I've been reading a limited range of Usenet groups since the late 1980s, and until the recent problems in comp.lang.python had never bothered with any sort of filtering; it's easier just to ignore people. However, the sheer volume of spam in comp.lang.python finally defeated me, so I set up a filter in my leafnode NNTP server, which pulls from eternal-september and gmane (read-only). The results for the last few weeks are below:
Jan 20 15:34:39 comp.lang.python: 50 articles fetched, 71 killed Jan 21 14:21:30 comp.lang.python: 25 articles fetched, 18 killed Jan 26 13:04:40 comp.lang.python: 85 articles fetched, 276 killed Jan 28 22:58:42 comp.lang.python: 83 articles fetched, 184 killed Jan 29 16:07:11 comp.lang.python: 41 articles fetched, 52 killed Jan 30 16:57:03 comp.lang.python: 57 articles fetched, 56 killed Jan 31 16:52:01 comp.lang.python: 39 articles fetched, 87 killed Feb 1 16:02:49 comp.lang.python: 39 articles fetched, 73 killed Feb 2 14:39:46 comp.lang.python: 43 articles fetched, 57 killed Feb 3 18:17:55 comp.lang.python: 19 articles fetched, 108 killed Feb 4 15:28:03 comp.lang.python: 36 articles fetched, 122 killed Feb 5 15:26:08 comp.lang.python: 45 articles fetched, 79 killed Feb 6 16:29:40 comp.lang.python: 68 articles fetched, 93 killed Feb 7 16:43:26 comp.lang.python: 32 articles fetched, 118 killed Feb 8 16:01:14 comp.lang.python: 41 articles fetched, 100 killed Feb 9 17:06:09 comp.lang.python: 47 articles fetched, 201 killed giving the totals: Kept: 750 articles Killed: 1695 articles Until the last few days the spammers were using a fixed format, but recently I've had to play whack-a-mole with filtering, so the Killed total is probably underestimated by ten or twenty posts. No other groups (in the limited set which I read) have the problem, and I don't understand why the spammers neither spam a range of groups, nor change their adddresses more frequently. It may be that destroying comp.lang.python is their actual objective. Either way, a depressing state of affairs. Will -- "As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron." -- H. L. Mencken. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list