On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 02:35:53 GMT, [email] (Yenc-PP-A&A) wrote:
<multi-message posting of "Pinch Sitter">
Anyone figure out where this asshole is posting from? The legalities and moralities of posting "Daria" episodes online aside, the fact remains that this is not a binaries newsgroup, they shouldn't be posted here, and we shouldn't have to be subjected to unwanted multi-megabyte, bandwidth-sucking messages.
Martin
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I admit I am personally not all that fond of his postings, but that's because he's using yenc. Very few newsreaders can handle it. It's an encoding that just never caught on. Outlook Express doesn't support it, and even the Mozilla team are flatly refusing to support it.
And although this isn't a binaries newsgroup, trying to post something in a generic binaries newsgroup (like the mtv animation one) is a lost cause because most of the parts would never show up.
As for the bandwidth "problem" you are complaining about.... frankly, unless you blindly download the complete contents of each and every message, it shouldn't be a problem. For most of us (99.999%), it's just a few extra headers that can be easily ignored.
And if you do blindly download every message in every newsgroup you do, then you've already got plenty of problems and you shouldn't be complaining about this little stuff. You've already got enough trouble with bandwitdth sucking messages, trojans, viruses, spam, etc. etc.
"Martin J. Pollard" wrote in message news:[email]... On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 02:35:53 GMT, [email] (Yenc-PP-A&A) wrote:
<multi-message posting of "Pinch Sitter">
Anyone figure out where this asshole is posting from? The legalities and moralities of posting "Daria" episodes online aside, the fact remains that this is not a binaries newsgroup, they shouldn't be posted here, and we shouldn't have to be subjected to unwanted multi-megabyte, bandwidth-sucking messages.
Martin
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To be honest, it never even made it to my server or, if it did, it was killed before it was propagated.
I would say that this is a problem with the encoding, not with the newsgroups. If a moron needs to post this sort of thing via a non-binaries group because a binaries group would miss bits, then they should consider changing. That's before we even think about the legalities.
Ah, yes. Typical l33tist response; "sod you, friend, I'm all right!" On what do you base the "99.999%" statistic? For many folk, especially in countries where online connect time has historically been far more expensive, a download approach has usually worked out cheaper since it allows a user to read offline and not worry about rushing through or picking out selected posts to avoid racking up an expensive connect bill.
OK, this is less prevelant than it once was but there are still those that do it this way for a variety of reasons and, if the Usenet system is used as per the RFC, there shouldn't be a problem. The problem here is that some idiot is breaking those rules. It's no problem in some cases, but it can piss other folk off immensely, not to mention the effect it may have on some free news servers with restricted bandwidth. Just saying to people "change your Usenet habits" is hardly the answer here.
Not really. Yes, we do get some of this stuff, but not as much as you might think. Actually, these days, you are far more likely to get trojans from web browsing, then from email, from P2P protocols and so forth.
Of course, those of us not using Microsoft operating systems (yes, we do exist) will not suffer to the same degree anyway. The problem with posts such as these yenc posts is that *everyone* suffers.
Luckily, I missed out on these posts, but I'm less eager to dismiss the problems of other users because I got lucky.
Many places do filter out any binaries in non-binary newsgroups. A few might have problems filtering out yenc, since that's not well supported.
I don't know why the guy posted here instead of there.
Maybe he doesn't get that newsgroup.
Maybe his binaries newsgroups are unreliable. That's true for many places.
And many many ISPs don't make much effort on reliability of binary newsgroups. And in many cases, their retention may only be half a day or so. Until something else comes in and bumps the other stuff.
Based on my limited experience with binary newsgroups over the past few years with a couple ISP's, they were never reliable for anything beyond a couple meg. Either too much never showed up, or they got deleted too quickly before I could grab the stuff.
I'd hardly call myself an "elitist". More like a typical user.
That's probably about the percentage that use a regular newsgroup reader, such as Outlook Express, Mozilla, etc. etc. etc.
All of which do newsgroups on a per message basis, rather than blindly downloading every single message in a newsgroup. There aren't too many people that actually download all the messages in any newsgroup.
Most of us pick and choose which messages / conversations we actually care about.
99.999% means about one out a hundred thousand use a non-standard, non-traditional newsreader for regular newsgroups. I think that's probably about accurate. Some people may use special programs for binary newsgroups, but for regular newsgroups... I think that number is probably not too far off.
I admit there are still some countries where connections are expensive. I can't help that.
Even then, blindly downloading every message in a newsgroup is still a stupid idea.
Most newsreaders easily let you download the message headers from all the newsgroups you do, disconnect, pick and choose which messages you want, and then reconnect and get what you want.
There just isn't much justification in downloading every single message. Especially if you are doing more than one or two newsgroups.
If you are only doing one or two newsgroups, then you might be able to justify it. But if you are doing a dozen or more, unless they are all very low traffic newsgroups, downloading every message just isn't too smart.
And whatever program you are using to download all the messages in bulk should have a filter built in, specifically to prevent the accidental downloading of large binaries that you might not be expecting. Something that could let you specify a max message size to download.
I remember the days in the 90's with dial-up BBSing. Calling long distance across the country to grab messages, such as FIDOnet etc., using readers which did download every message in every group I was interested.
It was "convenient" when things went quick, but it didn't always go quick. That's simply the nature of grabing every single message in every group you are interested in.
(And I even remember calling across the country with a 300baud modem and trying to do message boards and download stuff. A lot of fun, but it got expensive.)
Well, if that is the case, then the guy needs to talk to his newsgroup provider about blocking binaries in a non-binaries newsgroup. Many ISP's do that automatically.
That's the real problem. (That and blindly downloading every message in a newsgroup.)
The Daria group is relatively quiet about spam and stuff.
A lot of the other ones I do aren't.
Assuming he does more than just this group, I'd say the odds are good he also gets plenty of spam and viruses too. Especially since he apparently gets every single message.
Of course there are...
There are more desktop linux users than the are Mac users.
I've even though about switching to Linux, but it wouldn't really be worth the effort because too much stuff wouldn't run under WINE.
I understand him not liking it.
But complaining about the *bandwidth* consumption indicates rather clearly that he has a problem on *his* end.
And how do you know that you are? My own experience is that there is no such thing as a typical user.
But that isn't what I asked. You are picking a statistic out of the air, for all I know. For example, look through my own header and pick out the client name. I know that my posts are a little unusual, but add them to all the different other clients out there that that *aren't* Mozilla or Microsoft based, and it soon mounts up.
Certainly. But again you are picking statistics out of the air. How do you know that however many people don't download "blindly" as you put it? For the record, I am one of those that downloads full posts from my selected groups rather than just headers. I know quite a lot of folk that do. I know that not everyone does, but I'm not going to start making estimates based on my own experience because Usenet is too big to make an assumption like that.
Again, you are speaking for a hell of a lot of people. Do you have that right?
"Probably"? State your sources! As for "traditional clients", consider how Usenet started before making such a statement. There was no Outlook Express or Mozilla Thunderbird back then!
Exactly.
In your opinion, maybe, but don't knock it unless you have tried it. There are some disadvantages, as this thread has proven, but there are also plenty of advantages. The fact that I can read this offline, compose my response offline then let the whole thing drop onto the net afterwards is one.
Of course they do. But not everyone wants to work that way.
I'm working with 36 groups at the moment. I can justify it. The OP can justify it. If you don't want to work that way, that's your choice.
Just because you don't want to do it that way?
That's the first good idea in this post, although, as I originally said, if the poster stuck to the Usenet RFC, there wouldn't be a problem.
Hmm... ISTR the old acoustic coupler modem we had would go that fast, if we stuck it on the PDP-11/70. For some reason, the 11/44 would only do 110baud. Ah well, those were the days!
True. Chances are that the ISP concerned is probably counting on the good will of the participating users. Trouble with that approach is that idiots will abuse it. As we have seen.
OK, so you have made your point that *you think* that downloading groups is bad. That is your opinion.
Have you ever heard of Mojo Jojo?
I've been known to inhabit some fairly noisy groups too, though the majority of the rubbish I encounter tends to sit there and stew. My client clears anything older than 7 days anyway (unless I lock the post).
Actually, I haven't seen that many viral posts on Usenet. The more usual way is to post a web link to a page with a waiting trojan. Seen plenty of spam, but it is usually tolerable. The worst of it gets reported, the rest gets ignored. I imagine that is the same for Martin.
Indeed. Then there are folk like me. (Yes, even a blind pig stumbles across an Acorn now and again!)
That depends on what you want to run. Some folk are so fixed on brands that they don't see that some programs are easily replaced. That is what many of the bigger companies trade on. That isn't always the case, but not everyone realises that.
No it isn't. The RFC for Usenet clearly defines what may be posted where and, in this case, the problem lies with the original poster. Bandwidth issues are only a symptom of the overall trouble with this post, but they are clearly a problem here. The fact that *you* don't see a problem, or that you cannot understand the reason why another poster, who uses a different method of Usenet post handling, has a problem is irrelevant.