Religions > Atheism > AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned )
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Mark K. Bilbo" |
| Date: |
26 Aug 2004 12:23:05 PM |
| Object: |
AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
I haven't liked any killfile solution I've seen. Some are pretty good but
all of them seem to be "partial" solutions and they don't even seem to
*try to be "standard." Like you see people asking on the ng "how did you
get rid of X" now and then. Problem is what works for one newsreader
probably won't work for another and you can't just, oh, download a filter
and go.
It got me to thinking of how it would be interesting if it were possible
to "group plonk." Like how there are certain Nameless Ones coming out of a
certain ISP that doesn't enforce its terms of service at all. If we had
some central, reasonably sophisticated system that could "watch" for those
posts then issue "plonks" which would be honored by anybody that cares to
play the game, mass ignores become possible (which I suspect would drive
trolls up walls <eg>).
I'm not at all talking about message cancelling. That's not only bad form
that can get you into trouble with your ISP but nobody honors cancels
anymore. What I'd be talking about would be more of a "shared" killfile.
And one that's optional. And supplemental to whatever plonking you do on
your own.
There are some difficulties involved. One is that newsreaders are not
consistent about much of anything. Trying to do "plugins" or "translate"
the killfile stuff would be a pain. I was thinking more in terms of a
program that runs on your machine that does the actual communication with
your news provider while your newsreader talks to the program. Sort of a
mini-news server on your own machine I guess you could say.
If it proxies your message traffic, it could jump in and kill messages
based on "group plonks." The "plonk server" could become sophisticated
enough to, call it, "profile" trolls (where they post from, what they
post, if they use certain words a lot, etc.). It would offload a lot of
the processing to a server and the newsreader wouldn't have to be bothered.
(Of course, there would have to be some way to "subscribe" to certain, oh,
"plonk groups." Say you just can't handle another political post. You
could "subscribe" to the plonking of anything and everything the server
finds that says "LIEbral" or "neo-con" or such. <g>).
And long as its already in there, it occurs to me it could also do PGP
signing of your outgoing posts. One issue around here is "forging" of
people. If your posts were signed, we could id those lame forgeries better
(even automatically post a message "this message was not signed by X and
may be a forgery").
I've seen OSS key registry software so we could have our own registry (at
alt-atheism.org). There are ways to sign each others keys that would
enable regulars to "vouch" for each other.
And if we can identify posts from known regulars, that opens the door to
doing other interesting things like automate the QOTM contest (I know,
nemo's not all that interested in handing over the job to a computer, I'm
just thinking of interesting things to do... besides, he might like having
"automatic" detection of nominations and vote tallies.). Maybe revive the
"twit" list as it could be automated (and a page at the website be auto
updated).
Further, that leads to an interesting new "plonk." Since it would be
signed and could be verified (by software) to have been issued by a known
regular, you could do interesting things like have your software say "if
over half the known regulars plonk somebody, throw them in my killfile
too." Or maybe "if X or Y killfiles somebody, put them in my killfile too."
Things like that.
(And one thing that would be fun would be to notify the troll "you have
been killfiled by 87% of the regulars of this newsgroup and they no longer
see your posts" <eg>)
*ALL* of this would, of course, be purely voluntary. If you didn't join in
the fun, you'd see the ng same as it is now. Nothing would change. Except
you might notice funny looking PGP signatures on posts and maybe
automatically generated notices and such. But it wouldn't have any effect
on your "alt.atheism experience" (to, erm, borrow a phrase <g>).
Anyway...
There are some issues. One is some of this would be a real PITA (like
PGP). There would have to be at least a handful of regulars who are
programmers to put this together and automate it so the non-programmers on
the ng could use it without having to go get a Comp Sci degree (after all,
some folks just want to drive the car, not rebuild the engine).
I don't do Windows. Never did. Mac back in the '80s (but boy that world
has changed) and Linux these days. Somebody or bodies would have to be
interested and willing to do Windows and Mac versions of the software.
Certainly, we'd have to start by hashing out "standards." I mean, what the
hell is a "group killfile" going to look like? And how *do we profile a
troll? I have a big body of messages now (and it's growing) that could be
"mined" for information. But we'd have to think about what the hell we're
doing.
(One thing I'll note at this point is that killfiles are rather limited
in the number of headers they'll work with. A lot of ISPs put in X headers
now that would help identify trolls if the killfile *used them. Most
don't. Actually, I'm not sure *any do at this point.)
Oh and folks on dial up as opposed to "always on" connections... this
might result in having to do a "two pass" kind of thing when getting
messages. One to get the headers, one to get the (not killed) articles.
Though I am thinking if the system identified killed posts by message id,
the little "proxy" software thingie could just not ask for those messages.
That would require (if I recall my NNTP... I'd have to reread the RFC to
be sure) the proxy would ask for new news to be listed as message ids.
(Ah, wait, yep NEWNEWS returns message ids since a certain date. That'd
allow the "proxy" to ask for new messages since "last time" and get back a
list of ids it could then use ARTICLE to download... that could work.)
Though it still might slow your news access some. The "proxy" would check
for killfile updates, then nab the message ids, sift through them, then
grab the ones that are "allowed. Hm... well, that's a performance issue.
Things could be tweaked.
If you program and you're thinking "that sounds interesting," we can kick
this around and see if anything interesting falls out.
If nothing else, I've thought for a while now that Usenet could use some,
oh, "upgrading." The basics work really well for what it is. And its all
rather settled into a state that's really close to "stick a fork in it,
it's done." I know the last time I was on the mailing list of the working
group of the IETF that deals with Usenet, nobody could seem to really come
up with much of anything to *do with Usenet. It's just... Usenet.
But there's a lot that could be done with the information flying around
Usenet. That is, I think the *reader side could be a lot more
sophisticated than most Usenet software is today. But, then, it's not a
big, money making thing. A lot of companies have walked away. If
anything's going to happen to Usenet, it's going to be some kind of "open
source" project. Something that grew out of the needs and wants of Usenet
users. That and because it's just interesting to do.
Or, nobody cares and Usenet will keep going as it always has. <g>
(Okay, I'll stop rambling now.)
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Often anger is a sign of engagement with life. People who
are angry are touched deeply by the events of their lives
and feel strongly about them....Anger is just a demand for
change, a passionate wish for things to be different....
And, as it was for me, it may be the first expression of
the will to live." -- Rachel Naomi Remen
.
|
|
| User: "Doc Smartass" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 09:37:36 PM |
|
|
"Mark K. Bilbo" <alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote in
news:uuadncQZH8jlgbPcRVn-sw@megapath.net:
I haven't liked any killfile solution I've seen. Some are pretty good but
all of them seem to be "partial" solutions and they don't even seem to
*try to be "standard." Like you see people asking on the ng "how did you
get rid of X" now and then. Problem is what works for one newsreader
probably won't work for another and you can't just, oh, download a filter
and go.
I thought of one thing but I don't know how well it'd work, with all the
different newsreaders out there.
It would work on any reader that uses "regular expressions" in its
filtration file. But it would be extremely selective--it would be a list of
names, with the logic of "If [from:] isn't by [person_1] or [person_2] or
.... or [person_n], then delete it."
Easy enough in XNews, but I don't know about others. Basically, put the
names of regulars (both atheist and our religious guests, as long as they
behave;) into the "pass" list. Post a short daily warning that if you want
to be visible in the group to the regular participants, you need to
register by emailing so-and-so. That person posts, the regs vote, and their
name is added or rejected.
That said, it's probably more work than any of us are willing to put into
the project, given that we're not a herd so much as a tangle ;)
--
Dr. Smartass -- BAAWA Knight of Heckling -- a.a. #1939
The Fundamentalist
== Knows no greater joy than the sound of his own voice.
== Knows no greater terror than the god he creates in his own image.
== Knows no greater evil than an unfettered mind.
== Knows no greater blasphemy than being told "NO."
.
|
|
|
| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
27 Aug 2004 07:00:27 AM |
|
|
On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 02:37:36 +0000 in episode
<Xns9551DC2F2E4B0askifyouwantit@216.77.188.18> we saw our hero Doc
Smartass <gekiskivviesdo@astroboyskivviesmail.com>:
I thought of one thing but I don't know how well it'd work, with all the
different newsreaders out there.
That's one of the things I've been thinking about, that newsreaders all do
their killfiles differently. If there was a standard way of doing
killfiles, people could share their settings. Such as if someone found a
really good way to get rid of troll X, they could post it and anybody
could use it rather than trying to squabble with their newsreader (which
may not even be capable of doing the same thing).
And if there was some kind of standard, that opens up the possibility that
some of our more notorious trolls could be tracked by some fairly clever
software and killfile updates could be generated automatically. Maybe by
some kind of "NoCeM" being posted to the ng and the folks who want would
have some setting to pick it up automatically.
I can see some tricky issues involved in building some system like this
but it sounds like it would be interesting to try. Well, at least to me.
<g>
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Often anger is a sign of engagement with life. People who
are angry are touched deeply by the events of their lives
and feel strongly about them....Anger is just a demand for
change, a passionate wish for things to be different....
And, as it was for me, it may be the first expression of
the will to live." -- Rachel Naomi Remen
.
|
|
|
| User: "Doc Smartass" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
27 Aug 2004 05:52:08 PM |
|
|
"Mark K. Bilbo" <alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote in
news:zZqdnf5RxOrGv7LcRVn-gg@megapath.net:
On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 02:37:36 +0000 in episode
<Xns9551DC2F2E4B0askifyouwantit@216.77.188.18> we saw our hero Doc
Smartass <gekiskivviesdo@astroboyskivviesmail.com>:
I thought of one thing but I don't know how well it'd work, with all
the different newsreaders out there.
That's one of the things I've been thinking about, that newsreaders
all do their killfiles differently. If there was a standard way of
doing killfiles, people could share their settings. Such as if someone
found a really good way to get rid of troll X, they could post it and
anybody could use it rather than trying to squabble with their
newsreader (which may not even be capable of doing the same thing).
I can think of a few VERY straightforward but highly illegal ways to be rid
of "troll X" >:)
Pity there's no real EAC.
--
Dr. Smartass -- BAAWA Knight of Heckling -- a.a. #1939
The Fundamentalist
== Knows no greater joy than the sound of his own voice.
== Knows no greater terror than the god he creates in his own image.
== Knows no greater evil than an unfettered mind.
== Knows no greater blasphemy than being told "NO."
.
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Apostate" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 11:20:27 PM |
|
|
On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 02:37:36 GMT, Doc Smartass <gekiskivviesdo@astroboyskivviesmail.com>
wrote:
"Mark K. Bilbo" <alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote in
news:uuadncQZH8jlgbPcRVn-sw@megapath.net:
I haven't liked any killfile solution I've seen. Some are pretty good but
all of them seem to be "partial" solutions and they don't even seem to
*try to be "standard." Like you see people asking on the ng "how did you
get rid of X" now and then. Problem is what works for one newsreader
probably won't work for another and you can't just, oh, download a filter
and go.
I thought of one thing but I don't know how well it'd work, with all the
different newsreaders out there.
It would work on any reader that uses "regular expressions" in its
filtration file. But it would be extremely selective--it would be a list of
names, with the logic of "If [from:] isn't by [person_1] or [person_2] or
... or [person_n], then delete it."
Easy enough in XNews, but I don't know about others. Basically, put the
names of regulars (both atheist and our religious guests, as long as they
behave;) into the "pass" list. Post a short daily warning that if you want
to be visible in the group to the regular participants, you need to
register by emailing so-and-so. That person posts, the regs vote, and their
name is added or rejected.
That said, it's probably more work than any of us are willing to put into
the project, given that we're not a herd so much as a tangle ;)
There's that, alongside the fact that the idea blows. :-)
We'd miss the day when the final and eternal proof, proving beyond weasel words that
there is, in actuality, a gawd, with all the trimmings, is posted by a newcomer, all
unknowing of the insider rules for posting to a.a.
Whitelisting works better in a lower traffic setting, with maybe forty regs.
But you keep thinking, Butch. It's what you do best.
--
/Apostate
atheist #1931 I've found it!
BAAWA Knife AND SMASHer
EAC Supernumerary Deputy Director, Department of Redundancy Department
plonked by Lani_girl, first post; Billions Served!
I doubt, therefore I might be.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Doc Smartass" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
27 Aug 2004 05:53:49 PM |
|
|
Apostate <Apostate.invalid@yeehaw.org> wrote in
news:kadti05s2nmhose66reg1parc06vtlo17t@4ax.com:
On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 02:37:36 GMT, Doc Smartass
<gekiskivviesdo@astroboyskivviesmail.com> wrote:
That said, it's probably more work than any of us are willing to put
into the project, given that we're not a herd so much as a tangle ;)
There's that, alongside the fact that the idea blows. :-)
Never! It is a BRILLIANT idea! It just won't work, is all ;p
We'd miss the day when the final and eternal proof, proving
beyond weasel words that there is, in actuality, a gawd, with all
the trimmings, is posted by a newcomer, all unknowing of the
insider rules for posting to a.a.
Well, dammit. Gawd would be able to get past the filters. All-knowing, all-
powerful, and all-that ;)
--
Dr. Smartass -- BAAWA Knight of Heckling -- a.a. #1939
The Fundamentalist
== Knows no greater joy than the sound of his own voice.
== Knows no greater terror than the god he creates in his own image.
== Knows no greater evil than an unfettered mind.
== Knows no greater blasphemy than being told "NO."
.
|
|
|
| User: "Apostate" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
27 Aug 2004 06:45:51 PM |
|
|
On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 22:53:49 GMT, Doc Smartass <gekiskivviesdo@astroboyskivviesmail.com>
wrote:
Apostate <Apostate.invalid@yeehaw.org> wrote in
news:kadti05s2nmhose66reg1parc06vtlo17t@4ax.com:
On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 02:37:36 GMT, Doc Smartass
<gekiskivviesdo@astroboyskivviesmail.com> wrote:
That said, it's probably more work than any of us are willing to put
into the project, given that we're not a herd so much as a tangle ;)
There's that, alongside the fact that the idea blows. :-)
Never! It is a BRILLIANT idea! It just won't work, is all ;p
We'd miss the day when the final and eternal proof, proving
beyond weasel words that there is, in actuality, a gawd, with all
the trimmings, is posted by a newcomer, all unknowing of the
insider rules for posting to a.a.
Well, dammit. Gawd would be able to get past the filters. All-knowing, all-
powerful, and all-that ;)
... and a bag of chips.
--
/Apostate
atheist #1931 I've found it!
BAAWA Knife AND SMASHer
EAC Supernumerary Deputy Director, Department of Redundancy Department
plonked by Lani_girl, first post; Billions Served!
I doubt, therefore I might be.
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Mekkala" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 01:27:12 PM |
|
|
On Thu 26 Aug 2004 12:23:05p, "Mark K. Bilbo"
<alt-atheism@org.webmaster> kicked back with a beer, ruminated at
length, fell asleep, woke up, lit up a joint, then fell asleep again
after thoughtfully blurting out:
I haven't liked any killfile solution I've seen. Some are pretty good
but all of them seem to be "partial" solutions and they don't even
seem to *try to be "standard." Like you see people asking on the ng
"how did you get rid of X" now and then. Problem is what works for one
newsreader probably won't work for another and you can't just, oh,
download a filter and go.
It got me to thinking of how it would be interesting if it were
possible to "group plonk." Like how there are certain Nameless Ones
coming out of a certain ISP that doesn't enforce its terms of service
at all. If we had some central, reasonably sophisticated system that
could "watch" for those posts then issue "plonks" which would be
honored by anybody that cares to play the game, mass ignores become
possible (which I suspect would drive trolls up walls <eg>).
I'm not at all talking about message cancelling. That's not only bad
form that can get you into trouble with your ISP but nobody honors
cancels anymore. What I'd be talking about would be more of a "shared"
killfile. And one that's optional. And supplemental to whatever
plonking you do on your own.
There are some difficulties involved. One is that newsreaders are not
consistent about much of anything. Trying to do "plugins" or
"translate" the killfile stuff would be a pain. I was thinking more in
terms of a program that runs on your machine that does the actual
communication with your news provider while your newsreader talks to
the program. Sort of a mini-news server on your own machine I guess
you could say.
If it proxies your message traffic, it could jump in and kill messages
based on "group plonks." The "plonk server" could become sophisticated
enough to, call it, "profile" trolls (where they post from, what they
post, if they use certain words a lot, etc.). It would offload a lot
of the processing to a server and the newsreader wouldn't have to be
bothered.
(Of course, there would have to be some way to "subscribe" to certain,
oh, "plonk groups." Say you just can't handle another political post.
You could "subscribe" to the plonking of anything and everything the
server finds that says "LIEbral" or "neo-con" or such. <g>).
And long as its already in there, it occurs to me it could also do PGP
signing of your outgoing posts. One issue around here is "forging" of
people. If your posts were signed, we could id those lame forgeries
better (even automatically post a message "this message was not signed
by X and may be a forgery").
I've seen OSS key registry software so we could have our own registry
(at alt-atheism.org). There are ways to sign each others keys that
would enable regulars to "vouch" for each other.
And if we can identify posts from known regulars, that opens the door
to doing other interesting things like automate the QOTM contest (I
know, nemo's not all that interested in handing over the job to a
computer, I'm just thinking of interesting things to do... besides, he
might like having "automatic" detection of nominations and vote
tallies.). Maybe revive the "twit" list as it could be automated (and
a page at the website be auto updated).
Further, that leads to an interesting new "plonk." Since it would be
signed and could be verified (by software) to have been issued by a
known regular, you could do interesting things like have your software
say "if over half the known regulars plonk somebody, throw them in my
killfile too." Or maybe "if X or Y killfiles somebody, put them in my
killfile too."
Things like that.
(And one thing that would be fun would be to notify the troll "you
have been killfiled by 87% of the regulars of this newsgroup and they
no longer see your posts" <eg>)
*ALL* of this would, of course, be purely voluntary. If you didn't
join in the fun, you'd see the ng same as it is now. Nothing would
change. Except you might notice funny looking PGP signatures on posts
and maybe automatically generated notices and such. But it wouldn't
have any effect on your "alt.atheism experience" (to, erm, borrow a
phrase <g>).
Anyway...
There are some issues. One is some of this would be a real PITA (like
PGP). There would have to be at least a handful of regulars who are
programmers to put this together and automate it so the
non-programmers on the ng could use it without having to go get a Comp
Sci degree (after all, some folks just want to drive the car, not
rebuild the engine).
I don't do Windows. Never did. Mac back in the '80s (but boy that
world has changed) and Linux these days. Somebody or bodies would have
to be interested and willing to do Windows and Mac versions of the
software.
Certainly, we'd have to start by hashing out "standards." I mean, what
the hell is a "group killfile" going to look like? And how *do we
profile a troll? I have a big body of messages now (and it's growing)
that could be "mined" for information. But we'd have to think about
what the hell we're doing.
(One thing I'll note at this point is that killfiles are rather
limited in the number of headers they'll work with. A lot of ISPs put
in X headers now that would help identify trolls if the killfile *used
them. Most don't. Actually, I'm not sure *any do at this point.)
Oh and folks on dial up as opposed to "always on" connections... this
might result in having to do a "two pass" kind of thing when getting
messages. One to get the headers, one to get the (not killed)
articles. Though I am thinking if the system identified killed posts
by message id, the little "proxy" software thingie could just not ask
for those messages. That would require (if I recall my NNTP... I'd
have to reread the RFC to be sure) the proxy would ask for new news to
be listed as message ids.
(Ah, wait, yep NEWNEWS returns message ids since a certain date.
That'd allow the "proxy" to ask for new messages since "last time" and
get back a list of ids it could then use ARTICLE to download... that
could work.)
Though it still might slow your news access some. The "proxy" would
check for killfile updates, then nab the message ids, sift through
them, then grab the ones that are "allowed. Hm... well, that's a
performance issue. Things could be tweaked.
If you program and you're thinking "that sounds interesting," we can
kick this around and see if anything interesting falls out.
If nothing else, I've thought for a while now that Usenet could use
some, oh, "upgrading." The basics work really well for what it is. And
its all rather settled into a state that's really close to "stick a
fork in it, it's done." I know the last time I was on the mailing list
of the working group of the IETF that deals with Usenet, nobody could
seem to really come up with much of anything to *do with Usenet. It's
just... Usenet.
But there's a lot that could be done with the information flying
around Usenet. That is, I think the *reader side could be a lot more
sophisticated than most Usenet software is today. But, then, it's not
a big, money making thing. A lot of companies have walked away. If
anything's going to happen to Usenet, it's going to be some kind of
"open source" project. Something that grew out of the needs and wants
of Usenet users. That and because it's just interesting to do.
Or, nobody cares and Usenet will keep going as it always has. <g>
(Okay, I'll stop rambling now.)
Email me if you want to see if we could work something like this out.
My email is in my posts, minus the obvious antispam parts. I'm a
Windows programmer, so I could do the Windows programming -- and I like
to think I'm a smart guy who could help out with some ideas as well ;)
I have to warn you, though, I work 35 hours a week and go to school 12
hours a week, so I won't have a whole lot of time -- mostly just on
weekends.
--
Mekkala, Atheist #2148
"Atheism is ... the bed-rock of sanity in a world of madness."
--Emmett F. Fields
.
|
|
|
| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 02:12:11 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 18:27:12 +0000 in episode
<Xns95518A1EF1845Mekkala@199.45.49.11> we saw our hero Mekkala
<joremovedathiskimtoreply@attbi.com>:
Email me if you want to see if we could work something like this out. My
email is in my posts, minus the obvious antispam parts. I'm a Windows
programmer, so I could do the Windows programming -- and I like to think
I'm a smart guy who could help out with some ideas as well ;) I have to
warn you, though, I work 35 hours a week and go to school 12 hours a week,
so I won't have a whole lot of time -- mostly just on weekends.\
Erm... your spam guard is making my eyes cross. So don't be offended if
I don't email you. It just means I'm seeing double. <G>
Actually, if there's any real interest, I was thinking about putting in a
mailing list over here. I've got the software, I've just never done
anything with it before...
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Often anger is a sign of engagement with life. People who
are angry are touched deeply by the events of their lives
and feel strongly about them....Anger is just a demand for
change, a passionate wish for things to be different....
And, as it was for me, it may be the first expression of
the will to live." -- Rachel Naomi Remen
.
|
|
|
| User: "Apostate" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 03:56:57 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:12:11 -0500, "Mark K. Bilbo" <alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote:
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 18:27:12 +0000 in episode
<Xns95518A1EF1845Mekkala@199.45.49.11> we saw our hero Mekkala
<joremovedathiskimtoreply@attbi.com>:
Email me if you want to see if we could work something like this out. My
email is in my posts, minus the obvious antispam parts. I'm a Windows
programmer, so I could do the Windows programming -- and I like to think
I'm a smart guy who could help out with some ideas as well ;) I have to
warn you, though, I work 35 hours a week and go to school 12 hours a week,
so I won't have a whole lot of time -- mostly just on weekends.\
Erm... your spam guard is making my eyes cross. So don't be offended if
I don't email you. It just means I'm seeing double. <G>
Actually, if there's any real interest, I was thinking about putting in a
mailing list over here. I've got the software, I've just never done
anything with it before...
I'm interested, just as soon as it's established that crossposting beyond ONE
other group + a.a. is filtered out. I'll be reading to see the response to your idea.
--
/Apostate
atheist #1931 I've found it!
BAAWA Knife AND SMASHer
EAC Supernumerary Deputy Director, Department of Redundancy Department
plonked by Lani_girl, first post; Billions Served!
I doubt, therefore I might be.
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Christopher A. Lee" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 12:46:08 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 12:23:05 -0500, "Mark K. Bilbo"
<alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote:
I haven't liked any killfile solution I've seen. Some are pretty good but
all of them seem to be "partial" solutions and they don't even seem to
*try to be "standard." Like you see people asking on the ng "how did you
get rid of X" now and then. Problem is what works for one newsreader
probably won't work for another and you can't just, oh, download a filter
and go.
I have. When I first got on to usenet circa 1991/2. I did it from work
at lunchtime, on a Sun workstation, I telnet-ed to the server and ran
a line-mode program called "rn" - at the server.
Everything happened directly at the news spool file. It was fast. I
could killfile by subject keyword in the header,
/nostril/h:j
would junk any article with nostril in the header. Or
/nostril/a:j
would killfile any article with "nostril" anywhere in it. Great for
killfiling articles responding to loonies, trolls, etc.
The X-windows program "xrn" worked the same way.
When I got my netcom shell account from home, the newsreaders worked
the same way. Even when Mindspring took them over.
Earthlink took Mindspring over and switched to using an NNTP server
that was so slow this kind of news processing was useless.
.
|
|
|
| User: "wbarwell" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
27 Aug 2004 04:46:31 AM |
|
|
Christopher A. Lee wrote:
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 12:23:05 -0500, "Mark K. Bilbo"
<alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote:
I haven't liked any killfile solution I've seen. Some are pretty good but
all of them seem to be "partial" solutions and they don't even seem to
*try to be "standard." Like you see people asking on the ng "how did you
get rid of X" now and then. Problem is what works for one newsreader
probably won't work for another and you can't just, oh, download a filter
and go.
I have. When I first got on to usenet circa 1991/2. I did it from work
at lunchtime, on a Sun workstation, I telnet-ed to the server and ran
a line-mode program called "rn" - at the server.
TRN and SLRN are available, upgrades of RN.
The problem is you need a news spool meaning setting
up INN, or leafnode. And these would be slowish on dial
ups, though OK on broadband. INN is a nightmare, its very
flexible and truely fine grained but that means you do a lot
work setting it up.
Everything happened directly at the news spool file. It was fast. I
could killfile by subject keyword in the header,
/nostril/h:j
would junk any article with nostril in the header. Or
/nostril/a:j
would killfile any article with "nostril" anywhere in it. Great for
killfiling articles responding to loonies, trolls, etc.
The X-windows program "xrn" worked the same way.
When I got my netcom shell account from home, the newsreaders worked
the same way. Even when Mindspring took them over.
Earthlink took Mindspring over and switched to using an NNTP server
that was so slow this kind of news processing was useless.
The best way with a broadband set up and a local news spool is let it do
the heavy lifting at night and before you arrive home from work.
With INN, you'd be able to do global killfiles, bozos you don't wanna hear
from disappear from all and any newsgroups you subscribe to.
--
Senator Waxman's searchable database of iraq war lies.
www.house.gov/reform/min/features/iraq_on_the_record/
A good portal to more lies and Bush stupidity is to be found at
www.failureisimpossible.com - Go to the index and go to
"L" for lies. All you need to know about Bush when you
step into the voting booth. Bush is a liar and surrounds
himself with fellow liars.
Cheerful Charlie
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 07:24:07 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 17:46:08 +0000 in episode
<tn7si05lp0oruo7j9emj7eqdomasa16ld4@4ax.com> we saw our hero Christopher
A. Lee <calee@optonline.net>:
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 12:23:05 -0500, "Mark K. Bilbo"
<alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote:
I haven't liked any killfile solution I've seen. Some are pretty good but
all of them seem to be "partial" solutions and they don't even seem to
*try to be "standard." Like you see people asking on the ng "how did you
get rid of X" now and then. Problem is what works for one newsreader
probably won't work for another and you can't just, oh, download a filter
and go.
I have. When I first got on to usenet circa 1991/2. I did it from work at
lunchtime, on a Sun workstation, I telnet-ed to the server and ran a
line-mode program called "rn" - at the server.
Everything happened directly at the news spool file. It was fast. I could
killfile by subject keyword in the header,
/nostril/h:j
would junk any article with nostril in the header. Or
/nostril/a:j
would killfile any article with "nostril" anywhere in it. Great for
killfiling articles responding to loonies, trolls, etc.
The X-windows program "xrn" worked the same way.
That was Larry Wall's old "Read News" right?
When I got my netcom shell account from home, the newsreaders worked the
same way. Even when Mindspring took them over.
Earthlink took Mindspring over and switched to using an NNTP server that
was so slow this kind of news processing was useless.
Ah Earthlink. Let us not speak of them again. <g>
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Often anger is a sign of engagement with life. People who
are angry are touched deeply by the events of their lives
and feel strongly about them....Anger is just a demand for
change, a passionate wish for things to be different....
And, as it was for me, it may be the first expression of
the will to live." -- Rachel Naomi Remen
.
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Uncle Dollar Bill" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 04:00:38 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 12:23:05 -0500, Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
Path: bigbe2.bellsouth.net!bigfeed.bellsouth.net!news.bellsouth.net!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.megapath.net!news.megapath.net.POSTED!not-for-mail
NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 12:23:04 -0500
From: "Mark K. Bilbo" <alt-atheism@org.webmaster>
Subject: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned <g>)
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 12:23:05 -0500
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Message-ID: <uuadncQZH8jlgbPcRVn-sw@megapath.net>
Lines: 149
NNTP-Posting-Host: 69.33.87.218
X-Trace: sv3-OpnZhy+sLD3P3JuTaVzft4k4yGDluCtdEKdR9ibQ85xc4DQu30907CH1qCarBlZm53dFpmebry1IDhB!hkdeiUfyvZaTihhNozB2LYVlB5J1IdhmTMRQnVfrBjuHXyhsK/y2bpI89eQoIM/L3THzxCrpxQg1
X-Complaints-To:
X-DMCA-Complaints-To:
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly
X-Postfilter: 1.3.13
Xref: bigfeed.bellsouth.net alt.atheism:3480594
I haven't liked any killfile solution I've seen. Some are pretty good but
all of them seem to be "partial" solutions and they don't even seem to
*try to be "standard." Like you see people asking on the ng "how did you
get rid of X" now and then. Problem is what works for one newsreader
probably won't work for another and you can't just, oh, download a filter
and go.
It got me to thinking of how it would be interesting if it were possible
to "group plonk." Like how there are certain Nameless Ones coming out of a
certain ISP that doesn't enforce its terms of service at all. If we had
some central, reasonably sophisticated system that could "watch" for those
posts then issue "plonks" which would be honored by anybody that cares to
play the game, mass ignores become possible (which I suspect would drive
trolls up walls <eg>).
I'm not at all talking about message cancelling. That's not only bad form
that can get you into trouble with your ISP but nobody honors cancels
anymore. What I'd be talking about would be more of a "shared" killfile.
And one that's optional. And supplemental to whatever plonking you do on
your own.
There are some difficulties involved. One is that newsreaders are not
consistent about much of anything. Trying to do "plugins" or "translate"
the killfile stuff would be a pain. I was thinking more in terms of a
program that runs on your machine that does the actual communication with
your news provider while your newsreader talks to the program. Sort of a
mini-news server on your own machine I guess you could say.
If it proxies your message traffic, it could jump in and kill messages
based on "group plonks." The "plonk server" could become sophisticated
enough to, call it, "profile" trolls (where they post from, what they
post, if they use certain words a lot, etc.). It would offload a lot of
the processing to a server and the newsreader wouldn't have to be bothered.
(Of course, there would have to be some way to "subscribe" to certain, oh,
"plonk groups." Say you just can't handle another political post. You
could "subscribe" to the plonking of anything and everything the server
finds that says "LIEbral" or "neo-con" or such. <g>).
And long as its already in there, it occurs to me it could also do PGP
signing of your outgoing posts. One issue around here is "forging" of
people. If your posts were signed, we could id those lame forgeries better
(even automatically post a message "this message was not signed by X and
may be a forgery").
I've seen OSS key registry software so we could have our own registry (at
alt-atheism.org). There are ways to sign each others keys that would
enable regulars to "vouch" for each other.
And if we can identify posts from known regulars, that opens the door to
doing other interesting things like automate the QOTM contest (I know,
nemo's not all that interested in handing over the job to a computer, I'm
just thinking of interesting things to do... besides, he might like having
"automatic" detection of nominations and vote tallies.). Maybe revive the
"twit" list as it could be automated (and a page at the website be auto
updated).
Further, that leads to an interesting new "plonk." Since it would be
signed and could be verified (by software) to have been issued by a known
regular, you could do interesting things like have your software say "if
over half the known regulars plonk somebody, throw them in my killfile
too." Or maybe "if X or Y killfiles somebody, put them in my killfile too."
Things like that.
(And one thing that would be fun would be to notify the troll "you have
been killfiled by 87% of the regulars of this newsgroup and they no longer
see your posts" <eg>)
*ALL* of this would, of course, be purely voluntary. If you didn't join in
the fun, you'd see the ng same as it is now. Nothing would change. Except
you might notice funny looking PGP signatures on posts and maybe
automatically generated notices and such. But it wouldn't have any effect
on your "alt.atheism experience" (to, erm, borrow a phrase <g>).
Anyway...
There are some issues. One is some of this would be a real PITA (like
PGP). There would have to be at least a handful of regulars who are
programmers to put this together and automate it so the non-programmers on
the ng could use it without having to go get a Comp Sci degree (after all,
some folks just want to drive the car, not rebuild the engine).
I don't do Windows. Never did. Mac back in the '80s (but boy that world
has changed) and Linux these days. Somebody or bodies would have to be
interested and willing to do Windows and Mac versions of the software.
Certainly, we'd have to start by hashing out "standards." I mean, what the
hell is a "group killfile" going to look like? And how *do we profile a
troll? I have a big body of messages now (and it's growing) that could be
"mined" for information. But we'd have to think about what the hell we're
doing.
(One thing I'll note at this point is that killfiles are rather limited
in the number of headers they'll work with. A lot of ISPs put in X headers
now that would help identify trolls if the killfile *used them. Most
don't. Actually, I'm not sure *any do at this point.)
Oh and folks on dial up as opposed to "always on" connections... this
might result in having to do a "two pass" kind of thing when getting
messages. One to get the headers, one to get the (not killed) articles.
Though I am thinking if the system identified killed posts by message id,
the little "proxy" software thingie could just not ask for those messages.
That would require (if I recall my NNTP... I'd have to reread the RFC to
be sure) the proxy would ask for new news to be listed as message ids.
(Ah, wait, yep NEWNEWS returns message ids since a certain date. That'd
allow the "proxy" to ask for new messages since "last time" and get back a
list of ids it could then use ARTICLE to download... that could work.)
Though it still might slow your news access some. The "proxy" would check
for killfile updates, then nab the message ids, sift through them, then
grab the ones that are "allowed. Hm... well, that's a performance issue.
Things could be tweaked.
If you program and you're thinking "that sounds interesting," we can kick
this around and see if anything interesting falls out.
If nothing else, I've thought for a while now that Usenet could use some,
oh, "upgrading." The basics work really well for what it is. And its all
rather settled into a state that's really close to "stick a fork in it,
it's done." I know the last time I was on the mailing list of the working
group of the IETF that deals with Usenet, nobody could seem to really come
up with much of anything to *do with Usenet. It's just... Usenet.
But there's a lot that could be done with the information flying around
Usenet. That is, I think the *reader side could be a lot more
sophisticated than most Usenet software is today. But, then, it's not a
big, money making thing. A lot of companies have walked away. If
anything's going to happen to Usenet, it's going to be some kind of "open
source" project. Something that grew out of the needs and wants of Usenet
users. That and because it's just interesting to do.
Or, nobody cares and Usenet will keep going as it always has. <g>
(Okay, I'll stop rambling now.)
I've always liked using a local newsserver like NewsProxy. Any newsreader
can use it as its host, and NewsProxy itself does the filtering before the
articles enter your newsreader. There hasn't been an update in years, but
there hasn't really been any needed (except to increase the number of
operating systems it could run on, source is available for this). It can
filter on any header, even custom ones, and can either delete offending
articles or mark them with a special string of text in the subject line.
When I was still using it, I never saw a sing krp post. That's pretty
decent filtering as far as I'm concerned.
There are other, more current programs out there, of course. If someone
could suggest one that can run on diverse platforms, then we could
standardize our common filters and there would be no problem. I'd be all
for it.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 05:41:16 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:00:38 -0700 in episode
<1khtwxxtg7ede$.19sr4b9e7jsv4$.dlg@40tude.net> we saw our hero Uncle
Dollar Bill <UncleDollarBill@SpamMeNot.com>:
I've always liked using a local newsserver like NewsProxy. Any newsreader
can use it as its host, and NewsProxy itself does the filtering before the
articles enter your newsreader. There hasn't been an update in years, but
there hasn't really been any needed (except to increase the number of
operating systems it could run on, source is available for this). It can
filter on any header, even custom ones, and can either delete offending
articles or mark them with a special string of text in the subject line.
When I was still using it, I never saw a sing krp post. That's pretty
decent filtering as far as I'm concerned.
There are other, more current programs out there, of course. If someone
could suggest one that can run on diverse platforms, then we could
standardize our common filters and there would be no problem. I'd be all
for it.
I went looking and found a NewsProxy here:
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/software/newsproxy/
But it's presently driving me up walls. Then again, I think my perl kit
has problems...
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Often anger is a sign of engagement with life. People who
are angry are touched deeply by the events of their lives
and feel strongly about them....Anger is just a demand for
change, a passionate wish for things to be different....
And, as it was for me, it may be the first expression of
the will to live." -- Rachel Naomi Remen
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Apostate" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 01:51:56 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:00:38 -0700, Uncle Dollar Bill <UncleDollarBill@SpamMeNot.com>
wrote:
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 12:23:05 -0500, Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
(aside: why the header dump?)
<which snip, along with Mark's post, not replied to directly here>
I've always liked using a local newsserver like NewsProxy. Any newsreader
can use it as its host, and NewsProxy itself does the filtering before the
articles enter your newsreader. There hasn't been an update in years, but
there hasn't really been any needed (except to increase the number of
operating systems it could run on, source is available for this). It can
filter on any header, even custom ones, and can either delete offending
articles or mark them with a special string of text in the subject line.
When I was still using it, I never saw a sing krp post. That's pretty
decent filtering as far as I'm concerned.
There are other, more current programs out there, of course. If someone
could suggest one that can run on diverse platforms, then we could
standardize our common filters and there would be no problem. I'd be all
for it.
I used NewsProxy when it was still called . . . whatever it was called before
(Nfilter?) It was powerful, but agonizingly slow. Someone needs to rewrite it in
assembly language.
Hamster (possibly still for Windows only, but the programmers are chiefly German
programmers, who like to do things because they hurt, so who knows by now?) has become
capable of all the same tricks, without the moves-it-lips real-time scanning of text.
Recent versions can emulate filtering on headers not available at nntp connection time:
the articles get downloaded to Hamster, but if there's a 'hit' on a filter using a
non-standard header (e.g. newsgroups, all posted to by the poster, vs. only those carried
by the server, shown in xref) Hamster will chuck the article after download, rather than
serving it to the newsreader. This can be done with *any* header, including custom ones
(and iinm, even ones inserted after download by an optional helper app called KorrNews)
and even the pseudo-header "Body:".
Hamster also handles (optionally) pop3 and smtp, serves the same to local
clients, as well as serving Hamster's own local imap. It also has a mail-to-news gateway,
e.g. for converting an e-mail list into a pseudo-ng locally, and mailing to it by
'posting' to the pseudo-ng. Since it also posts to nntp servers, it can, in principle,
gateway a maillist to Usenet.
--
/Apostate
atheist #1931 I've found it!
BAAWA Knife AND SMASHer
EAC Supernumerary Deputy Director, Department of Redundancy Department
plonked by Lani_girl, first post; Billions Served!
I doubt, therefore I might be.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 02:07:01 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:51:56 -0400 in episode
<okasi0h5l30paserabui7e5on00bbm1i22@4ax.com> we saw our hero Apostate
<Apostate.invalid@yeehaw.org>:
I used NewsProxy when it was still called . . . whatever it was called
before (Nfilter?) It was powerful, but agonizingly slow. Someone needs
to rewrite it in assembly language.
You mean the one by Tim Skirvin over at killfile.org?
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/software/newsproxy/
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Often anger is a sign of engagement with life. People who
are angry are touched deeply by the events of their lives
and feel strongly about them....Anger is just a demand for
change, a passionate wish for things to be different....
And, as it was for me, it may be the first expression of
the will to live." -- Rachel Naomi Remen
.
|
|
|
| User: "Apostate" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 02:31:13 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:07:01 -0500, "Mark K. Bilbo" <alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote:
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:51:56 -0400 in episode
<okasi0h5l30paserabui7e5on00bbm1i22@4ax.com> we saw our hero Apostate
<Apostate.invalid@yeehaw.org>:
I used NewsProxy when it was still called . . . whatever it was called
before (Nfilter?) It was powerful, but agonizingly slow. Someone needs
to rewrite it in assembly language.
You mean the one by Tim Skirvin over at killfile.org?
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/software/newsproxy/
It appears, on its face, that this is related by ancestry to the app I mean, which
would run natively on Windows (without having a who-knows-how-to-configure-it perl
installation.)
Unrelated except by association, the first app I tried that would download from
Yeehaw! accounts by quasi-pop3, after that company started charging a fee for pop
accounts, ran on perl, and required the installation of a perl (what? interpreter?),
download .url provided. There were how-to installation instructions, which stopped
where instructions by the 'nixers and their brethren always do: where you were supposed
to be born knowing about the environment variables, and the canonical directory names
and tree structure. Of course, the app wouldn't run beyond finding a syntax error in the
first two lines, and dying stoically. Fortunately, somebody who could program for Windows
studied the code, and wrote a Windows app to do the job without perl.
--
/Apostate
atheist #1931 I've found it!
BAAWA Knife AND SMASHer
EAC Supernumerary Deputy Director, Department of Redundancy Department
plonked by Lani_girl, first post; Billions Served!
I doubt, therefore I might be.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 03:49:45 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:31:13 -0400 in episode
<90esi0di7o8notq381j7jl5a0att2jeu3a@4ax.com> we saw our hero Apostate
<Apostate.invalid@yeehaw.org>:
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:07:01 -0500, "Mark K. Bilbo"
<alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote:
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:51:56 -0400 in episode
<okasi0h5l30paserabui7e5on00bbm1i22@4ax.com> we saw our hero Apostate
<Apostate.invalid@yeehaw.org>:
I used NewsProxy when it was still called . . . whatever it was called
before (Nfilter?) It was powerful, but agonizingly slow. Someone
needs to rewrite it in assembly language.
You mean the one by Tim Skirvin over at killfile.org?
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/software/newsproxy/
It appears, on its face, that this is related by ancestry to the app I
mean, which
would run natively on Windows (without having a
who-knows-how-to-configure-it perl installation.)
Unrelated except by association, the first app I tried that would
download from
Yeehaw! accounts by quasi-pop3, after that company started charging a fee
for pop accounts, ran on perl, and required the installation of a perl
(what? interpreter?), download .url provided. There were how-to
installation instructions, which stopped where instructions by the 'nixers
and their brethren always do: where you were supposed to be born knowing
about the environment variables, and the canonical directory names and
tree structure.
<blink>
You-you mean you weren't???
Of course, the app wouldn't run beyond finding a syntax
error in the first two lines, and dying stoically. Fortunately, somebody
who could program for Windows studied the code, and wrote a Windows app to
do the job without perl.
Erm... actually... I can't get this one running *either.
And, you know, I *like perl. A lot. I know, I know, perl has its
detractors (very vocal ones too <g>). I still like it.
But it is one of those languages in which you can write some really bad
and obtuse code. I mean, you can do that in any language. But there are
some languages that seem uniquely suited for chaos...
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Often anger is a sign of engagement with life. People who
are angry are touched deeply by the events of their lives
and feel strongly about them....Anger is just a demand for
change, a passionate wish for things to be different....
And, as it was for me, it may be the first expression of
the will to live." -- Rachel Naomi Remen
.
|
|
|
| User: "Apostate" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 05:39:35 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:49:45 -0500, "Mark K. Bilbo" <alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote:
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:31:13 -0400 in episode
<90esi0di7o8notq381j7jl5a0att2jeu3a@4ax.com> we saw our hero Apostate
<Apostate.invalid@yeehaw.org>:
There were how-to
installation instructions, which stopped where instructions by the 'nixers
and their brethren always do: where you were supposed to be born knowing
about the environment variables, and the canonical directory names and
tree structure.
<blink>
You-you mean you weren't???
No, and the High Priests I know only speak Latin (well, that Linuxy stuff
sounds a lot like Latin, in a generic sort of way.)
Of course, the app wouldn't run beyond finding a syntax
error in the first two lines, and dying stoically. Fortunately, somebody
who could program for Windows studied the code, and wrote a Windows app to
do the job without perl.
Erm... actually... I can't get this one running *either.
And, you know, I *like perl. A lot. I know, I know, perl has its
detractors (very vocal ones too <g>). I still like it.
Surely you don't mean me (you don't mind if I call you Shirley?)
I'm an agnostic about it. I "know" that it's *probably* the bee's knees, when
running on the Holy Unix (or other *nix) OS, but I've not yet seen a port to
the Windows environment run, chiefly for the reason that people who program
these things tend to be phobic about letting on to the non-elect what they're
thinking (or were educated in programming in an era when "documentation"
was synonymous with "betraying holy secrets".) It goes right across the board:
I've never seen decent docs for entry-level users of PRE's, for example; either
you have to learn a two-year curriculum, alone, without TA's, squinting at
on-screen docs, or you have to join tech-support forums where you get scolded for not
having studied the material enough to obviate such basic questions as the one you're
asking.
But it is one of those languages in which you can write some really bad
and obtuse code. I mean, you can do that in any language. But there are
some languages that seem uniquely suited for chaos...
I never got beyond a dozen or so credits of CS courses, but I did write some cute
(cub-level) stuff in C, talk about languages that engender chaos. I get the
impression that *that* standard of self-documentation is in the background of
people who've authored all of the ports to Windows of s/w originally written for
*nix. Remember Seinfeld's pique at the dentist converting to Judaism for the jokes?
I'm offended at the standard of documentation I find in these progs as a *writer*,
more than as a user.
--
/Apostate
atheist #1931 I've found it!
BAAWA Knife AND SMASHer
EAC Supernumerary Deputy Director, Department of Redundancy Department
plonked by Lani_girl, first post; Billions Served!
I doubt, therefore I might be.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
|
| Title: Re: AA: The State of the Plonk (long, techie, geeky post that may cause MEGO, you have been warned ) |
26 Aug 2004 07:21:34 PM |
|
|
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 18:39:35 -0400 in episode
<p9nsi0ppgc3edrihto1bdmj0u594i66iph@4ax.com> we saw our hero Apostate
<Apostate.invalid@yeehaw.org>:
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:49:45 -0500, "Mark K. Bilbo"
<alt-atheism@org.webmaster> wrote:
On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:31:13 -0400 in episode
<90esi0di7o8notq381j7jl5a0att2jeu3a@4ax.com> we saw our hero Apostate
<Apostate.invalid@yeehaw.org>:
There were how-to
installation instructions, which stopped where instructions by the
'nixers and their brethren always do: where you were supposed to be
born knowing about the environment variables, and the canonical
directory names and tree structure.
<blink>
You-you mean you weren't???
No, and the High Priests I know only speak Latin (well, that Linuxy stuff
sounds a lot like Latin, in a generic sort of way.)
Of course, the app wouldn't run beyond finding a syntax error in the
first two lines, and dying stoically. Fortunately, somebody who could
program for Windows studied the code, and wrote a Windows app to do the
job without perl.
Erm... actually... I can't get this one running *either.
And, you know, I *like perl. A lot. I know, I know, perl has its
detractors (very vocal ones too <g>). I still like it.
Surely you don't mean me (you don't mind if I call you Shirley?)
I wasn't thinking of anybody specifically. Just that I've seen some *real
dust ups here and there (more there than here). And you may call me
anything you want *if you're paying for dinner. <G>
I'm an agnostic about it. I "know" that it's *probably* the bee's knees,
when running on the Holy Unix (or other *nix) OS, but I've not yet seen a
port to the Windows environment run, chiefly for the reason that people
who program these things tend to be phobic about letting on to the
non-elect what they're thinking (or were educated in programming in an
era when "documentation" was synonymous with "betraying holy secrets".)
Or they just aren't very good at explaining things.
Developers--even the best--simply are *not tech writers. The fields may be
related but the skills don't overlap much. Developers also tend to suffer
from being, well, experts. Experts collapse steps. Going from A to G may
actually seem *quite obvious to them. Someone who's looking at the topic
for the first time can't figure out where B, C, D, E, and F went. <g>
It can be frustrating on both sides.
It goes right across the board: I've never seen decent docs for
entry-level users of PRE's, for example; either you have to learn a
Perl regular expressions you mean?
You know, I've actually done entry-level documentation of regular
expressions. And done it well (if I do say so myself). But nobody cares
anymore.
No, really. The corporate world has decided to abandon documentation
*entirely. What little you're going to get will be from Banglore where
they don't even speak English as their first language. Tech writing, in
the mean time, is a dead profession. Pros (myself included) are warning
people to run, not walk, for the nearest exit.
Simply put, tech writing is *over in the US.
(You should've seen the joke of a contract a recruiter contacted me about
in recent months. If you took the rate range they were offering, figured
the equivalent pay for a full time job with benefits, you came up with...
minimum wage level pay. I am NOT exaggerating. You can do just as well
going to work at Wal-Mart. At least they have benefits.)
two-year curriculum, alone, without TA's, squinting at on-screen docs, or
you have to join tech-support forums where you get scolded for not having
studied the material enough to obviate such basic questions as the one
you're asking.
I hope you don't mean those Usenet ngs out there. Those are such a joke.
Nothing but pimple faced kids that think running Linux means they have a
big penis arguing with other pimple faced kids that think running Windows
means you have a big penis. I don't believe *anybody doing any serious
work ever shows up in those things.
But it is one of those languages in which you can write some really bad
and obtuse code. I mean, you can do that in any language. But there are
some languages that seem uniquely suited for chaos...
I never got beyond a dozen or so credits of CS courses, but I did write
some cute (cub-level) stuff in C, talk about languages that engender
chaos. I get the impression that *that* standard of self-documentation
is in the background of people who've authored all of the ports to
Windows of s/w originally written for *nix. Remember Seinfeld's pique
at the dentist converting to Judaism for the jokes? I'm offended at the
standard of documentation I find in these progs as a *writer*, more
than as a user.
Heh. Welcome to the post-literate age...
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Often anger is a sign of engagement with life. People who
are angry are touched deeply by the events of their lives
and feel strongly about them....Anger is just a demand for
change, a passionate wish for things to be different....
And, as it was for me, it may be the first expression of
the will to live." -- Rachel Naomi Remen
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
