Sick of trolls! 3722

No, the filter is relatively stable now - inspite of me scanning 90 news groups (don't have time to read more than a dozen closely) the additions are running less than 2 a month now.

I'm using a dumb script that works with headers from the POP server. It auto-kills, so I only see what it pbuttes or doesn't catch. About half of my family are common windoze lusers, including 3 using AOL. In spite of my screams, they were used to clicking 'send to everyone I've ever heard of' when the mailed out the latest rumors, and this got my addresses into buddy lists all over hell and gone. When they inevitably got a virus, I'd get a few copies from each. I finally gave up, and started using limited life addresses.

I'm a network admin, and my responsibility are to one division. While we have firewalls at each division perimeter to the corporate backbone as well as between corporate and the world, "they're not my problem". I don't even have logins on them.

Two minor nits - you are using as examples RH-7.2, 7.3, and MDK 8.0. You might consider using more recent examples. Second and more important, you may want to stress (probably in the 'How should you post?' section) to include distribution name and release.

A problem is that there is no agreed mechanism, either in RFCs or in common practice. I've scored up posts with the subject of 'Frequently Asked Questions' and-or 'FAQ', but that's just me.

FSVO. Actually three of the four I'm using now are locals, and the last is a regional (a branch of the state-wide electrical utility), and they have off-sited their hell-desk... to some bodyshop in the Washington DC metro area. The third level and above are local, but they're not supposed to be talking to the customers.

I get the usual "we don't support" crap, but usually the reason I'm calling is to tell them they have a problem, not me. The Bob's at two of the local ISPs recognize my voice, and have learned to not to try to help me, but to forward a message to backstage.

Two of my four run Linux (Slackware) backstage, the third runs FreeBSD, and the last runs Sloaris. I think what spooks the staff at that one is that I know Sol8 better than their third line support.

I think it was several years ago that one of the "popular" computer rags ranked technical support, and decided that the Usenet newsgroups provided better and more timely support than all of the 'for pay' services. A sampling of these groups should show that this is still true.

Old guy