At 08 Feb 2008 08:52:12 -0700 XS11E wrote:

> He's not on usenet, he's a google grouper.
>
> The link in my sig will explain it if you don't know about Google
> Groupers.
>
> --
> XS11E, Killing all posts from Google Groups
> The Usenet Improvement Project:
> http://improve-usenet.org


But, (since we're discussing this in a cellular group,) ironically, Google
(or rather, any web interface) is about the only way to access Usenet from
most mobile phones, so it's reasonable that the cellular groups might have
a higher instance of "G-Groupers" than other groups, including those folks
who "Usenet" at home, and "G-Group" on the road.

I used to use Google Groups quite a bit from my Pocket PCs and/or
cellphones until I found a decent NNTP client for my PPCs and WinMo phones
that worked online. (Many older WinMo "Usenet" clients were simply
aggregators that downloaded all recent posts of selected groups to your PC,
then synced them to the mobile device to read on the go, similar to how
many used "mobile" e-mail in the years B.C.C.: Before Cellular
Connectivity.)

While Google is certainly the _conduit_ for much of the nonsense we see,
it's not the _source_- it's simply being abused like any ubiquitous, easy-
to-use tool. Just as "guns don't kill people... blah blah," Google
doesn't pollute Usenet with stupidity and spam- they just provide the tool.
At least Google has an "honesty" about it- explaining what Usenet is (to
anyone willing to drill through the links and read,) unlike those stupid
"web forums" (like cellbanter.com, for example) that mirror usenet to a web
interface pretending that all of Usenet is their "forum."

If we didn't have Google (or before that AOL) to kick around and blame for
Usenet's woes, we'd be blaming loose or anonymous servers for not filtering
spammers (a few more chapters of the "MI5 Persecution" saga, anyone?)

Spammers will take the path of least resistance, and if that wasn't Google,
it'd be someone else. Noobs and losers, well, there'll always be those as
long as some web interface exists, and that's ok. I cut my Usenet teeth on
AOL groups,and migrated to "real" Usenet NNTP after I figured out what was
going on. Noobs eventually grow up, and without them (and probably Google!)
Usenet would go the way of the dinosaur as all the curmugeons that know
the "secret NNTP handshake" to be admitted eventually die off.

Probably the only thing keeping Usenet alive commercially, since most ISPs
no longer provide NNTP servers, is it's new era of piracy-through-binary-
groups (right, Larry?), otherwise independent newsservers would have a
tough time finding customers!