Taking the pledge

Okay, folks, enough is enough. We've got good, long-term, high
quality pilots seriously discussing vandalizing someone's website,
because of said someone's troll-dom.

In the past, I have defended said troll, and lambasted said vandals,
but have now come to realize that this troll is obviously so divisive
and upsetting to some that this issue risks tearing apart the very
fabric of rec.aviation.

I personally find this amazing (he truly doesn't bother me that much)
but, in the interest of keeping this newsgroup intact and (relatively)
harmonious, I hereby publically make the following pledges, and urge
others to join me he

1. I will not respond to MX's posts.
2. I will not lambaste MX on these newsgroups.
3. I will not vandalize MX's website.

All in favor, say "aye"...


Has anyone thought about using a program that looks a certain
individuals name and immediatly issues a usenet message cancel based
upon said users name and the newly posted subject?

http://home.att.net/~marjie1/Cancels.htm

Mike Alexander
PP-ASEL
Temecula, CA
See my online aerial photo album at
http://flying.4alexanders.com

"Mike 'Flyin'8'" wrote

Has anyone thought about using a program that looks a certain
individuals name and immediatly issues a usenet message cancel based
upon said users name and the newly posted subject?

http://home.att.net/~marjie1/Cancels.htm

Lordy, I didn't know such an animal existed!

What do we need to do to get this thing going. Will someone take
responsibility to get this working for us? Does it really work, or is it a
scam?

Marty, you know about this stuff, don't you? Do you know about it Mike? I
can't remember, but I seem to recall that you might be part of the big 8, or
something. I'm not doubting you, but can you tell us if it is legitimate?

If someone will do it, (if it can be done) and it takes money to get it, I
presume we can get enough people to chip in to do it. I know I will.
--
Jim in NC

I am not part of the big 8... but it certainly does work. Or, at least
used to work. I have only tried it on my own posts, so I am not sure
about thrid party cancels... I see no reason it shouldn't work.

To try it manually, all you gotta do is change your name to the said
individuals name and issue a cancel with the same subject as the
offending post. It is trivial really. I am not an expert by any
means, but this could likely be accomplished with Agent and simple
script using AutoHotkey.

For an automatic program, you just need a reasonably decent VB
programmer with some free time... Again, this is almost a trivial task
as well... Just have it log into a news server every 30 minutes and
search for new posts by said individual and if exists, then retrieve
the subject and generate a new cancel msg and send it out. There you
have it... An automated troll buster.

I would imagine it is likely considered an abuse of policy of some
type to cancel someone elses usenet post, but I would be willing to
bet that someone would be willing to take that risk given the
responses I have seen to said individual..

I just wanted to put the question as to why I had not seen it
mentioned when I can not see a reason it could not be done.


Lordy, I didn't know such an animal existed!

What do we need to do to get this thing going. Will someone take
responsibility to get this working for us? Does it really work, or is it a
scam?

Marty, you know about this stuff, don't you? Do you know about it Mike? I
can't remember, but I seem to recall that you might be part of the big 8, or
something. I'm not doubting you, but can you tell us if it is legitimate?

If someone will do it, (if it can be done) and it takes money to get it, I
presume we can get enough people to chip in to do it. I know I will.


Mike Alexander
PP-ASEL
Temecula, CA
See my online aerial photo album at
http://flying.4alexanders.com

"Mike 'Flyin'8'" wrote

To try it manually, all you gotta do is change your name to the said
individuals name and issue a cancel with the same subject as the
offending post. It is trivial really. I am not an expert by any
means, but this could likely be accomplished with Agent and simple
script using AutoHotkey.

For an automatic program, you just need a reasonably decent VB
programmer with some free time... Again, this is almost a trivial task
as well... Just have it log into a news server every 30 minutes and
search for new posts by said individual and if exists, then retrieve
the subject and generate a new cancel msg and send it out. There you
have it... An automated troll buster.

Any volunteers to take on this project? It's above my head, for sure.
--
Jim in NC

On Sun, 4 Mar 2007 01:52:36 -0500, "Morgans"
wrote in :

It's above my head, for sure.

Thankfully.

It seems many things concerning Usenet are over your head. Do a
little research to educate yourself, and learn some self-restraint
instead of empowering the troll to drive you to publicly committing
fraudulent acts.

Perhaps you've failed to study the appropriate Netiquette:
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855

3.1.3 NetNews Guidelines

NetNews is a globally distributed system which allows people to
communicate on topics of specific interest. It is divided into
hierarchies, with the major divisions being: sci - science related
discussions; comp - computer related discussions; news - for
discussions which center around NetNews itself; rec - recreational
activities; soc - social issues; talk - long-winded never-ending
discussions; biz - business related postings; and alt - the
alternate hierarchy. Alt is so named because creating an alt group
does not go through the same process as creating a group in the
other parts of the hierarchy. There are also regional hierarchies,
hierarchies which are widely distributed such as Bionet, and your
place of business may have its own groups as well. Recently, a
"humanities" hierarchy was added, and as time goes on its likely
more will be added. For longer discussions on News see references
[2,8,22,23] in the Selected Bibliography.

- In NetNews parlance, "Posting" refers to posting a new article
to a group, or responding to a post someone else has posted.
"Cross-Posting" refers to posting a message to more than one
group. If you introduce Cross-Posting to a group, or if you
direct "Followup-To:" in the header of your posting, warn
readers! Readers will usually assume that the message was
posted to a specific group and that followups will go to
that group. Headers change this behavior.

- Read all of a discussion in progress (we call this a thread)
before posting replies. Avoid posting "Me Too" messages,
where content is limited to agreement with previous posts.
Content of a follow-up post should exceed quoted content.

- Send mail when an answer to a question is for one person only.
Remember that News has global distribution and the whole world
probably is NOT interested in a personal response. However,
don't hesitate to post when something will be of general
interest to the Newsgroup participants.

- Check the "Distribution" section of the header, but don't
depend on it. Due to the complex method by which News is
delivered, Distribution headers are unreliable. But, if you
are posting something which will be of interest to a limited
number or readers, use a distribution line that attempts to
limit the distribution of your article to those people. For
example, set the Distribution to be "nj" if you are posting
an article that will be of interest only to New Jersey readers.





Hambridge Informational [Page
11]

RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines October
1995


- If you feel an article will be of interest to more than one
Newsgroup, be sure to CROSSPOST the article rather than
individually post it to those groups. In general, probably only
five-to-six groups will have similar enough interests to warrant
this.

- Consider using Reference sources (Computer Manuals, Newspapers,
help files) before posting a question. Asking a Newsgroup where
answers are readily available elsewhere generates grumpy "RTFM"
(read the fine manual - although a more vulgar meaning of the
word beginning with "f" is usually implied) messages.

- Although there are Newsgroups which welcome advertising,
in general it is considered nothing less than criminal
to advertise off-topic products. Sending an advertisement
to each and every group will pretty much guarantee your loss of
connectivity.

- If you discover an error in your post, cancel it as soon as
possible.

- DO NOT attempt to cancel any articles but your own. Contact
your administrator if you don't know how to cancel your post,
or if some other post, such as a chain letter, needs canceling.

- If you've posted something and don't see it immediately,
don't assume it's failed and re-post it.

- Some groups permit (and some welcome) posts which in other
circumstances would be considered to be in questionable taste.
Still, there is no guarantee that all people reading the group
will appreciate the material as much as you do. Use the Rotate
utility (which rotates all the characters in your post by 13
positions in the alphabet) to avoid giving offense. The
Rot13 utility for Unix is an example.

- In groups which discuss movies or books it is considered
essential to mark posts which disclose significant content as
"Spoilers". Put this word in your Subject: line. You may add
blank lines to the beginning of your post to keep content out of
sight, or you may Rotate it.

- Forging of news articles is generally censured. You can protect
yourself from forgeries by using software which generates a
manipulation detection "fingerprint", such as PGP (in the US).

- Postings via anonymous servers are accepted in some Newsgroups
and disliked in others. Material which is inappropriate when
posted under one's own name is still inappropriate when posted
anonymously.

- Expect a slight delay in seeing your post when posting to a
moderated group. The moderator may change your subject
line to have your post conform to a particular thread.

- Don't get involved in flame wars. Neither post nor respond
to incendiary material.

On 2007-03-04, Morgans wrote:

Any volunteers to take on this project? It's above my head, for sure.

Don't even think of doing it. The ummm... "wide mouth fish" troll of
2000 did this, and quite rightly, caused a great deal of annoyance.

--
Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de

Dylan Smith wrote:
On 2007-03-04, Morgans wrote:
Any volunteers to take on this project? It's above my head, for sure.

Don't even think of doing it. The ummm... "wide mouth fish" troll of
2000 did this, and quite rightly, caused a great deal of annoyance.

I remember the bass wars but had not realized they had occurred that
long ago. Guess I've been following the group longer then I thought.

On Sat, 03 Mar 2007 22:19:51 -0800, Mike 'Flyin'8' wrote:

I am not part of the big 8... but it certainly does work. Or, at least
used to work. I have only tried it on my own posts, so I am not sure
about thrid party cancels... I see no reason it shouldn't work.

read http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/cancel-faq/part1/
and you need newsservers honoring your cancel messages ...

your best way is ignoring/filtering on your (client) side.

#m
--
I am not a terrorist. http://www.casualdisobedience.com/

I am not part of the big 8... but it certainly does work. Or, at least
used to work. I have only tried it on my own posts, so I am not sure
about thrid party cancels... I see no reason it shouldn't work.

read http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/cancel-faq/part1/
and you need newsservers honoring your cancel messages ...

your best way is ignoring/filtering on your (client) side.

True. And if any poster cannot resist replying to someone who he regards as
a troll, PLEASE identify your response so that others can filter his
responses as well...

Peter

On Sat, 03 Mar 2007 22:19:51 -0800, Mike 'Flyin'8'
wrote in
:

I have only tried it on my own posts, so I am not sure
about thrid party cancels... I see no reason it shouldn't work.

To suggest fraudulently canceling message is irresponsible, and
contrary to EVERY Usenet providers Use Agreement. It will, or should,
get your Usenet account terminated.