Below are two screen captures which show the article list for a Usenet group. The Linux news client Pan was in use; that is the primary client here for that platform. Naturally, other clients - and users' setups - will display the list differently.
No other filters are engaged for this illustration – only the filter on Google Groups postings (which uses the UIP-supported rule for the Message-ID header).
In the following capture, that filter has been temporarily tweaked to show Google Groups posts with a red background in the articles list. Also, threading has been disabled to simplify the comparison. Note that this first image is only an illustration of the severity of the Google Groups problem if not properly handled; this is not a recommendation to configure your news client to show GG posts; the objective is to not see them.
The second capture shows the same group, but the Google Groups filter has been returned to its normal setting to clean the group rather than pointing out abuse from Google Groups:
Naturally, the second view shows a noticeably shorter list of articles (in some groups, the difference will be even greater) since the Google Groups stuff has been cleaned out.
This is the question: Whether 'tis easier on the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of abuse from Google Groupers; or take arms against this sea of troubles and by filtering end them.
The first option, of course, will appeal to the masochistic.
Great site Blinky. Keep up the good work. I just killed 54 Google posts. The slaughter continues unabated. – James E. Morrow
I didn't think anyone could top the annual autumn spewage when college classes resumed--then along came the AOL/WebTV crowd. They're now morphing into GoogleGropers, like some biblical sequence of plagues. – Harold Stevens
I've finally had to join the Usenet Improvement Project, it took me a very long time to do so but I finally became convinced yesterday. I've been analyzing posts from GG and have to agree the percent that contain useful info is way too small to worry about. – XS11E
From my own informal sampling, the trash from Google _far_ outweighs the treasure and I'll gladly accept a few losses. – John McGaw
An ungodly large number of numbskulls use google groups and think they're posting to "Google Groups" when they're posting to USENET. – Magus
I finally gave up and I'm blocking google groups posters. Ever since I dropped Google Groups, the world has become a better place. – Evan Platt
