NG Policies

No moderator and I believe this is most active group on the net.

No moderator and many frown on postings via Google Groups.

You would be encouraged to use a real newsreader instead.

Moderated newsgroups are clearly indicated by the name of the group, e.g. alt.astrology.moderated, alt.comp.lang.c.moderated, and so on.

Until you pay the membership fee for this group, I can't modify your posts. Membership is $80 for the year, cash only.

Jon

Only 2 moderated groups I subscribe to, don't have moderated in their name. Only sure sign is if you post through Google, they will say that it has been sent for moderator approval.

Also don't down Google. I sometimes post through it when on a company machine.

Frank wrote: ...

Not even close to top one of the half-dozen groups I monitor...

No moderator here. Say what you want. I suggest paying close attention to posts and etiquette. Your email was most likely harvested (and will continue to be)--not a big deal getting a new email address though.

It's hard to find a real newsreader anymore. Comcast dropped newsgroups a couple of years ago in my area so Google Groups is the best free alternative. What's wrong with Google Groups?

Paul

No. Usenet groups are not moderated for the most part. You're lucky if you're not seeing spam; I do. Your e-mail address is also now stored on Google and several other places that crawl the newsgroups in order to provide lookup services for posts on the groups. It has also been scraped from the newsgroup by several spam bots who will have already added it to their spam lists. So in general, it's too late; it's already in the hands of many around the world. On newsgroups, many people use phony email addresses that have been set aside specifically for this purpose in order to avoid the spam. snipped-for-privacy@invalid.inv is one, there are many others if you keep your eyes open and look for them. Do NOT just make up a name: if it's not already in use, it might be in use in the future so you could be screwing someone before they even get started. The address above is even actually pointed out in an RFC.

HTH,

Twayne`

I get no spam with my munged address. Former dial up isp, I got 50 spams a day.

Google Groups has limited features with a so-so user interface. You can use any newsreader such as Forte Agent and configure a free server. But if Google Groups works for you, then there is nothing wrong.

First off, you need to learn the difference between a news reader and a news server.

Compared to what you get with a dedicated news reader, the interface sucks. And Google does absolutely nothing, either proactively or reactively, about the massive amount of spam that's injected into Usenet through their servers.

Not a big problem, I've just tried to use my Gmail address for NG posts to prevent as much spam as I can. I've used the same work email address for 9 years, and it would be next to impossible to change at this point without losing customers, but I've been cautious with it to the point that I only get 30 or 40 spam emails a day (which is only about 1% of my total number of daily emails, so I think that's good).

FWIW, I used to use Forte FreeAgent, but now I don't frequent NGs very often so it's easier to use Google Groups. I completely agree about the interface (especially since I forgot that I was logged in to my Adsense account when I posted), but without being a regular anywhere, FreeAgent is too cumbersome.

While we're on the subject of policies, though, is the preferred method of reply for this NG to top post, bottom post, or post within the original?

Just because you use it does not mean it doesn't suck

Google Groups is the WORST of the free news access methods.

Your problems is accessing a news SERVER. There are many free ones if you want to keep using Comcast as your ISP.

In our case, Comcast provides the wire, but Earthlink is our ISP. Earthlink, in turn, povides Giganews for free (one of the largest and best-maintained news servers).

(Snippage)

Not a big problem, I've just tried to use my Gmail address for NG posts to prevent as much spam as I can. I've used the same work email address for 9 years, and it would be next to impossible to change at this point without losing customers, but I've been cautious with it to the point that I only get 30 or 40 spam emails a day (which is only about 1% of my total number of daily emails, so I think that's good).

FWIW, I used to use Forte FreeAgent, but now I don't frequent NGs very often so it's easier to use Google Groups. I completely agree about the interface (especially since I forgot that I was logged in to my Adsense account when I posted), but without being a regular anywhere, FreeAgent is too cumbersome.

While we're on the subject of policies, though, is the preferred method of reply for this NG to top post, bottom post, or post within the original?

I think most prefer bottom post, unless you are a Mormon (hang around for a couple of weeks: you will see what I mean) _I_ prefer if the post you are responding to is long, post within. But that's just me. Oh, and use some white space to differentiate what you have to say from what someone else has to say. Maybe that's just me too.

gene

Earthlink is great for email as well. They filter for viruses and have terrific anti-spam filtering. I rarely get spam; so little, I haven't noticed the frequency. Probably at most once a day.

Here at work they won't let us install a newsgroup reader so I can only use Google Groups.

\\

There is a "portable" version of Mozilla Thunderbird that will run from a USB thumb drive without any installation on the host computer. I imagine there are others if you look around.