News Groups

[PT_Richard]

Hi All,

What News Groups do you want to see killed from our feed the most ?

What News Groups do you want added ?

Richard

[SMR]

IMHO Kill Everything except

ALT
AUS
BIONET
BIT
BIZ
COMP
GNU
LINUX
REC
SCI
SOC
UK

Kill all the binary groups and have a vote for the ones to add
(Try to make room for a very small number of Multimedia and VCD groups with some completion)


(MICROSOFT have their own server so why carry that?)

[Reiner]

all *multimedia* groups. Big files tend to be posted in such and the likelyhood of completion of any part is extremely low.

Also, *binaries*mp3 for the same reason.

Possibly foreign language ones like de.* and fr.*

And delete stupid groups like alt.mad-newgrouper.biff-mullins.stab-your-ass.quicker-than.a-mexi-can, although these are harder to find, and usually empty anyway.

[PT_Richard]

Thanx guys !

[taso]

Originally posted by SMR
IMHO Kill Everything except

ALT
AUS
BIONET
BIT
BIZ
COMP
GNU
LINUX
REC
SCI
SOC
UK


There isn't anything substantial outside of your list is there?

[bbyybb]

Remove groups such as VCD/DVDR etc. groups, we dont need 50 gigs of space being used up on incomplete posts. The same with the anime VCD style groups as well.

Cheers,
bbyybb.

[Reiner]

Originally posted by SMR
maybe a few local Swiftel only binary groups for local quota free sharing of "stuff"

One could always do what they do at other ISP's and hijack a quiet binaries group. However, if Swift were to provide a local only group then they (their news servers) wouldn't be attempting to send out huge files.

[bbyybb]

Well the local group is a nice idea. THe reasons behind culling all those useless groups is that the news server only has a 3.8 Mbit feed if i recall correctly. That is to the outside ' internet '. The local group should be fine since it would only be sitting on the local swiftdsl network persay.

Cheers,
bbyybb.


Note here are the current server stats that i have seen, they may have updated it since then.

The server, for those interested, is a Dual Xeon 2Ghz processors, 1 Gbyte RAM, 1 Tbyte RAID 5 using 6 x 200 Gbyte Western Digital Special Edition Caviar Hard Disk Drives ATA/100, 7,200 RPM, 8 MByte Buffer.

[PT_Richard]

Hi,

I have requested the removal of these group wildcards.

alt.binaries.vcdz
alt.binaries.vcd
alt.binaries.vcd.*
alt.binaries.cd.*
alt.binaries.image.cd.*
alt.binaries.dvd.*
alt.binaries.dvdr
alt.binaries.multimedia.*
alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.*
alt.binaries.sounds.misc
alt.binaries.pl.mp3
alt.binaries.mp3
alt.binaries.tv.aus
alt.binaries.beatles
alt.binaries.misc
alt.binaries.boneless
alt.binaries.x
alt.binaries.nl
alt.binaries.movies.*
alt.binaries.mpeg.*
alt.binaries.games.*
alt.binaries.series.tv.*
alt.binaries.warez.quebec-hackers
alt.binaries.test
alt.binaries.scary.exe-files
alt.binaries.madcow.highspeed
microsoft.public.fr.*
microsoft.public.de.*
microsoft.public.ru.*
microsoft.public.il.*
microsoft.public.arabic.*
microsoft.public.es.*
fido7.*

I don't really like the idea of removing the language specific groups as this may upset people.

Richard

[SMR]

Originally posted by DSL_ENG
Hi,

I have requested the removal of these group wildcards.



A great start !!

Could you give us some feedback about how much storage space that saved and how much it was compared to the total ?

[bbyybb]

Yes remove those groups, i wonder also how much space now will be saved.


Cheers,
bbyybb.

[Phil.Pierotti]

You forgot

alt.binaries.pictures.*
alt.binaries.erotica.*
alt.binaries.music.*
alt.binaries.nospam.*
alt.binaries.nude.*
alt.binaries.picture.*
alt.binaires.* (yes, that's how it's spelt on the server)

[PT_Richard]

Thanx Phil...

Yeah thats a weird spelling !

[bbyybb]

Now some people may object to the porn groups being removed, but well if they want them i suppose they could request them.


Cheers,
bbyybb.

[Phil.Pierotti]

I've said it before and I'll happily say it again.....

If you want porn, warez, and copyright-protected material then you are *best* served by a paid "full service" news server.

Most if not all ISPs who throw in a news server for free cannot afford/justify the resources to store enough messages for long enough to make leeching from these worthwhile.

And that's without even beginning to raise such issues as the questionable legality of such newsgroups as

alt.binaries.erotic.children
alt.binaries.pictures.child.erotica.*

I know it's a bummer to some people, but kiddie porn is illegal in Australia.

And before all the perverts come out of the cracks and call me a prude: I'm not trying to stop people having porn, but *in this instance* your urge for free porn is *more than likely* to cripple newsgroup access for everyone else, so *please* go get your daily alt.binaries.* fix elsewhere.

[Diag]

I support your decisions so far DSL_Eng, and what Phil said.

I get the feeling I've said this in another thread, but if you could get together a list of the .. 50 or so?.. newsgroups that consume the most bandwidth and storage, maybe people could nominate which ones they use. The rest could be culled.

Pick the "low hanging fruit" - the easy wins :)

[SMR]

Originally posted by Phil.Pierotti
If you want porn, warez, and copyright-protected material then you are *best* served by a paid "full service" news server.


It is also true that if you want a good text news server you can't do better then News.Individual.NET and it is free

I think we should have a few binary groups but not all of them, all incomplete with no retention.

We should strike a balance, not everyone wants to pay extra for news and a bit of porn will not hurt anyone. I don't appreciate your attempt to censor the news server.

We have a terabyte to play with, should be enough.

[Phil.Pierotti]

Censor? Nice word-choice.

Pity you're not up to speed with the facts in this situation or you perhaps wouldn't feel the need to overlay an emotional tone to this discussion.

Apparently there's some (ongoing, despite the best-laid-plans-of-mice-and-men) lack-of-resource issue (?feed capacity?) with the news server, and Swiftel has been looking at "tweaking" the newsgroups to optimise the news access so that it's satisfactory for all users.

They've solicited comments from end-users as to which groups they'd not mind being cut from the feed.

Myself and several others have commented (based on past experience) that major feed hogs tend to be the alt.binaries and their children; and that we would encourage Swiftel to drop some/most of those.

[taso]

Originally posted by Phil.Pierotti
And before all the perverts come out of the cracks and call me a prude: I'm not trying to stop people having porn, but *in this instance* your urge for free porn is *more than likely* to cripple newsgroup access for everyone else, so *please* go get your daily alt.binaries.* fix elsewhere.

What a load of self-righteous twattle. What makes your newsgroup preferences more meritorious than others? Customers are just as entitled to alt.pap.* as you are to alt.cerebral-pursuits.*. If the news server is a limited resource, then it should be apportioned based on all customers' wants - not just on yours.

[Phil.Pierotti]

Originally posted by taso
What makes your newsgroup preferences more meritorious than others?

Re-read the discussion, you'll find I never suggested they were.

[SMR]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Phil.Pierotti

Censor? Nice word-choice.

Pity you're not up to speed with the facts in this situation or you perhaps wouldn't feel the need to overlay an emotional tone to this discussion.

I am completely up to speed I have been involved since day one, you are the last minute interloper.

Apparently there's some (ongoing, despite the best-laid-plans-of-mice-and-men) lack-of-resource issue (?feed capacity?) with the news server, and Swiftel has been looking at "tweaking" the newsgroups to optimise the news access so that it's satisfactory for all users.

They've solicited comments from end-users as to which groups they'd not mind being cut from the feed.

Well Duh!!

Myself and several others have commented (based on past experience) that major feed hogs tend to be the alt.binaries and their children; and that we would encourage Swiftel to drop some/most of those.

Of course binaries take up a lot of space but so does text when you have every text group in the planet on the server.

That is why we should have a balance of mainly text groups with a few popular binary groups (erotica or not)

Your comment about "children" and feed, how can they affect the "feed" to the server ?

[Fork]

I'd just like to put in my vote for text-only. This is purely for selfish reasons (I don't want to have all the binary news groups clogging up the newserver as they currently are).

[stus]

interresting... so the decision about what groups to/notto keep is seemingly being made (or severely influenced) by around 5 customers.

Mind you, I've nothing against getting opinions, but it seems to be fairly influential.

sTu.

[PT_Richard]

Well I have not had any responce from the God news feed admin's. They quote 72 hrs.

Once these are removed from the feed I'm just going to let them naturally expire from the spool and then remove the groups from its active list.

Richard

[bbyybb]

So what groups are you removing exactly? The orginal ones you mentioned? please dont go removing all binaries groups just becuase a few users dont want them. Not all binary groups take up 30 gig.


Cheers,
bbyybb.

[SMR]

Originally posted by bbyybb
So what groups are you removing exactly? The orginal ones you mentioned? please dont go removing all binaries groups just becuase a few users dont want them. Not all binary groups take up 30 gig.
So what if we have a handfull of binary groups that take up 10-30gig each ? As long as they are usefull and have good completion.

It is far better then having 300binary groups taking 100's of gigs with no completion and are therefore useless to anyone

And in response to Stus, If decisions are being made on the basis of 5 users then that is good IMHO. At least there are a few users who have taken an interest in the news server and so far we are making progress.

[bbyybb]

When i made my comment i am just stating groups that have good retention. If a group has no hope of having a complete listing (EG. Alt.Binaires.Dvdr) then it should be culled.

I think Stus was just pointing out that what some people may want, other people might not, and some people making a decision over what other people should not have access to is not always the wisest decision.

I say keep binary groups that have a chance of total message completion. Also dont include groups that take 30 Gigs plus just for one group as really there is not chance for completion and usually those channels are of a " Questionable " nature.


Cheers,
bbyybb.


Note: As always my own opinion.

[prostistudent]

Hey, I'm new to Swiftel, broadband and news servers...

I'm just thankful that the reason all the binaries posts come up 'incomplete' is not due to me.

I support the removal of some of the smaller, wasteful binaries groups - but definitely not all of them.

I'd use them if I could. How come EVERY post over 2 messages is ALWAYS incomplete in the binaries channels?

I'm not exaggerating either... I've been using them for over a week, at different times of the day - always, all incomplete. That's why I thought it was me...

Any improvement in completion rates will be welcomed. Maybe you need a few more Terror-Bytes! :D

[SMR]

Regarding Binaries and the News server, maybe I should remind people that the News Server is a FREE download. So comments that we use a paid server are a bit off base.

They cost money to join and cost money to download.

The Swiftel Server is free and downloads are free.

So a small number of good binary groups and maybe a few local groups would be great !!

[taso]

Originally posted by DSL_ENG


I don't really like the idea of removing the language specific groups as this may upset people.

Any more of that attitude and I will be voting to give forumadmin your job:)

Another approach to the newsgroup 'problem' would be to cull the groups that are already available on Google Groups. I.e. Swift provides a complementary service. However, I suspect it's probably the binaries that account for the lions share of bandwidth. Do you have any stats on groups & resource usage?

[Parso_rex]

Like most ISP's round here the news server is a bonus so We have to grateful for what we receive. Pipe might be an extra option for some too.
As a few others have said there are dedicated news servers out there wheter it be for Porn, files share or geeky techno info and if you are serioulsy into something then that would be the way to go. As for the issue of child porn groups, just by deleteing the whole alt.binaries.erotica etc etc group aint necessarily a fix for that filth as the real sicko's usually choose names that aren't immediately obvious like asparagus or cucumber to throw you off the scent. At the ISP where I am now this is continually a problem
for the poor news guy

What would be good is if you could filter say files over a certain size such as incomplete movie sets etc these take up a huge amount of disk space in comparison to text an images (yes even porn :) and it would indirectly mean you could retain more groups. Is this possible ? this aint my field

Personally I like being able to view whatever group I feel like at the time (apart from the above child stuff : )but I am amazed at the size of some of the video sets with files of several megs each. If file 01 has been stripped (in the case of an .avi this is done by some providers) then the rest of the set is virtualy useless. Not always the case but you get the idea.

regards Mp

[bbyybb]

I thinkwe should get rid of all video binary groups, they take up too much space usually have close to no chance of having a complete set. By video i mean all vcd/porn/anime etc. The obvious warez groups should also be removed.

Just taking away these groups would free up a tremendous amount of space and bandwidth already.


Cheers,
bbyybb.

[stus]

I'm sure a bar chart showing the relative size/day of each group would be quite revealing.

[jeremy]

Originally posted by SMR
IMHO Kill Everything except

ALT
AUS
BIONET
BIT
BIZ
COMP
GNU
LINUX
REC
SCI
SOC
UK



What about melb.general? That's a pretty important low volume/non-binary group.

[PT_Richard]

Still waiting on word from our Feed admins, I haved chased this issue.

Added melb.general, hmm sounds like a local group.

Richard

[jeremy]

It is pretty local but it's supported by most Australian ISPs, some international ones and even Google Groups (I think it was archived back in the deja days as well). Still, it'd probably only concern Melbournians (and people who travel here)
Thanks,

Jeremy

[frenzy]

Originally posted by Phil.Pierotti
You forgot

alt.binaries.pictures.*
alt.binaries.erotica.*
alt.binaries.music.*
alt.binaries.nospam.*
alt.binaries.nude.*
alt.binaries.picture.*
alt.binaires.* (yes, that's how it's spelt on the server)


and it will stay that way ...

alt.binaries.* can stay

[galad]

Well I thought i'd come and check out the free content from the news servers, looks like that was a pointless endeavour since everything of worth has just been removed!
Not that much of a problem since I get enough download limit anyway, but it's pretty lame to say "free traffic from the news servers" and then delete all the best groups.

If people want just the text posts they can use groups.google.com . Actual newsfeeds are only good for the binaries. Duh.

[jeremy]

Originally posted by galad
Actual newsfeeds are only good for the binaries. Duh.

Since when?

[Gnuthad]

Originally posted by Phil.Pierotti
You forgot

alt.binaries.pictures.*
alt.binaries.erotica.*
alt.binaries.music.*
alt.binaries.nospam.*
alt.binaries.nude.*
alt.binaries.picture.*
alt.binaires.* (yes, that's how it's spelt on the server)

If you're going to cull off such large swathes of the binaries heirachy, why don't you just kill off ALL alt.binaries.*; after all, there's not much left after you take out those huge heirachies. Make the Swiftel news server a text-only news server.

I noticed that a number of text-only groups have also been removed, groups such as alt.omp.hardware.* and news.admin.* heirachies.

[MikeG]

Hi,
Any idea when the news server is going to be back on-line ?
Regards
Michael

[Reiner]

Stop talking about removing most of alt.binaries.

At home I spend a lot of time using things such as alt.binaries.pictures.orchids, alt.binaries.pictures.animals, alt.binaries.pictures.autos etc. Even though Swift's binaries are appauling, I'm always hoping it will improve.

[gstark]

I'm not seeing any updates of content on some newsgroups, although I'm equally not seeing any errors in trying to connect to the newsgroups.

For instance, I've not seen any new messages on comp.lang.clipper, even though I know (through viewing the group via google) that there have been further messages posted there as recently as yesterday.

What's the story?

[yeah]

Originally posted by jeremy
Since when?

Since google groups?

[jeremy]

Originally posted by yeah
Since google groups?

Google groups is an archive, not a news reader.

[bbyybb]

You can use the Google Groups to reply to standard Text only news groups. Google is not just an archiver as you can use their services to reply to messages as long as you sign up to the google groups service with an account. It is free.


Cheers,
bbyybb.



Alternatively, use a free news server with text only news groups.

[stus]

Yeah, but who's gonna use such a web based tool when much nicer news clients are around? I can't imagine using google for my regular news-group followings...

[bbyybb]

I am not suggesting replacing your current setup entirely with Google, but it will be ok for an interum solution for the time being. Just until these problems with the Sprint Feed are rectified.


Cheers,
bbyybb.

[a-rob]

delete what you want but leave my

alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.lesbians and vintage

sheez whats the use of a newsserver without adult binaries???

[mutantaxe]

Originally posted by Phil.Pierotti
I've said it before and I'll happily say it again.....

If you want porn, warez, and copyright-protected material then you are *best* served by a paid "full service" news server.

Most if not all ISPs who throw in a news server for free cannot afford/justify the resources to store enough messages for long enough to make leeching from these worthwhile.

And that's without even beginning to raise such issues as the questionable legality of such newsgroups as

alt.binaries.erotic.children
alt.binaries.pictures.child.erotica.*

I know it's a bummer to some people, but kiddie porn is illegal in Australia.

And before all the perverts come out of the cracks and call me a prude: I'm not trying to stop people having porn, but *in this instance* your urge for free porn is *more than likely* to cripple newsgroup access for everyone else, so *please* go get your daily alt.binaries.* fix elsewhere.

Well why dont you go and pay for the groups you need

[Reiner]

Originally posted by mutantaxe
Well why dont you go and pay for the groups you need

Because its part of a standard internet deal that one expects. Its value adding and all retail ISPs in Oz do it (that I know of). Its like getting connected and not having an email account. You can get your own email account elsewhere (even free ones) so why should the ISP offer it?

A news server is like a big proxy cache that make all the data local and there is a lot of stuff there, its just a lot of people don't know about it. Also, once its set up it shouldn't require too much maintenance (just like email & web servers).

[stus]

Originally posted by Reiner

A news server is like a big proxy cache that make all the data local and there is a lot of stuff there, its just a lot of people don't know about it. Also, once its set up it shouldn't require too much maintenance (just like email & web servers).
IMO, "proxy cache" suggests it caches stuff that people explicitly ask for (for next time). What you're wanting them to provide is replication of data contained on the other server, so whatever you want is always available. That costs serious $$ to be replicated properly - something I don't mind my ISP telling me we can't have if we want the service price kept to a minimum.

sTu.

[jeremy]

Well that is certainly true, but if an ISP can't provide all common newsgroups then they should at least make available access to their upstream's newserver if they have one. Many small ISPs don't run their own news servers for the reason you specify, instead they point news.theirdomain at their upstream's server.

Though none the less, for text only newsgroups it shouldn't be such an issue.

[mutantaxe]

Originally posted by Reiner
Because its part of a standard internet deal that one expects. Its value adding and all retail ISPs in Oz do it (that I know of). Its like getting connected and not having an email account. You can get your own email account elsewhere (even free ones) so why should the ISP offer it?

A news server is like a big proxy cache that make all the data local and there is a lot of stuff there, its just a lot of people don't know about it. Also, once its set up it shouldn't require too much maintenance (just like email & web servers).

You missed the point, he was happy to remove access to other groups that he didn't use . I agree that groups that involve child porn should go but removing a lot of others willy nilly shouldn't happen.

[ibishop]

Originally posted by jeremy
Well that is certainly true, but if an ISP can't provide all common newsgroups then they should at least make available access to their upstream's newserver if they have one

You're forgetting the minor issue that upstream providers generally DON'T provide client-level access to their news-servers, but instead sell a feed (various sizes) to their client ISPs.

If I recall correctly, from last time I dealt with Bigpond Direct, the threshold was 3 (yes, THREE) distinct IP addresses before they expected you to switch to a feed, rather than client, model.

Ian

[jeremy]

Originally posted by ibishop
You're forgetting the minor issue that upstream providers generally DON'T provide client-level access to their news-servers, but instead sell a feed (various sizes) to their client ISPs.


Some do.

[thomashouseman]

Could you please increase the retention time on alt.binaries.radio-control if at all possible.

Thanks,

Thomas.

[PT_Richard]

Hi Thomas,

When things settle I will look at this yes.

Richard

[MikeG]

Is there a problem with the feeds again ?

[PT_Richard]

Hi,

I hope not, we have had alot of filters enabled... in alt.binaries... mostly mp3,dvd,cd, related discusse in the new groups thread.

Richard

[MikeG]

can you tell me exactly what filters are in place in alt.binaries.* ?

[PT_Richard]

Hi,

Yes see other thread:

http://forum.swiftdsl.com.au/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2392

Richard

[MikeG]

Its not clear - can you give me a complete list.

[Reiner]

Originally posted by DSL_ENG
Hi,

I have requested the removal of these group wildcards.

alt.binaries.vcdz
alt.binaries.vcd
alt.binaries.vcd.*
alt.binaries.cd.*
alt.binaries.image.cd.*
alt.binaries.dvd.*
alt.binaries.dvdr
alt.binaries.multimedia.*
alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.*
alt.binaries.sounds.misc
alt.binaries.pl.mp3
alt.binaries.mp3
alt.binaries.tv.aus
alt.binaries.beatles
alt.binaries.misc
alt.binaries.boneless
alt.binaries.x
alt.binaries.nl
alt.binaries.movies.*
alt.binaries.mpeg.*
alt.binaries.games.*
alt.binaries.series.tv.*
alt.binaries.warez.quebec-hackers
alt.binaries.test
alt.binaries.scary.exe-files
alt.binaries.madcow.highspeed
microsoft.public.fr.*
microsoft.public.de.*
microsoft.public.ru.*
microsoft.public.il.*
microsoft.public.arabic.*
microsoft.public.es.*
fido7.*

I don't really like the idea of removing the language specific groups as this may upset people.

Richard

[MikeG]

alt.binaries.pictures.* is NOT coming through now

[PT_Richard]

Hi MikeG,

Yes they are, but it appears only the lude rude stuff..
I will talk to the news admin in the USA...

Richard


2003-12-05 09:10:48.290 218.214.224.7 + <i3bvsvgfogsdo6b0rp7cdhlqe7gi665cq8@4ax.com> alt.binaries.pictures.pantyhose:1670

[root@barney dbin]# ./dilookup "<i3bvsvgfogsdo6b0rp7cdhlqe7gi665cq8@4ax.com>"
[D.011042e8/B.1303 hv=8582b505.051474aa spool=00 gm=17842920 ex=100 off=5257609 len=1647 f=] GM=(05-Dec-2003 09:00:00) EX=(valid)

[root@barney dbin]# ./dreadart "<i3bvsvgfogsdo6b0rp7cdhlqe7gi665cq8@4ax.com>"
<i3bvsvgfogsdo6b0rp7cdhlqe7gi665cq8@4ax.com> OK
From: Homer Sexual <fmc@yahooman.com>
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.pictures.pantyhose,alt.pantyhose
Subject: Re: Do you think my ##### is too small for you ??
Reply-To: fmc
Message-ID: <i3bvsvgfogsdo6b0rp7cdhlqe7gi665cq8@4ax.com>
References: <bqo80p$20m$1@newsreader2.netcologne.de>
X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.93/32.576 English (American)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Lines: 16
X-Complaints-To: abuse@easynews.com
Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy!
X-Complaints-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly.
Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2003 21:50:17 GMT
Path: news.syd.swiftdsl.com.au!203.222.32.131.MISMATCH!n ews-syd!news-peer-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!attla2!ip. att.net!news.usc.edu!newsfeed.news.ucla.edu!newsfe ed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!priapus.visi.com!orange.octanews.net!zeus. visi.com!news-out.visi.com!green.octanews.net!news.octanews.net! news-xfer.cox.net!peer02.cox.net!cox.net!newsfeed2.easy news.com!easynews.com!easynews!easynews-local!news.easynews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail
Xref: news.syd.swiftdsl.com.au alt.binaries.pictures.pantyhose:1670 alt.pantyhose:1542

On Thu, 4 Dec 2003 22:15:06 +0100, "Conner Photographie"
<info@conner.de> wrote:

#### CUT ##### msg too rude

[mutantaxe]

Originally posted by stus
Yeah, but who's gonna use such a web based tool when much nicer news clients are around? I can't imagine using google for my regular news-group followings...

You dont have to use Google. I use Outlook Express and news.individual.net for my text based newsgroup and you really cant tell the difference except they are a lot more reliable then the Swiftel groups .

[mutantaxe]

Well lets remove all text based groups. They are very easily available on the net ( ie. news.individual.net ) and they just read like normal groups using outlook express and you would notice very little difference.

This way no one misses out and you can leave the binaries alone .

Or another suggestion is that you remove all newsgroups and then add the ones that are requested by Swiftel customers. Keep a list on the Swifttel web site of all the groups available from the upstream provider and people can then request the ones they want. ( a bit more work intensive been the primary drawback )

BUT TO REMOVE SOME BINARY groups because some dont like them is wrong especially as text based groups are available as Outlook Express "readable" newsgroups elsewhere.

[MikeG]

still nothing

[mutantaxe]

alt.binaries.full.post.verified.playboy has also had no posts.

[MikeG]

Still nothing.....

[PT_Richard]

Hi MikeG,

I will shoot off an email to sprint today, they had great difficulty in implimenting the filters I requested.

Richard

[frenzy]

any new news soon???

[MikeG]

still nothing......

[yeah]

Can you please leave the binaries alone? Provide a decent news service by buying the bandwidth/servers to support the newsfeeds instead of cutting off all the binary groups.

It's pathetic. Swiftdsl is killing the competition in all aspects except this one.


Put the binary groups back and beef up your servers with all of your new customers cash.

[PT_Richard]

Dear "Yeah",

Please note we have only requested a limited subset of the alt.binaries... groups above to be filtered.

Unfortunately it seems that was too hard a task for the USA news admins, we actively consulted our customers via the forum to put these filters in place.

We don't wish to encourage piracy by storeing copywrighted material.

Regards,

Richard

[yeah]

Originally posted by DSL_ENG

We don't wish to encourage piracy by storeing copywrighted material.

Regards,

Richard

You're kidding yourself if you think that people use their isps newsfeed for any other reason.

[Gnuthad]

Originally posted by yeah
You're kidding yourself if you think that people use their isps newsfeed for any other reason.

I don't. I pull down a few groups in the alt.binaries.* heirachy, none of which is breaching copyright. Perhaps I'm just a little more honest than "people." When my groups stopped updating a few weeks back I changed servers to the Sydney PIPE news server and I'm quite happy. All my groups (in the alt.binaries.*, NANA*, aus.* heirachies) have caught up without problems.

[klaasv]

Originally posted by yeah
You're kidding yourself if you think that people use their isps newsfeed for any other reason.

And here I am, just reading news groups - obviously I've been doing the wrong thing these last ten years or so. :D

Not having any real need or want for binaries (legal or otherwise), I rarely visit any of the binaries groups. I read newsgroups on a wide range of topics, in about a dozen newsgroups.

Reading them on Swiftel's servers allows for very fast response times. The ones I read that Swiftel don't carry I get off the FUB server, which, being based in Germany, is a lot slower.

(Actually, I've gone full time to the FUB server, as the problems with the Swiftel feeds has interrupted a few threads :) )

[ozbcoz]

Can someone let me know what may have happened to alt.family-names and alt.genealogy
They dont appear to have been updated in a very long time - they used to be an active group - has the feed ceased ?

cheers

jim

[PT_Richard]

Hi Ozcob,

Read above....

We requested filters from out feed provider but it had failed to work.

I am going to request the full feed be enabled once again and just locally drop articled we don't want on the spool.

Richard

[bender]

do we have a date the news will start again

[mutantaxe]

Originally posted by DSL_ENG
Hi Ozcob,

Read above....

We requested filters from out feed provider but it had failed to work.

I am going to request the full feed be enabled once again and just locally drop articled we don't want on the spool.

Richard

Would it be possible to drop all the groups and only add the ones that are requested. Surely that would save a hell of a lot of space and messages could be maintained for longer periods. Would it be hard to implement a bot that can add groups as they are requested ?

[sysgod]

Err, no binaries? Might as well just nuke the thing completely, and only bring it back when Swiftel are big enough to carry a full feed, and buy enough hardware/admins to run it competently.

[PixyMisa]

Originally posted by mutantaxe
Would it be possible to drop all the groups and only add the ones that are requested. Surely that would save a hell of a lot of space and messages could be maintained for longer periods. Would it be hard to implement a bot that can add groups as they are requested ?

DNews works that way, all automatic.

[PixyMisa]

Originally posted by sysgod
Err, no binaries? Might as well just nuke the thing completely, and only bring it back when Swiftel are big enough to carry a full feed, and buy enough hardware/admins to run it competently.

The multi-part binary groups were dropped because completion was basically zero.

As to the rest - it's Sprint that messed up (Sprint supplies the newsfeed, right?), not Swiftel. And no-one in Australia carries a full feed.

[PT_Richard]

Hi,

I just got off the phone to the USA admin, he has enabled full feed once more but it doesn't appear to be so, will wait till the morning.

When things settle I will put inplace local article filters to not spool the ones we don't want.

Plus we are looking at a local Aus feed.

Richard

1.42am sleep

[Dave.B.]

Richie,
Tell your boss you're worth more money. Hope you have/had a good sleep.

[DeF1]

can u please post a full list of whats gone??

halft alt.binaries isnt available

this is ridiculous

[PT_Richard]

Dear DeF1,

Unfortunatel you don't seem to understand that I do not control what comes to us and it is impossible to give you a list of what is not there with 40k groups.

I assure you I am not to pleased about this either.

The groups requested to be removed from the feed are as below for the 3rd time:

alt.binaries.vcdz
alt.binaries.vcd
alt.binaries.vcd.*
alt.binaries.cd.*
alt.binaries.image.cd.*
alt.binaries.dvd.*
alt.binaries.dvdr
alt.binaries.multimedia.*
alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.*
alt.binaries.sounds.misc
alt.binaries.pl.mp3
alt.binaries.mp3
alt.binaries.tv.aus
alt.binaries.beatles
alt.binaries.misc
alt.binaries.boneless
alt.binaries.x
alt.binaries.nl
alt.binaries.movies.*
alt.binaries.mpeg.*
alt.binaries.games.*
alt.binaries.series.tv.*
alt.binaries.warez.quebec-hackers
alt.binaries.test
alt.binaries.scary.exe-files
alt.binaries.madcow.highspeed
microsoft.public.fr.*
microsoft.public.de.*
microsoft.public.ru.*
microsoft.public.il.*
microsoft.public.arabic.*
microsoft.public.es.*
fido7.*

Looking carefully at this list as it doesn't include alt.binaries.pictures..... which means we should get all those groups, but we're not. I have frantically asked just give us the full feed back.

We are Moving to another feed, I have the contact details and I will we working on setting it up tomorrow.

Richard

[PixyMisa]

Originally posted by DSL_ENG
We are Moving to another feed, I have the contact details and I will we working on setting it up tomorrow.

Good to hear. Whoever is feeding you currently doesn't seem to be particularly efficient - or indeed awake.

[Gnuthad]

Originally posted by PixyMisa
Whoever is feeding you currently doesn't seem to be particularly efficient - or indeed awake.

Originally posted by DSL_ENG
I just got off the phone to the USA admin...

He's American. Nuff said?

[frenzy]

alt.binaries.multimedia.*


some are still there

[PT_Richard]

Hi frenzy,

Thats because after all the complains about groups that were not in my exclusion list were actually being excluded.

I decided to requested the full unfiltered feed be restored.

That wasn't actually done correctly untill early this morning, if you read above.

Regards,

Richard

[Matty5700]

Originally posted by DSL_ENG
Hi All,

What News Groups do you want to see killed from our feed the most ?

What News Groups do you want added ?

Richard

Hey Richard,

I'm sure this has been asked for before somewhere but I cant find it, nor the answer to it.

I am like quite a few new customers of late who have moved from Optusnet cable, we always had "athome" newsgroups that were never really looked at or used for support by official optusnet staff but we always found they were good for general chatter and stuff. Would it be possible to have a few newsgroups like swiftdsl.forsale,wanted,technical,unix,windows etc etc ?? I can suggest more if you would do this for us and have them as a Swiftel only newsgroup, text only.

Thanks,

Matt.

[sticky_chicken]

Hey Richard,

I'm sure this has been asked for before somewhere but I cant find it, nor the answer to it.

I am like quite a few new customers of late who have moved from Optusnet cable, we always had "athome" newsgroups that were never really looked at or used for support by official optusnet staff but we always found they were good for general chatter and stuff. Would it be possible to have a few newsgroups like swiftdsl.forsale,wanted,technical,unix,windows etc etc ?? I can suggest more if you would do this for us and have them as a Swiftel only newsgroup, text only.

Thanks,

Matt.

Matt,

You've got a good idea, but a lot of what you've listed have categories in the Swiftel forum.

I'm not saying that it's not a worthwhile idea, just that it might be doubling up on stuff.

[jeremy]

Perhaps if it was synced with the forums, but otherwise I wouldn't bother.

[sticky_chicken]

Perhaps if it was synced with the forums, but otherwise I wouldn't bother.

That's a good idea, but the implementation would be difficult I would imagine.

[Emupooh]

I notice that the various .mac groups are lacking.

In particular aus.mac which gives plenty of local content for us.

Cheers Emu
:D

[LightYear]

Hey guys,

I'm new to this thread, and very new to Swiftel in fact. I just wanted to publicly thank Richard for his work. It is very refreshing to see a company with such public staff. There are many ISP's who wouldn't even consider asking its clients for their opinions, let alone letting them in on the process. Kudos are in order I reckon. Believe me, not all ISPs provide a news feed at all.

Now to address a few things. Google groups is *not* even close to a replacement for a news feed. I use a text based newsreader to read about 38 groups, which takes some time. It would not be time feasible using Google.

Another thing, none of those 38 groups are binaries. Myself, and millions of others, only use newsgroups for discussions. Since when did all my favourite protocols become "rediscovered" as channels for "downloading". I read elsewhere that someone was getting 140k/sec through MIRC. IRC is a chat protocol!! I think every protocol turned from exchange of information to "downloading" right about the time protocols started being referred to by the name of the most popular Windows client for that protocol.

Ooops, rant finished now.

In any case, I'm still using my university's news feed, which suits me well, but I'd love to switch to Swiftel's one in the near future for various reasons. So good luck to the crew getting news things settled down. My vote goes to ditching those big binary groups (I certainly don't mind having a few hanging around though), and knocking off a few of the big trees outside that. With a decent feed/culling setup, it shouldn't be too hard to re-enable a few groups that people request.

Oh, and on the Swiftel only newsgroups - I like the idea...
I certainly find newsgroups less noisy, easier to navigate, and much more efficient to keep up to date with. Web boards are good for a closer sense of community, are more accessible to the "general public", provide easy attachment of pictures and have various eye candy improvements at the administrators control, but are slower, have less options for customisation, and are harder to parse for information.

All that said... with the Swiftel board active and in place, my vote goes to sticking with the board only. I cringe at the thought of admins repeatably explaining themselves in more channels, and at the duplication and synchronisation issues on threads. I never seen (but would like to be shown!) a web board and news feed system which has worked well in sync. Even the mailing lists sync'ed to a newsgroup are glitchy at best, and diluted and messy at worst.

Reminds me of an article which claimed email and news posts are basically the same thing. *Don't* get me started on why I think that is wrong!

[mutantaxe]

Originally posted by LightYear
Hey guys,

Now to address a few things. Google groups is *not* even close to a replacement for a news feed. I use a text based newsreader to read about 38 groups, which takes some time. It would not be time feasible using Google.



I would never use google, I am use to the way Outlook Express displays newsgroups. But I only use Swiftdsl for two newsgroups ( binaries ) and use another web based group ( news.individual.net which is hosted on some University server in Germany ) which displays it in Outlook Express. As for speed it would be just a fraction behind Swiftdsl but it is ever so reliable

[Reiner]

Originally posted by mutantaxe
I only use Swiftdsl for two newsgroups ( binaries ) You do? Is there a binaries group that gets a feed? The binaries groups I look at from here are very, very poor.

[Wesleyrpg]

This is the only reason i didnt sign up with Swiftel, too many prudes censoring the newsgroups. Why bother having the new groups at all if your going to hack them to bits and take out all the good ones?

Why dont swiftel offer a premium news service to members who want them for a small fee...i'd pay 5-10 dollars a month if swiftel had a decent news server.

Ahh well....maybe in the future

[jeremy]

Good ones as in binaries? Surely you haven't got enough other places to leech from (AFAIK access to newsgroups isn't charged anyway). I'm pretty sure that the idea is that any text newsgroup Swiftel would be happy to add per request. Melb.general hasn't been that easy though, at least Swiftel are looking into changing the feed (and it's just as well since I've found other aus.* newsgroups to be patchy).

[Wesleyrpg]

please dont assume i am a leech, i only got a 10Gig hdd and no cd burner so i couldnt be that much of a leech could i?

i would just like to be able to access all the newsgroups (including binaries) without prudes censoring out binaries cause they dont like/visit them.

Look i love swiftel and i recommend them to all my friends with ADSL, but obviously they arent my cup of tea, if they cant provide a decent news server. (you cant please everyone!)

Maybe the staff will consider a premium news service in the future? (for a couple of extra dollars a month)

[sticky_chicken]

This is the only reason i didnt sign up with Swiftel, too many prudes censoring the newsgroups. Why bother having the new groups at all if your going to hack them to bits and take out all the good ones?

Why dont swiftel offer a premium news service to members who want them for a small fee...i'd pay 5-10 dollars a month if swiftel had a decent news server.

Ahh well....maybe in the future

Swiftel, like most ISPs don't "censor" news groups, they just don't carry all groups such as weird porn fetish groups, kiddie porn groups and a lot of binaries. Most ISPs also expire headers on binary groups to save on disk.

$5-$10 a month? Have a look at the cost of the premium news services in the US. Easynews costs $9.98 US per month for 6 Gig or 30 days. The cost for hardware is not really an issue although you'd need lots of disk if you wanted a full feed, the issue is (as I see it) that there wouldn't be too many people who'd want to use this "premium" service.

I've used Easynews in the past when I've wanted groups that my ISP didn't offer (not pr0n, in case you're asking ;) ), and I've found their service to be top rate.

[Wesleyrpg]

ok well if its $10US a month charge $15 australian a month, that should cover the costs of the extra hdd space that is needed.

You should at least have a poll/survey to see if any of ur customers out there that would actually like the option of having a 'premium news service' at an extra cost.

i didnt mean 'censor' in terms of swiftel actually reading each individual message and seeing if it appropriate, i meant 'censor' as in a few 'customers' who dont like the idea of binaries, so why not complain and get the lot removed and blame it all on server space?

I was thinking about 'easynews' and servers like that, but it just doesnt seem practical, as a local news server here would be much faster.

Thanks for the info

[sticky_chicken]

I was thinking about 'easynews' and servers like that, but it just doesnt seem practical, as a local news server here would be much faster.

Thanks for the info

I found the speed to easynews to be fantastic and always fast even since I've had ADSL with Swiftel.

[Oldfart]

Originally posted by sticky_chicken
I found the speed to easynews to be fantastic and always fast even since I've had ADSL with Swiftel.

I'd agree with Mr Chicken, I too am I Swiftel user and Easynews subscriber and I would have to say both services are top rate.
Easynews keeps 30days of data for each news group they have listed which makes getting large multipart files like movies and games a snap.

Having said I would much rather give Swiftel $15 bucks a month extra for a service equal to Easynews rather than send my money offshore to the U.S.

[Chardy]

Friends - those of you interested in other newsgroups might want to run your eye over

http://www.news.astraweb.com/index.html

$10 for 25GB (yes, think about it!), and the 25GB only expires when you use it up. Kind of like a mobile phone top-up card, I guess.

Anyway I thought I'd share this with you, as it is the only one I've come across which allows one-off purchases and DOESN'T automatically recharge your credit card.

HTH

[sticky_chicken]

Having said I would much rather give Swiftel $15 bucks a month extra for a service equal to Easynews rather than send my money offshore to the U.S.

I too would rather do this, but alas due to the prohibitive nature of bandwidth in this country, there has been no organisation in Australia willing to offer anything like easynews's services.

[Wesleyrpg]

see swiftel,

i told you there is an audience who are willing to pay for a decent news service...i'd also be a willing customer

[Wesleyrpg]

hey chardy,

how good is astraweb, i mean have you actually compared it to other Usenet based news services b4?

i was thinking about easynews, but the deal with astraweb looks a lot better....any advice on a good news service would be great.

Thanks

[mbottrell]

Still hanging out for a decent news feed from Swiftel...

Come on guys! New Year and a New feed???

Cheers,

M@tt.

[Wesleyrpg]

maybe swiftel should consider these guys as a newsfeed.

http://www.giganews.com/comps/outsourcing.mhtml

much better than the telstra feed.

[mbottrell]

Originally posted by bbyybb
well if i own the books that i download then it aint exactly Warez is it, i am just getting an online version of my book. :)


Cheers,
bbyybb.

But could be seen as a breach of copyright! :p

[PT_Richard]

We now have a "WAIX" sourced nntp feed and Telstra.

Telstra is only feeding aus.* and melb.general

"WAIX" is feeding everying but the list below:

I have requested the removal of these group wildcards.

alt.binaries.vcdz
alt.binaries.vcd
alt.binaries.vcd.*
alt.binaries.cd.*
alt.binaries.image.cd.*
alt.binaries.dvd.*
alt.binaries.dvdr
alt.binaries.multimedia
alt.binaries.multimedia.*
alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.*
alt.binaries.sounds.misc
alt.binaries.pl.mp3
alt.binaries.mp3
alt.binaries.tv.aus
alt.binaries.beatles
alt.binaries.misc
alt.binaries.boneless
alt.binaries.x
alt.binaries.nl
alt.binaries.movies.*
alt.binaries.mpeg.*
alt.binaries.games.*
alt.binaries.series.tv.*
alt.binaries.warez.quebec-hackers

Sprint will be dropped by the end of the week.

Regards,

Richard

[sysgod]

alt.binaries.movies.*

Hmm...

alt.binaries.movies.divx.sucks.the.sweat.from.shad owrealms.balls

I wonder how long before an entire flamewar occurs within newsgroup names?

[jim]

i posted a message on the swiftdsl.sydney newsgruop that doesn't seem to have been looked at (no answers anyway) - so will re-post in here - hopefully someone from Swift can give me some feedback:

How long before the missing newsgroup feeds come back on - my interest is
in:
alt.family-names
and
alt.genealogy

- these newsgroups are not sex, warez, illegal etc but seem to no longer get updated ?

cheers

Jim

[Dave.B.]

I checked both those groups, they seem to be working fine for me. Try to reset them in your news reader or unsubscribe and subscribe again.

[jim]

tried that - unsubscribed and resubscribed - only getting messages up till 14/10/2003 - nothing since then

strange - other newsgroups are fine

Jim

[jim]

no thoughts anyone else able to get any posts for december or jan on those newsgroups ?

Jim

[Wesleyrpg]

yeah i got alt.family-names, not many headers in there, but there is ALOT of groups that start with alt.family-names.*

IN alt.genealogy theres about 2300 headers from 30/10 to 13/01
but then again i'm with bigpoo. (although swidtel does get the bigpoo feed, oh and WAIX)

good luck

[PT_Richard]

Dear Jim.

What exact groups do you want ?

alt.family-names
alt.genealogy

Cannot promise anything with to do with quality of the feed as its a living breathing thing. Should be reasonable now with 2 feeds.

Best email me newsadmin@swiftel.com.au and I will add groups to our list if I have seen articles hit us.

Regards,

Richard

[jim]

yep - those are the ones - thanks :-)

Jim

[PT_Richard]

Hi,

I have requested this for our Telstra feed.

alt.family-names & alt.family-names.*
alt.genealogy & alt.genealogy.*

WAIX = Full Feed - above filters
TELSTRA = aus.* + requests.

Regards

Richard

[jim]

Thanks for that :-) - that is perfect for me

Jim

[Chardy]

Originally posted by Wesleyrpg
hey chardy,

how good is astraweb, i mean have you actually compared it to other Usenet based news services b4?

i was thinking about easynews, but the deal with astraweb looks a lot better....any advice on a good news service would be great.

Thanks

Champ-haven't done the astraweb thing yet - been a little busy flying around the country. I'll check it out and let you know. Many apologies for my tardy reply... (K) Cindy

[Wesleyrpg]

hey chardy...i'll forgive you, at least one of us is having a good time flying around australia......good luck with your journeys

Adam