[Info-vax] Thunderbird for comp.os.vms (was Re: A cry for help)

[mjos_examine]

Here's another way to utilize Thunderbird (I'm using 115.6.0 currently) 
with comp.os.vms that I have not seen mentioned yet. It may be of use to 
others using Eternal September, but if not please just ignore this post.

I'm using Thunderbird on Windows, so I don't know if it works 
consistently across operating systems.

Thunderbird can use saved "Search Folders" on a newsgroup such as 
comp.os.vms, which is essentially a different "view" onto comp.os.vms 
with a particular search criteria applied to restrict what is shown.

In your Thunderbird newsgroup hierarchy, if you right click on c.o.vms, 
and choose Search, you'll get a dialog for setting up search criteria to 
match against. You can come back and update your search criteria in a 
minute, after you've saved it, but the key to setting up the "Search 
folder" view underneath c.o.vms, is to click "Save as Search Folder" at 
the bottom right. You can give each Search Folder a meaningful name. 
They'll show up in the hierarchy as a sub-folder beneath comp.os.vms, 
with a tiny magnifying glass icon on the folder picture.

I set up two such Search Folders for comp.os.vms, one called "including 
googlegroups", and the other called "filtered-out-googlegroups".

To refine the search criteria on one of the saved "Search folders", 
right-click on it, and choose properties.

For the "filtered-out-googlegroups" search folder, I added the following 
properties for "Configure the search criteria used for this saved search 
folder":
     - Match all of the following
In the specific search criteria:
     Message-Id   doesn't contain   googlegroups

Click Update, to save your search criteria.

That search folder view of comp.os.vms is immediately free of the spam 
that originated at google groups. This is just a spam-free view, and all 
the posts are still available above in the comp.os.vms folder.

Unfortunately, that search folder view also excludes the posting from 
comp.os.vms regulars that had been using, or continue to use, google 
groups to post. The second search folder, the "including-googlegroups" 
search folder, can help with that. It requires more one-time 
configuration steps though.

For the "including-google-groups" search folder, I added the following 
properties for "Configure the search criteria used for this saved search 
folder":
     - Match all of the following
In the specific search criteria:
     Message-Id          contains   googlegroups
     From         doesn't contain   FIRST.LAST at vmssoftware.com
     From         doesn't contain   n.rieck at bell.net
You can continue to manually exclude From entries in this manner.
If you find that too tedious to do manually, there is a way to add 
entries, which I describe near the end of this post). There are 117 
addresses that contributed topical posts over the past few years. It's a 
very big list, but it is not infinite. I added them all.

The nice thing about getting all the 117 real contributor's From 
addresses added to the search view, is that they are excluded from the 
search folder view, and the only thing left in there is the spam.

Just select it all, press delete, and all the spam is gone. It is gone 
from the "including-googlegroups" search view, and it is also gone from 
the parent comp.os.vms as well. That's because the search folder is just 
a view, but the delete operation acts on the postings themselves in the 
parent folder.The parent comp.os.vms folder has all the content, and 
none of the spam at this point. The "including-googlegroups" search view 
now shows as empty.

Periodically, when new stuff shows up in the "including-googlegroups" 
folder, I quickly scan the titles to see if any of it looks like 
legitimate comp.os.vms stuff. It usually isn't, because all the 117 
valued past-contributors were excluded from that view by the search 
criteria. I just select all the entries and delete it. Once again, it's 
gone from the search folder, and also from the parent comp.os.vms 
folder. The parent comp.os.vms folder is free of spam, once again.

The one-time tedious part was setting up all the "From doesn't contain" 
entries in the search criteria for the "including-googlegroups" search 
folder.

For the brave, who might want to attempt things under the hood in a less 
manual fashion, read on...

There's a Profile Folder for your Thunderbird. One way to get to it is 
to start up Thunderbird, and choose Help, Troubleshooting Information.

In the list that ensues, locate Profile Folder, and press the Open 
Folder button beside that. That will start up a normal Windows Explorer 
folder containing your Profile Folder.

You can shut down Thunderbird now, and probably should, if you are going 
to attempt what follows. So WITH THUNDERBIRD NOT RUNNING...

In your Profile Folder, there should be a file called 
"virtualFolders.dat" (without the quotes), and that is where your search 
folder criteria are kept. It is an ASCII text file, with lines that 
start with keyword= entries similar to those shown below

version=1
uri=news://news.eternal-september.org/comp.os.vms/including-googlegroups
scope=news://news.eternal-september.org/comp.os.vms
terms=AND ("message-id",contains,googlegroups) AND (from,doesn't 
contain,FIRST.LAST at vmssoftware.com)
searchOnline=false
uri=news://news.eternal-september.org/comp.os.vms/filtered-out-googlegroups
scope=news://news.eternal-september.org/comp.os.vms
terms=AND ("message-id",doesn't contain,googlegroups)
searchOnline=false

The line starting with "terms=" is actually one huge, long line 
containing all the legitimate posters' entries as "AND (from,doesn't 
contain, email at domain.com)", but I truncated most of it for posting.
You'll need an editor that will preserve the long, single lines.