Question about Thunderbird filters

I don't know about ignoring the thread but if deleting them as they arrive will do then yes.

I have added custom fields to the filters (bottom option "custom") for

Newsgroups References NNTP-Posting-Host

Organisation Message ID

(check capitalisation etc)

And have rules based on any of the following rules to take out cranks and nutters. Newsgroups and references allows you to cull both the original thread and people who reply directly to it. However, if someone on a whitelist rule trumps it that part of the thread survives.

Newsgroups contains "alt." will get a fair proportion of them with comparatively little risk of collateral damage.

You can't do a simple make rule from message right click though.

you could include a "match all" condition where subject field doesn't include "Re:" ... not perfect, but might be good enough, you'd need a separate filter per nutter as you couldn't group them into a "match any"

There is an "ignore thread" action available - although sometimes ignored threads don't actually disappear until you switch away from the group, and then back to it.

(Also make sure you don't have the "ignored threads" option ticked in View->Threads from the main menu)

I tend to use ignore sub-thread which seems to ignore the nutters post and any responding to them but keeps the rest of the thread available. If it is started by said nutter then I don't see any of it.

Yup I use that as well - although sometimes I find it still shows the excluded bits of thread, but already marked as "read" so you don't see them if you simply advance to next unread message in a thread.

I've not noticed that but I have noticed that if I use show only threads with unread it will include threads with ignored sub-threads even though the only unread bits are ignored. I think I have seen somewhere that TB says this is by design.

Probably why I see it - I use show only watched threads with new posts quite often (and have a filter to "watch" any thread I post to). That way its easy to find any replies I may get.

That's not a bad idea, but there are so many nutters these days (or just a few with many (ahem) "personalities") that it would take too many filters

Hmm, when I last tried "delete" it didn't work - I'll try again.

(I only monitor three newsgroups and none of them are alt - are there any interesting ones I should look at?)

I didn't want to miss topics that might be of interest so didn't want to ignore thread because a nutter had commented, but ignoring sub-thread from a loony will achieve what I want and I'll only miss some of the responses from those who haven't yet learned to ignore the idiots. Thanks! (and to everyone else who replied)

With its more powerful filters, does Tbird allow one to customise keyboard shortcuts as some software does. For me that would allow me to finally stop using Outlook Express. Since I cannot use a mouse I'd really value such a feature in any software so it can either be configured to work like another or avoid clashes with screenreader shortcuts already defined. Brian

The obvious delete button doesn't do much in newsgroups.

You have to set up a filter rule (pick a random nutter and make a rule by right clicking on the from field and you will be in the right place to create a more potent filter applied to messages as they arrive).

Using rules on email folders is easy since you can test them whereas on arriving news you take a pot shot and have to wait and see if it works.

Not really - they are all pretty much uniformly junk.

comp.* and sci.* still have some good technical stuff in rec.* and soc.* less so uk.* has some good stuff like this group

Not that I know of. There was an add-on for earlier versions. Here is what the help in the latest version has to say:

Customize or disable keyboard shortcuts

Some (but not all) keyboard shortcuts can be customized using an add-on. This can also be useful to disable certain shortcuts, for example to prevent unexpected behavior from single-key shortcuts.

Dorando Keyconfig (an updated version of the original "keyconfig") and Menu Wizard are examples of add-ons that help to customize or disable shortcuts.

(Note that third-party add-ons are not supported or endorsed by Mozilla. Also note that, as of November 2019, neither of the above extensions work on Thunderbird 68 and newer.)

Key chords are predefined and not editable. You could possibly build your own custom version from the sourcecode but it would be a lot of work (or settle for an earlier version with possible vulnerabilities).

it does with thunderbird ... which I see you're using

only that cross posted stuff rarely contains anything of interest - so killing messages that are cross posted will tend to automatically get a number of the trolls. (you can also do it with a bit more finesse if there are other groups you read that do interact with this from time to time)

In case you have not seen it, there is a fair bit about filtering here:

What keys do you need to keep free in your screen reader? (we can check if they are bound to anything in thunderbird).

alt.folklore.computers has some good stuff and not much junk.

Paul.

Thanks. I already "ignore" cross posts but hadn't seen (or had forgotten about :-( ) the section in the wiki.

Yes it deletes the originator, but not the replies.