Technical support, not general discussions (Was: basic)

[user1]

On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:25:02 -0500, Michael Haney wrote:

> I'm extremely disappointed in the behavior of certain individuals on
> this list.  Their anti-newbie behavior perpetuates a long standing myth
> about the Linux Community which we desperately need to eradicate.

If you are using an e-mail client like kmail, you could use the spam 
filter (spam for the bad guys and ham for the good guys), to "ban" 
certain individuals.

You could also use pan newsreader, and I have made a pan howto:

I find it easier to use a newsreader (I use Pan, as it has worked very 
well for me) instead of certain e-mail clients for managing mailing 
lists.

Install Pan using synaptic (in ubuntu).

Add as news server:

Pan - Edit - Edit News Servers - Add - "news.gmane.org"

Add your e-mail address:

Pan - Edit - Edit Posting Profiles - "your e-mail address"

Then Search for e.g. "gmane.linux.ubuntu.user" as group name (use 
search box top left in Pan) and then right click on the found list and 
choose "subscribe".

Please note, that there is thousands of other mailing list groups out 
there, and also a lot of other news servers.

gmane.linux.ubuntu.user (is the group for ubuntu-users mailing list)

Practical setup items:

Pan - Edit - Edit Preferences - Behaviour - Groups - mark "Get new 
headers in subscribed groups on start up".

Pan - Groups - Get headers - select Get all headers - Execute
This item makes it very important, that ALL subject lines in all posts to 
be very DESCRIPTIVE. Then it will be possible to search very distinct for 
answers. That is if you have all headers of a newsgroup downloaded in 
Pan, you can more easily find your answers. Search in subject lines is 
done in top right search box in Pan.
This item has to be done each time you want all groups (maybe a bug).

Pan - View - Header Pane - Choose "Thread Headers" (to sort articles by 
threads (toggle on/of)).

When you post/follow up first time you will receive an e-mail asking 
you to reply to the mail (to verify that you are you), and when you have 
done that you are up to use 
the mailing list group using Pan.

This should be done for each new newsgroup you subscribe to.

Using Pan for your mailing lists also give you a much better overview of 
your mailing lists I think.

Sorry that I repeat the usefullness of Pan, but it took me several years 
to find out how much more easy it is for me to use Pan for your mailing 
lists - 
a very important "weapon" for getting help in the linux world I find. 

***

If anybody has problems with certain spam articles/authors and use Pan 
newsreader they can do:

Select the article/s

Then choose: Pan - Articles - Edit Articles watch/ignore/score - Add - 
If the group name is "gmane.linux.ubuntu.user - (or whatever the group 
name is)
Author - 
Ignore the article - 
Forever - 
Add and rescore

Then they get rid of the culprit/s *humor*

At a later time they can go back and edit what they did if they so 
desire  :-)

This pan suggestion works fine for me.

Pan seems to be one of the best linux newsreaders I have been able to 
find.

See also this link:      http://kb.iu.edu/data/afhc.html 

***

Here is a small list of a few mailing lists I find important:
gmane.linux.ubuntu.user (ubuntu-users)
gmane.comp.audio.audacity.general (audacity-users)
gmane.network.freenet.support

An alternative one should not rule out is, that some individuals might 
have a kind of Alzheimer demens or something alike illness