You, sir, breathe air, just as Hitler did before you!

(Unfortunately, purposedly using Godwin in an attempt to end a
discussion is frowned upon at best, so you may actually be
Godwin-proofing the thread . . .)

Yours Jestfully,
    Bent D

[snip a ... compliment? Backhanded compliment? Something ...]

People were discussing blanket-killfiling people based on news
provider, remember?

The following sentence is a blanket response to Kaldrenon and others
also, to rebut them:

Regardless of any statistics regarding spam sources, it is still wrong
for someone to be ignored not because of anything they did, but
because of something someone else did that just happens to use the
same service provider, and it is more so if the provider is one for
which many people have no alternative, say because they hold an
effective monopoly.

These are no good to someone whose interests are broad enough that the
only single news source that covers it and that they have reasonably
ready access to is Google Groups. I expect this is a substantial
fraction of Usenet users, partly based on the fraction (rapidly
growing) of regular posters in the groups I read that have a GG path
(ending with "...googlegroups.com!not-for-mail" or similarly) in their
postings and other GG-indicative headers (unrelated to the fact that
I'm *reading* the post at GG).

Some site providing comp.lang.java.* gatewaying is of no use to me
because I use non-Java newsgroups too. Of course, in theory I could
sign up at a sextillion different sites each to post to one or a few
different newsgroups, but that's a f.ck of a lot of work, a buttload
of userids and passwords to remember, a metric shitload of exposure to
potential misuse of my personal information, and more frequently
having to do something as a workaround because one of the sites
decides to do something evil or stop working either temporarily or
permanently. Whereas I can use GG and access all of these groups from
just one place, with only one signin, only one exposure of personal
information to one organization, and a specific site has to go down to
inconvenience me instead of any of several dozen being able to do so
and it therefore happening dozens of times as often. Also, GG is a
large site with proven staying power, if questionable management and
reliability at times.

In short, my objection is the same as to any push towards Web forums
(and this includes non-Usenet "google groups" that require separate
signup rather than letting any existing GG member post) -- too many
logins, too many passwords, too many parties with access to my
personal information, too many failure points any one of which will
inconvenience me, too many separate bookmarks to have to visit to
check and catch up on everything, and just plain too many goddamn
annoying hoops to jump through. All not to satisfy *me*, but
apparently to satisfy *JohnT* and others like him. Why should I have
to multiply by a factor of umpteen the work involved in a) getting and
b) using my usenet access on *their* account? I haven't done anything
to them. I certainly haven't spammed them or any newsgroup they read,
or anyone or any newsgroup at all for that matter. And it's not just
me of course; JohnT and his ilk are implicitly asking this of *all* GG
users -- stop using GG and sign up for a million separate more
narrowly-scoped gateways each. It's not even so much that they choose
to KF the whole site themselves, which is I suppose their prerogative.
It's their promoting the practise and pushing everyone else towards
doing so that is especially morally objectionable, because a
significant positive response to such suggestions will make GG defacto
unusable for people as using it will get them ignored, and *force*
large numbers of people of limited financial means to either shell out
extra for usenet access or get it at much greater cost in time and
effort and risk-of-spam from a fragmented bunch of separate web
gateway providers. It's simply not fair to the vast majority of GG
users, who are legitimate, to do this because of a few rotten apples
in their midst. Rotten apples you can find at any other large news
provider, I might add, including whatever large ISPs still provide
usenet for their customers. Rotten apples for which there are existing
abuse-handling mechanisms I might add:

* Individual spammers can be reported and will tend to lose their
accounts at any responsible provider.
* Irresponsible providers can be subjected to a UDP, though this is
rare; most news providers now terminate spammer accounts quickly when
given good evidence of abuse rather than risk a UDP. Including GG.
* There are still automated cancels for spams are there not?
* A lot of news providers scrub inbound spam from their feeds with
e.g. Cleanfeed. News providers downstream of them don't receive the
spams via propagation; users don't see the spams at either the
provider that scrubs it or the providers it thereby fails to propagate
to.

The proper use of your local killfile is to block non-spamming posters
whose posts, while not in violation of their provider's TOS, are
objectionable to you. Blocking a whole site is stupid. Recommending
that others do so is evil *and* stupid.

Ah, then we don't have an ethical disagreement, but a practical one.  
Reasonable people, when treated badly, may think "whatever!" and move
on.  Unreasonable people think either "Yes, this is what I like to see
in a newsgroup!" or "I must defend myself against every possible
slander!" and start posting more as a result, but not in a positive way.

It is a well-established result that trolls, including oversensitive
people, go away more quickly when ignored, and less quickly when
mistreated.

I am more inclined to point out this old cliché: Lie down with the dogs
and wakeup with the fleas.

Flamebait is built dealt with by leaving it alone. A debate requires two
people to argue with each other. By not arguing, the flamewar has only
one side and cannot be continued: the flamewars you are trying to
prevent only exist because people are trying to drive out those responsible.

Yes, I know it is difficult to avoid responding when you see what feels
like a libelous charge. Having a robust killfile and competent
newsreader helps in this regard.

A troll is closer to a virus then a weed. Trolls leech off of others;
they cannot stand on their own. Taking some vaccinations (kill-listing
them) and imploring others to do the same will kill them off by denying
them fresh hosts to live.

Spam, on the other hand, is a weed. The only remedy for that is potent
herbicides. :-D

Good riddance.

And to others: I don't appreciate being lumped in with Joe Attardi,
Mike, and their ilk. I'm one of the victims here -- in fact the main
one, as their target; Roedy, Patricia, et. al. may have received
collateral damage but it's fairly clear that the viciousness of the
aggressors in this newsgroup has been directed almost solely at me.
And even if you don't agree that it's been unprovoked, you surely
agree that it's at least been far out of proportion to anything I
might be perceived to have done with my mostly-civil posts --
particularly, I've never stooped to either computer hacking or
attempting to invade another's privacy and guess their offline
details. :P