Where is the newsgroup?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.mahjong (More info?)

Hi friends


It is very sad that this usenet group seems hardly to be in use anymore,
while the COMJ-forum on my website is quite a success. Still, I do not think
this success is the reason that there are no discussions anymore here; I
think it is the amount of spam which has lead to growing irritation.
We'll see it after the European Mahjong Championship, when the MahjongNews
forum will be stopped.

Still, I find it hard to believe it should be over for rec.games.mahjong...





|
|Martin Rep
|The Independent Internet Mahjong Newspaper
|Mahjong News:
|www.mahjongnews.com
|The Dutch Championship Riichi Mahjong:
|www.riichi.tk
|The Golden Dragon Hong Kong Mahjong Club:
|www.gouden-draak.nl

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.mahjong (More info?)

Martin Rep <mrep@mahjongnews.com> wrote in message news:<BE4A3380.4C17%mrep@mahjongnews.com>...
> Hi friends
>
>
> It is very sad that this usenet group seems hardly to be in use anymore,
> while the COMJ-forum on my website is quite a success. Still, I do not think
> this success is the reason that there are no discussions anymore here; I
> think it is the amount of spam which has lead to growing irritation.

I don't agree that spam is the cause of the lack of use of this
newsgroup, but the lack of topics that are of common interest of
users.

Try to post a COMJ topic here and see how people would react to it. (I
predict that not only those who are interested in participating the
Open European tournament will respond, but those who are interested in
the development of COMJ will also do.)

How about some unified standards for mahjong? I believe this newsgroup
can do much more than just about learning the game (or various games)
of mahjong or asking rule questions. How mahjong should/could/may be
developed in general could be topics for those experienced players.

Cheers!

Cofa Tsui
www.iMahjong.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.mahjong (More info?)

cofatsui@hotmail.com (Cofa Tsui) wrote in message news:<c835a0d1.0503011235.20d1e91c@posting.google.com>...

> I don't agree that spam is the cause of the lack of use of this
> newsgroup, but the lack of topics that are of common interest of
> users.


Wrong.

Most "games" groups are plagued with silly messages.
Look at rec.games.playing-cards or rec.games.abstract.
They have the same problem.

Only very busy groups such as rec.games.backgammon or
rec.games.bridge, that has between 15 and 25 posts *a day*, can resist
being attacked by idiots.
(But they must have filters: I am surprised that rec.games.bridge has
no spam at all! How do they do?)

One other thing we must take into consideration is the fear of getting
spammed. We have naively being using our primary addresses for years
before realising it was from the newsgroup posts that we got terribly
spammed!

We all had to find new strategies but we got tired with it.

Cheers.
Thierry

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.mahjong (More info?)

"Thierry Depaulis" <thierry.depaulis@freesbee.fr> wrote in message
news:5878e597.0503080132.3447ac2c@posting.google.com...
> cofatsui@hotmail.com (Cofa Tsui) wrote in message
> news:<c835a0d1.0503011235.20d1e91c@posting.google.com>...
>

Hi Thierry, good to "see" you again!

>> I don't agree that spam is the cause of the lack of use of this
>> newsgroup, but the lack of topics that are of common interest of
>> users.
>
>
> Wrong.

Mmmm...

>
> Most "games" groups are plagued with silly messages.
> Look at rec.games.playing-cards or rec.games.abstract.
> They have the same problem.

How to define "silly messages"? Are they "spam"? Or just messages not of
interest of the others? If they are part of the spam, one can simply ignore
it (I guess that's the proper way to do). If they are not of interest of the
others, the posters have made use of the ng but the messages just simply
could not increase the traffic.

>
> Only very busy groups such as rec.games.backgammon or
> rec.games.bridge, that has between 15 and 25 posts *a day*, can resist
> being attacked by idiots.
> (But they must have filters: I am surprised that rec.games.bridge has
> no spam at all! How do they do?)

I've viewed the group (via Google) and saw that most of the topics have more
than 1 article. Could we then say that these topics *are of common interest
of users*?

In rec.games.backgammon I also found topics that contain 1 article only - A
quick look reveals that most of them are of advertising nature.

I don't know about spam in this (backgammon) and the bridge newgroups - I
don't think any "filters" in newsgroups are currently in use. However, I
believe experienced newsgroup users know how to handle spam properly. On the
other hand, if these groups don't have topics *that are of common interest
of users*, their traffic could be totally different.

>
> One other thing we must take into consideration is the fear of getting
> spammed. We have naively being using our primary addresses for years
> before realising it was from the newsgroup posts that we got terribly
> spammed!

You are right! The early years' use of my primary address still earns me
over 300 junkmails a day! Lucky enough though, my ISP has nowadays the
technology to route all these junks to a specific folder that I can decide
if I would like to take a look.

>
> We all had to find new strategies but we got tired with it.

Perhaps, (a) use a secondary email address, and (b) ignore those spam
messages, would help?

Cheers,

--
Cofa Tsui
www.iMahjong.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.mahjong (More info?)

Martin Rep wrote:
> Hi friends
>
>
> On 08-03-2005 10:32, in article
> 5878e597.0503080132.3447ac2c@posting.google.com, "Thierry Depaulis"
> <thierry.depaulis@freesbee.fr> wrote:
>
> > One other thing we must take into consideration is the fear of
getting
> > spammed. We have naively being using our primary addresses for
years
> > before realising it was from the newsgroup posts that we got
terribly
> > spammed!
>
>
> Imho, the use of your e-mail address only causes you to get spam in
your
> private mailbox. It has nothing to do with the newsgroup. That one is
easy
> to find for spammers.

If I interpret what Thierry said correctly, he is saying that the fear
of getting "spammed in your private mailbox" is what is causing people
not to post to the public mahjong news group. Because when you post,
you expose your private email address in a public forum and that leads
to spams.

Be that as it may, I think the mahjong news group is suffering from
lack of interesting topics of discussion. I tried several times to
kick-start this news group by posting new topics that "could" lead to
interesting discussions, but turned out there was very little follow-up
discussions. So maybe all the interesting mahjong topics have already
been covered and there is nothing else for us to discuss. :-(

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.mahjong (More info?)

Hi friends


On 08-03-2005 10:32, in article
5878e597.0503080132.3447ac2c@posting.google.com, "Thierry Depaulis"
<thierry.depaulis@freesbee.fr> wrote:

> One other thing we must take into consideration is the fear of getting
> spammed. We have naively being using our primary addresses for years
> before realising it was from the newsgroup posts that we got terribly
> spammed!


Imho, the use of your e-mail address only causes you to get spam in your
private mailbox. It has nothing to do with the newsgroup. That one is easy
to find for spammers.


|
|Martin Rep
|The Independent Internet Mahjong Newspaper
|Mahjong News:
|www.mahjongnews.com
|The Dutch Championship Riichi Mahjong:
|www.riichi.tk
|The Golden Dragon Hong Kong Mahjong Club:
|www.gouden-draak.nl