I don't really understand what drives this bunch of posters to cross
post to this and other inappropriate groups. It's apparently some kind
of attention-getting need, like a two year old tugging on your arm.
Reasoning with them in a polite adult way does have about as much effect
as with a two year old, so there is some similarity. If those guys are
really amateurs, their banal postings provide a good reason for any
potential new amateur to avoid amateur radio -- maybe that's their
objective. But in order to keep up the annoying din, they change
"handles" and subject titles almost by the minute. ("Mom!" "Hey,
Mother!" "Muh-thur!" "Mommy!" "Moooom!") This makes filtering just about
as time-consuming a process as just constantly marking the threads as
read as they appear.

I use Thunderbird, which also has filtering capability. But what I'd
*really* like is the ability to filter on the basis of the newsgroups to
which a message is cross-posted. Anything with "policy" or "CB" would be
the first on the list. As open-source code, people are able to and have
created quite a number of Thunderbird add-ins for various jobs. It would
be really cool if someone with a bit of spare time would put together
one to do this kind of filtering. My gut feel is that this wouldn't
require much more than a minor modification of the existing filtering
routine, but I haven't really looked into it.

In the meantime, I just consider the annoying background din as
something that comes with the territory, like mosquitoes in the woods or
lice in cheap hotels. Some effective repellent would be nice, though.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Rick wrote:
Since I began using Outlook Express as my newsreader I have been able to
implement subject line filters which are nearly perfect in eliminating the
QRM. Every few days I add to this filter as needed.
If you use Outlook Express and are not familiar with filters you are missing
out on a real useful feature.
All you have to do is hit tools/message rules/News. Then build a new filter
"where the subject line contains words" and then put in the words that will
be used to eliminate the QRM. Works as good as a Wouff Hong. Here's my
current list:

contains 'cw-forever' or 'slow code' or 'democrat' or 'Fcc took' or
'rumsfeld' or 'cw' or 'poll' or 'dumber' or 'blog' or 'crapthon' or
'crapathon' or 'cattle' or '...' or 'flonking' or 'punce' or 'passed tech'

Rick K2XT