My filters are now blocking 60-80% of posts in this n/g. (The n/g list shows the number of unread messages in each group before I d/l the headers for it.)
Must be a lot of crap getting through to those poor souls who haven't set their filters right...
How would you know - if you are blocking the messages?
Like I said, my newsreader (Mozilla Thunderbird) shows the number of unread messages on the server - but it only downloads the headers from the unblocked messages. Eg, just now I saw 77 messages on the server, but only 9 headers were downloaded.
How did I set my filters? Well, besides the obvious make-money and sex spam set by subject line, I've also blocked a couple of senders -- that seems to have made the largest difference in this newsgroup. I don't care how useful the occasional post from potty-mouth is, his posts are blocked. I've set most of these filters at the news-server level, which catches the sex spam etc for all n/gs. Occasionally some crap still gets through, in which case I just add a line to the subject filter(s).
Also, about every two weeks I go to get-mail at Sympatico, and "submit" garbage to their spam filter 'bot. That really helps cut down on the spam in my mail box.
HTH
Wolf, I'm not using any filters. Out of 113 messages I see now only three are not train related under two different headers. If you are blocking up to 80% you might be missing quite a few train related posts. The group has been very much on topic for a while now. If there are a few individuals you've simply had enough of and you block them that's probably adequate to get rid of most all of what you don't want. It seems the real antagonists most of whom were the same person with different names have become bored with us, moved on, died, got locked up or has become someone else who appears normal. Lately just about every thread has started off on topic, a few have wandered and we have had a few spats but mostly have stayed on topic. Possibly more Spam type messages come through the servers from various providers. If that's the case then you may need your filters, but I'm getting very few messages that are not hobby or train related. Bruce
Interesting. My news server (news.individual.net) must block a lot, because my filters seldom catch anything but a few excessive crossposters. I just downloaded 19 messages - no spam. And there will probably be that number again this evening. 20-40 a day seems to be the average.
Your news server must be doing a bit of blocking -- or perhaps missing some messages outright? -- because Google archives most messages (except blatant spam) and they have 2500 archived rec.models.railroad messages from last month. That's about 80 messages a day.
Oops. I misspoke. SpamAssassin is an e-mail filter, not a newsgroup filter. Mea culpa. What can I say, it's morning (I work 3rd shift).
Jay
website URL: members.aol.com/orphantrainlocos/index.html All the world's a stage - and everybody's a critic.
I checked the filter log, and noted that three blocked senders accounted for about 2 dozen of the roughly 65 messages blocked today. (144 shown unread on server, 75 headers downloaded). I suspect the others are blocked at the server level. But that raises the puzzle why Tbird shows these message as present on the server. So my suspcion is somehow wrong.
It could be that Tbird shows the total unread messages not yet d/loaded. Most days I read only a dozen messages or so. Maybe the large number of unread headers shown is a side effect of the way Tbird keeps track of read/down-loaded messages. I mean, it must compare its list to what's on the server, and there must be a list on the server, else the server can't tell what to show to Tbird. And so on.
"It's all rather confusing, really."
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