Boris Dorestand <bdorestand@example.com> wrote:
> Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Fri, 23 Apr 2021 09:05:33 -0300
>> Boris Dorestand <bdorestand@example.com> wrote:
>>> Retrograde <fungus@amongus.com.invalid> writes:
>>>
>>>> On 2021-04-22, The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> On 04/22/2021 02:43 PM, Retrograde wrote:
>>>>>> Just noticed three new groups appear:
>>>>>> Usenet is awesome.,
>>>>>
>>>>> Indeed. it's shameful that we allowed it to die.
>>>>>
>>>> For what it's worth, having three *new* and useful groups appear says to me
>>>> Usenet is not dying. It goes unnoticed by the masses, and that's fine with
>>>> me. For a certain kind of person, Usenet is very much alive.
>>>
>>> Well said. Isn't spam and trolls the main USENET problem? If we made
>>> it really annoying for people to change identities all the time,
>>> wouldn't ``kill file'' reign once again?
>>
>> People have very different tastes when it comes to online discussions so I
>> consider it foolhardy to declare what is "the main" problem ; I would say
>> that's in the eye of the beholder. Some people seem to like embedded videos
>> in text ; I seem them appear regularly on some message boards. Some people
>> may like a "likes" and "dislikes" functionality which usenet doesn't offer.
>> So it is very much a matter of taste what is "the main" problem.
>>
>> Regarding your specific examples , all the spammers I see do not alter their
>> headers or have only 2-3 variations so they can very easily be filtered. But
>> this applies to people who don't read usenet through googlegroups. Regarding
>> trolls , it seems to me that some people feel psychologically compelled to
>> respond rather than have problems filtering them. A good example at present
>> (and it has been for a while) is comp.theory where at least 3 knowledgeable
>> people , none of which posts through googlegroups , keep responding to a
>> crackpot (I assume that crackpots fall under the description of trolls). They
>> must see it's futile but they keep doing it (and there are hardly any other
>> posts on the group apart from such exchanges anyway). So basically filtering
>> on usenet is a solved problem from a technical viewpoint but not from a human
>> viewpoint apparently.
>
> Yes, that's all certainly true.
>
> I wonder if the following could ever work. Say we propose an experiment
> in a new network of newsgroups, where each post passed from server to
> server is only accepted if the post is crypto-signed by a whitelisted
> identity. So a fool comes in with his identity and misbehaves, he gets
> a bunch of down votes from different identities and reaching its
> threshold that identity is banned forever. The messages the fool posted
> all remain, sure. Of course, we must discourage them from creating a
> new identity, which is not quite possible, but we can make account
> creation a really long process, say a year, unless you get an invitation
> from a well-respected member and the track of invitation is always
> public. If the fool comes back a year later (by creating a new
> uninvited account) then the person gets a second chance. As soon as the
> problem reinitiates, that identity is banned again forever. So this is
> a network where an identity is expensive and should be cared for, but if
> you got friends inside then it's cheap.
>
> I'm sure people have even better schemes than that. Why none of this
> has ever been tried on the USENET? Too foolish?

I’m pretty sure you can right now set your newsreader to only show posts
from “whitelisted” identities.

On 04/30/2021 12:46 AM, R. Mutt wrote:

> I’m pretty sure you can right now set your newsreader to only show posts
> from “whitelisted” identities.

How is this functionally different from Facebook?

--
Cheers, Bev
I remember when everybody posted to Usenet with their real,
deliverable e-mail address. Of all the sins committed by the
spammers, destroying the viability of the open Internet was the worst.
(Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, news.admin.net-abuse.email)

The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/30/2021 12:46 AM, R. Mutt wrote:
>
>> I’m pretty sure you can right now set your newsreader to only show posts
>> from “whitelisted” identities.
>
> How is this functionally different from Facebook?

That would be a question for Boris.