Netiquette on comp.os.linux.misc: Why did this sub

On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 18:13:35 GMT, Jean-David Beyer staggered into the Black Sun and said:

Step 0: Killfile anybody who has nothing useful to say. Do this in every newsgroup to every newsgroup's trolls-idiots, and your Usenet experience will get a *lot* better. ("G2"'s lack of a killfile is one of many reasons why it's not suitable as a Usenet client.)

OTOH, one of the Old Masters had this to say:

One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative. Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this. The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame. -- Chuq Von Rospach

...and Chuq left Usenet a long time ago.

It's not Western civilization declining. It's that the number of people with access to Usenet increased rapidly in the early 1990s. More people = more idiots. And the idiots are generally able to cause problems all out of proportion to their numbers. One idiot can derail a thread (you've seen that already.) A group of idiots could probably crapflood a newsgroup into oblivion--I think this has happened a few times, though I have no cites.

-- Matt GThere is no Darkness in Eternity-But only Light too dim for us to see Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin mail: TRAP + SPAN don't belong ----------------------------- penguins, is Tux." --MegaHAL