Re: blacklist

[wiseguy.invalid@concentric.net]

E. Robert Tisdale wrote:
>
>
>I have been considering maintaining and publishing
>a blacklist data base for this newsgroup.
>The blacklist data base would contain the names
>of subscribers who post off-topic articles
>to the newsgroup.
>New subscribers and infrequent contributors
>to the newsgroup would be advised
>to consult the blacklist data base before responding
>to articles posted in the newsgroup.
>There would be, of course, no penalty imposed
>upon subscribers who respond off-topic articles
>except the penalty imposed by the blacklistee.
>That is to say, the blacklist would be self enforcing.

(Crossposted to:
comp.arch.arithmetic,  comp.lang.fortran,    comp.lang.c++,
comp.arch.embedded,    comp.lang.ada,        sci.math.num-analysis,
comp.dsp,              rec.scuba.equipment,  alt.tv.days-of-our-lives)

=====================================================

1. USENET FISH TALES -- HOW TO AVOID BEING TROLLED


Any fisherman can tell you about trolling -- you cast out your line and 
slowly drag it along, waiting for some fish to come along and grab the 
bait and get hooked.% 
It's a time-honored tradition on Usenet as well, one that newcomers can 
easily find themselves ensnared in, often to their dismay (and the 
delight of the allegedly more experienced trollers who catch them). 


1.1 BAITING THE HOOK


The basic idea behind Usenet trolling is to post a ridiculous message and 
then sit back and watch as newcomers (and some veterans) try to tear into 
it. A really simple troll might be to post a message in a Star Trek 
newsgroup telling participants to get a life, or to post something like 
"101 Uses for a Dead Cat" in rec.pets.cats. If the troller's lucky, people 
will rise to his flame bait, sometimes so vehemently that the newsgroup 
becomes engulfed in a flamewar that completely drowns out all other 
discussions.


Veteran trollers, however, usually display more subtlety than that. 
Sometimes, they start out with seemingly innocuous postings. Over a 
period of days, however, their messages grow more strident. And as people 
begin to argue with them, the game is on. Sometimes, trollers will go 
after a single person they know will bite hard on the proferred bait 
(that they know this often indicates that the trollee has, himself, 
displayed some behavior others might find objectionable).


This is what happened recently in a flamefest that erupted on several 
groups simultaneously. One well known net.personality responded to some 
post from a person he finds objectionable with a message that read:

You'll be pleased to know, then, that you have been added to the USENET 
Global Killfile, a list of objectionable users whose articles will 
automatically be blocked by subscribing sites. At the present, the list 
of sites which comply with the
USENET Global Killfile is approximately 82%. <


Your messages will continue to be transmitted from site to site so that 
the non-GK using sites will still see them, but users on participating 
sites will not be troubled with your messages popping up in their 
newsgroups. 


The "Organization" line of the header read: 
"USENET Central Administration."


The "fish" took the bait, loudly decrying this latest offense by the 
Usenet Cabal, the secret group that really runs Usenet. So, too, did a 
number of innocent bystanders, who publicly complained about this 
egregious attempt at Net-wide censorship. It got worse and worse. 
Finally, the subject of the troll posted a message in which he claimed 
the original poster had forged the original message from himself and 
that because of this fraud, he had visited his local FBI office, where 
a sympathetic agent took copious notes on this awful abuse. At this 
point, several people jumped into the conversation to tell the person 
he'd been the subject of a practical joke and to give it a rest (to no 
avail). 


1.2 AVOIDING THE WORM


The troller left several clues in his message that it was all a joke. 
The most obvious one was its sheer ludicrousness. Given the number of 
Usenet systems out there today, the likelihood of getting 82% of them 
to agree on anything -- especially something like a universal censor 
system -- is remote. 


The more subtle clue was the list of newsgroups to which the troller 
posted. The last one on the list was misc.test. Now, this is a 
newsgroup set up so people can test their Usenet connections. There 
are a number of Usenet systems around the world that respond to any 
postings in that group with e-mail, letting the poster know where and 
when her message was received. So if you see a posting in a Usenet 
group that is cross-posted to misc.test, right away you've got a pretty 
strong indication that the message is really a troll (as well as an 
indication that, if you follow up to the post, you're going to start 
getting all these e-mail messages from auto-responding Usenet systems).



So what do you do? If you see a message in your favorite newsgroup that 
looks like the sender is just crusin' for a bruisin', first, count to 10. 
Just because you *can* reply doesn't mean you have to. Remember that the 
best way to deal with annoying on-line people is to ignore them -- they 
thrive on making others irate. Check the line in the header that says 
which newsgroups the message has been posted to. If there are a number of 
them, think to 10 again -- do you really want to start a cross-newsgroup 
flamefest where all the groups get taken over by "get this crap out of 
this newsgroup" messages?


If you feel you simply HAVE to respond in public, pare down the list of 
newsgroups. In most Usenet editors, that's fairly easy to do -- go up to 
the "Newsgroups" line and delete the names of newsgroups to which the 
message is really inappropriate (including misc.test, alt.test, etc.). 
Be careful to keep the remaining names separated by a comma (but no 
spaces). And flame away. But count to 10 again, anyway.