Why is Google so F****** dense about SPAM?
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From: rickman on 17 Jun 2010 07:29 Why is Google too dense to fix their SPAM problem? There are so many ways they could address the problem and as far as I can tell, they treat it as a PR concern and have tried to give us a control that does nothing! You can flag posts as being spam very easily now. Each post has a link at the bottom that lets you report spam. There are times when I flag every post that come into the groups I read. I see nothing happen with that SPAM. The existing SPAM posts are not deleted. The same SPAM posts are not prevented. In other words, it is a control that is not wired into anything. Once I switched from a newsreader to Google I decided I liked it and don't want to return. But I am getting tired of dealing with all the SPAM. There are some days with some groups that the SPAM outnumbers the real posts by 10 to 1. It makes the groups nearly useless. I believe there is a similar page at embeddedrelated.com. Does that work any better? Rick
From: Ed McGettigan on 17 Jun 2010 11:45 On Jun 17, 4:29 am, rickman <gnu...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Why is Google too dense to fix their SPAM problem? There are so many > ways they could address the problem and as far as I can tell, they > treat it as a PR concern and have tried to give us a control that does > nothing! You can flag posts as being spam very easily now. Each post > has a link at the bottom that lets you report spam. There are times > when I flag every post that come into the groups I read. I see > nothing happen with that SPAM. The existing SPAM posts are not > deleted. The same SPAM posts are not prevented. In other words, it > is a control that is not wired into anything. > > Once I switched from a newsreader to Google I decided I liked it and > don't want to return. But I am getting tired of dealing with all the > SPAM. There are some days with some groups that the SPAM outnumbers > the real posts by 10 to 1. It makes the groups nearly useless. I > believe there is a similar page at embeddedrelated.com. Does that > work any better? > > Rick I read the group through Google groups as well and have the same experience with non-action with reporting spam. I also rate each of the posts with the lowest 1-star. If they at least gave an option to not display 1-start posts that would be a big benefit.
From: d_s_klein on 17 Jun 2010 13:01 On Jun 17, 4:29 am, rickman <gnu...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Why is Google too dense to fix their SPAM problem? It's not their spam problem, it's your (our) spam problem. For all we know, they get to charge advertisers extra because we're spending more time in the forum reporting spam. RK
From: Jonathan Bromley on 17 Jun 2010 14:29 On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 04:29:51 -0700 (PDT), rickman wrote: >Why is Google too dense to fix their SPAM problem? It's "the tragedy of the commons" - they are culturally committed to the open Internet with all the evils and joys that brings. On the other hand, as others have pointed out, there's a perfectly serviceable free solution out there: I use the old free version of Forte Agent (still available on their website if you look hard enough) and have signed up with the admirable eternal-september news server. All free, no spam, and only the very occasional dropped post (presumably mis-classified as spam). The only really big drawback is that eternal-september only keeps posts for about three months before expiring them, so I tend to archive for myself any gems I stumble across. Forte Free Agent is a bit stupid about cross-posts too, but that's so rarely a problem that I just live with it. I still find Usenet a more agreeable environment than almost any Web-based forum mechanism, and I'll go on using it as long as there are any even vaguely interesting discussions going on. Please don't go away, Rick :-) -- Jonathan Bromley
From: Gabor on 17 Jun 2010 18:04
On Jun 17, 2:29 pm, Jonathan Bromley <s...(a)oxfordbromley.plus.com> wrote: > On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 04:29:51 -0700 (PDT), rickman wrote: > >Why is Google too dense to fix their SPAM problem? > > It's "the tragedy of the commons" - they are > culturally committed to the open Internet with > all the evils and joys that brings. > > On the other hand, as others have pointed out, there's > a perfectly serviceable free solution out there: I use > the old free version of Forte Agent (still available > on their website if you look hard enough) and > have signed up with the admirable eternal-september > news server. All free, no spam, and only the very > occasional dropped post (presumably mis-classified > as spam). The only really big drawback is that > eternal-september only keeps posts for about > three months before expiring them, so I tend to > archive for myself any gems I stumble across. > Forte Free Agent is a bit stupid about cross-posts > too, but that's so rarely a problem that I just > live with it. > > I still find Usenet a more agreeable environment > than almost any Web-based forum mechanism, and > I'll go on using it as long as there are any > even vaguely interesting discussions going on. > Please don't go away, Rick :-) > -- > Jonathan Bromley Google is still the best portal to the UseNet for those of us who are unable or unwilling to install newsreaders or who just don't want the added hassle. In addition to the spam filtering problem, Google Groups seems to have a spam sourcing problem as well. Many regular UseNet users will filter out all posts originated by Google Groups (including this one) in order to avoid the spam coming from the groups. For example the recent threads "Simple hack to get $<random number> to your home", show up as posted through Google Groups: X-Trace: posting.google.com 1276801463 16334 127.0.0.1 (17 Jun 2010 19:04:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse(a)google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:04:23 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse(a)google.com I'm not sure if sending complaints to groups-abuse(a)google.com has any effect. As to other moderated forums, I've seen that a large portion of traffic that once showed up on c.a.f has now moved to Xilinx Forums. This could represent the amount that used to be posted to c.a.f via the Xilinx forum site, but I doubt it. There is something to be said for a well-moderated site that allows attachments, etc. UseNet is pretty much in the dark ages in that respect. The real downside to the moderated sites is the over-use of categories (remember when we were trying to decide if there should be c.a.f.X?) Most of us decided it's best to keep the forum as general as practical. I don't think there's any free ride... Regards, Gabor |