Let the celebrations begin.
-Martin