flash newsgroups??

It gets mentioned a fair few times, and there is a slightly fuller explanation of the problems in an article on the wiki (link below) that can be linked to, but I guess the short answer is that the operators probably don't care. Since its likely all they want out of it is ad revenue, and scraping a usenet group is a cheap way of getting lots of relevant text that can be indexed by search engines.

Its a shame really since the way it tends to drag up very old threads tends to make regulars here somewhat less sympathetic to the few posters who use it and have useful stuff to contribute.

Not having heard of flash newsgroups, I googled them and their web site was the first hit. But FF refused to connect as it said the web site was insecure. So I'm none the wiser. But I take it that it's some sort of usenet news server, rather like news.individual.net

Kill thread on sender address *@example.com works for me ...

It seems to be the host used by this shower shower who post followups to years old threads or just a few lines with the actual infoo needing you to go to this shower showers web site. Briabn

Not every news reader has that, and in any case it seems many users really are genuine and are being misled. Brian

'blocked senders list'

;-)

The front page of the site does say its a front end for usenet groups:

"We also provide free, on-the-go reading and posting access to 13 Usenet discussion groups, completely anonymously and without requiring registration."

Alas without any indication as to what usenet is, or how to get the best use from it.