[Info-vax] Leaving all Google Groups?

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 12/1/2023 6:38 AM, Neil Rieck wrote:
> I joined https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.vms back in 2006 so
> 17-years is a pretty good run. But the ongoing SPAM attack that
> started Oct-1 tells me that this NNTP newsgroup thing has outlived
> its usefulness.

comp.os.vms usenet group on NNTP servers seems fine.

INFO-VAX mail-list is probably going to be fine.

comp.os.vms Google Groups group may be toast.

Which is bad as some people use Google Groups for
reading and posting - and many people use it for searching
old posts.

> 1) I've been flagging at least 200 messages each day as SPAM. I also
> requested help from Google through the feedback tool (almost every
> day) but did not receive a single response. This makes me wonder if
> they have done a risk/reward analysis then decided to let this
> product die on the vine.

Everybody is saying that Google Groups is running on auto pilot with
no human at the steering wheel.

> 2) I lodged a complaint via https://support.google.com/ where a
> non-Google employee suggested I create a new group with the requisite
> privacy settings. I did that then attempted to create
> "comp.os.openvms" but it came up as "composopenvms".  Perhaps the
> lack of dots helps to distinguish the old flavor newsgroup from the
> new.  This makes me wonder if messages post here are being seen my
> the traditional news readers. Anyway, you are free to use
> https://groups.google.com/g/composopenvms if you wish.
 >
> 3) As an alternative, I suggest we all unsubscribe from all Google
> Groups then continue our conversations on reddit where we will be
> free to continue our conversation under the OpenVMS sub-reddit. Click
> here to see what I mean: https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenVMS/ Some
> people might not know that reddit (the first social media company?)
> was created in 2005 with the intent of dealing with SPAM. In return
> for free use, the odd reddit message might contain a advert from one
> of their corporate adverts, but this is nothing like navigating the
> SPAM we see at comp.os.vms

I am not sure that I see the point.

Today we have:

c.o.v @ GG --- c.o.v @ few NNTP servers --- I-V maillist
w few users    w some users                 w few users

and:
* GG users
* NNTP server admins
* maillist gateway admin
has a problem with the spam from GG.

But I don't see:

c.o.v @ GG --- c.o.v @ few NNTP servers --- I-V maillist
w no users     w some users                 w few users

X @ GG or Reddit
w few users

as having any point without a connection.

Arne