Gravity newsreader - good anti-troll defences

On 2020-08-15 12:37 p.m., mick wrote:
On 15/08/2020 04:17:53, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2020-08-14 5:22 p.m., mick wrote:
On 14/08/2020 12:30:47, Philip Herlihy wrote:
I'm surprised I still see so many indignant replies to trolls, or
even posts about specific trolls.* Trolls just want attention, so
any attention feeds them.

I use Gravity (http://mpgravity.sourceforge.net/).* It has a "bozo
bin"; when I* right-click a post and add the author to the bozo bin,
I have it configured so* all their posts are marked "read" (and so
are not seen) for 365 days.

If a reply to a trolling thread appear, if the respondent is
particularly annoying they go in the bozo bin too, but in any case
tapping 'I' (Ignore) marks the entire thread plus any future replies
as read - and so I don't see them.* That's really useful.

So don't be tempted to encourage these damaged people.* See if you
have comparable facilities in your own newsreader, or, if not, try
Gravity! It's old-school (last stable version 2010!) but it works
really well!

Gravity 3.0.8
https://www.grc.com/discussions.htm
scroll down the page to see the best newsreader for windows.


To Mick or anyone else using Gravity, How do you increase the font
size in the article pane, Not the quoted text( I can change that) but
the regular message text?

Thanks,* Rene

I haven't used Gravity for quite a few years.* I much prefer MesNews
which is very similar.

As an aside:
Since Microplanet ceased producing Gravity the Gallery function has been
eliminated from the later 3.0 versions.* You can get the Gallery
function working again by extracting the gallery.exe file from version
2.6 and adding it to the Gravity program folder in any of the latest
versions.
You can also download the same file from my Google Drive using this link.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QAQ...ew?usp=sharing



Thanks Mick, after playing around with Gravity for a few days I think I
will stick with Thunderbird, Although I may try Mesnews for a while.

Rene

Thanks Mick, after playing around with Gravity for a few days I think I
will stick with Thunderbird, Although I may try Mesnews* for a while.

Interlink Mail & News newsreader is very similar to the Free Agent
newsreader. Works well for me and works faster than Free Agent.

In article ,
says...

In article , says...

On 14/08/2020 12:30:47, Philip Herlihy wrote:
I'm surprised I still see so many indignant replies to trolls, or even posts
about specific trolls. Trolls just want attention, so any attention feeds
them.

I use Gravity (http://mpgravity.sourceforge.net/). It has a "bozo bin"; when
I right-click a post and add the author to the bozo bin, I have it
configured so all their posts are marked "read" (and so are not seen) for
365 days.

If a reply to a trolling thread appear, if the respondent is particularly
annoying they go in the bozo bin too, but in any case tapping 'I' (Ignore)
marks the entire thread plus any future replies as read - and so I don't see
them. That's really useful.

So don't be tempted to encourage these damaged people. See if you have
comparable facilities in your own newsreader, or, if not, try Gravity! It's
old-school (last stable version 2010!) but it works really well!

Gravity 3.0.8
https://www.grc.com/discussions.htm
scroll down the page to see the best newsreader for windows.

Golly! That'll be worth a look.

Using it now. I exported everything (and downloaded the original installer)
before installing the 2020 version, but it automatically imported everything
and replaced the 2010 version without any grief. Not particularly noticing any
changes.

--

Phil, London

In article , lable says...

Philip,

Does any newsreader offer this?

Offer what ?

Your suggestion!

" A good addition would be to automatically suppress replies to suppressed
(for whatever reason) posts.

Yes, my 20 year old OE6 does that. You mean that in 20 years no other
newsgroup reader copied that behaviour ? Blimy !

That way you would not see the blacklisted persons rambing
directly or indirectly by responders referring to them and/or
quoting parts of such blacklisted posts.


One thing I think I've noticed is that when I see replies to some repeat-
offender troll the original (to which someone has been piqued to reply) isn't
in the list of posts. Gravity's killfile process simply pre-marks posts as
'read', so I guess these egregious offenders may be blacklisted at the server
perhaps. That means there's nothing to tell Gravity (or any other newsreader)
that the post should be suppressed. I'll have to study this more carefully.

The "Bozo bin" and "Ignore" facility nevertheless mean that I see little junk,
and the "I" key swiftly removes entire threads from (e.g.) the politically
incontinent, or deliberately offensive.

One thing I've never looked into (in Gravity) is the Rules facility. But then,
I've never felt the need - my feed is pretty clean, and the occasional 'leak'
is swiftly dealt with with a single keystroke.

--

Phil, London

On Mon, 17 Aug 2020 10:06:44 +0100, in alt.comp.os.windows-10 you
wrote:

Using it now. I exported everything (and downloaded the original
installer) before installing the 2020 version, but it
automatically imported everything and replaced the 2010 version
without any grief. Not particularly noticing any changes.

The man reason I gave up using it years ago was the lack of ability
to reformat edited paragraphs, including quoted ones. Is that still
a problem with Gravity?

Ken Blake wrote:
On 8/15/2020 8:05 AM, Chris wrote:
R.Wieser wrote:
Ken,

A good addition would be to automatically suppress replies to suppressed
(for whatever reason) posts. That way you would not see the
blacklisted
persons rambing directly or indirectly by responders referring to them
and/or quoting parts of such blacklisted posts.

Yes, that would be wonderful.

There are no newsgroup readers that do that ? Amazing. I would think it
would be a bit of a no-brainer.

It does exist. Thunderbird at the very least can do it if you set it to
ignore subthreads by killfiled posters.



Thank you. I just looked for that setting and couldn't find it. Can you
point me to it?

In message filters either select an existing one or create a new one. Then
in the "Perform these actions:" section select "Ignore subthread". This
will ensure that any subthreads that were started by a poster which matches
the required criteria for the filter will not be seen.

In article , says...

On Mon, 17 Aug 2020 10:06:44 +0100, in alt.comp.os.windows-10 you
wrote:

Using it now. I exported everything (and downloaded the original installer)
before installing the 2020 version, but it automatically imported
everything and replaced the 2010 version without any grief. Not
particularly noticing any changes.

The man reason I gave up using it years ago was the lack of ability to
reformat edited paragraphs, including quoted ones. Is that still a problem
with Gravity?

Limited. You can "wrap selected lines" as I've done with the paragraph above,
after deleting the newline between two lines. I guess that wraps to the
configured line length.

--

Phil, London

On 8/17/2020 4:31 AM, Chris wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:
On 8/15/2020 8:05 AM, Chris wrote:
R.Wieser wrote:
Ken,

A good addition would be to automatically suppress replies to suppressed
(for whatever reason) posts. That way you would not see the
blacklisted
persons rambing directly or indirectly by responders referring to them
and/or quoting parts of such blacklisted posts.

Yes, that would be wonderful.

There are no newsgroup readers that do that ? Amazing. I would think it
would be a bit of a no-brainer.

It does exist. Thunderbird at the very least can do it if you set it to
ignore subthreads by killfiled posters.



Thank you. I just looked for that setting and couldn't find it. Can you
point me to it?

In message filters


It took a long time to find that screen. I almost never look at the
hamburger menu.


either select an existing one or create a new one. Then
in the "Perform these actions:" section select "Ignore subthread". This
will ensure that any subthreads that were started by a poster which matches
the required criteria for the filter will not be seen.


Ok, thanks very much. I've done that, and I'll see how it works out.


--
Ken

On 8/17/2020 8:06 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On 8/17/2020 4:31 AM, Chris wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:
On 8/15/2020 8:05 AM, Chris wrote:
R.Wieser wrote:
Ken,

A good addition would be to automatically suppress replies to suppressed
(for whatever reason) posts. That way you would not see the
blacklisted
persons rambing directly or indirectly by responders referring to them
and/or quoting parts of such blacklisted posts.

Yes, that would be wonderful.

There are no newsgroup readers that do that ? Amazing. I would think it
would be a bit of a no-brainer.

It does exist. Thunderbird at the very least can do it if you set it to
ignore subthreads by killfiled posters.



Thank you. I just looked for that setting and couldn't find it. Can you
point me to it?

In message filters


It took a long time to find that screen. I almost never look at the
hamburger menu.


either select an existing one or create a new one. Then
in the "Perform these actions:" section select "Ignore subthread". This
will ensure that any subthreads that were started by a poster which matches
the required criteria for the filter will not be seen.


Ok, thanks very much. I've done that, and I'll see how it works out.


It seems to not be working, but I'm not sure. Maybe I missed changing
some of those I killfiled.



--
Ken

Ken Blake wrote:
On 8/17/2020 8:06 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On 8/17/2020 4:31 AM, Chris wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:
On 8/15/2020 8:05 AM, Chris wrote:
R.Wieser wrote:
Ken,

A good addition would be to automatically suppress replies to suppressed
(for whatever reason) posts. That way you would not see the
blacklisted
persons rambing directly or indirectly by responders referring to them
and/or quoting parts of such blacklisted posts.

Yes, that would be wonderful.

There are no newsgroup readers that do that ? Amazing. I would think it
would be a bit of a no-brainer.

It does exist. Thunderbird at the very least can do it if you set it to
ignore subthreads by killfiled posters.



Thank you. I just looked for that setting and couldn't find it. Can you
point me to it?

In message filters


It took a long time to find that screen. I almost never look at the
hamburger menu.


either select an existing one or create a new one. Then
in the "Perform these actions:" section select "Ignore subthread". This
will ensure that any subthreads that were started by a poster which matches
the required criteria for the filter will not be seen.


Ok, thanks very much. I've done that, and I'll see how it works out.


It seems to not be working, but I'm not sure. Maybe I missed changing
some of those I killfiled.

It worked when I was using thunderbird. I stopped using it because although
it ignored killed threads it still highlighted them if they had new posts
despite you not being able to see them. There's no way to mark the thread
as read so I had a growing set of threads which I couldn't get rid of.

On Mon, 17 Aug 2020 14:57:18 +0100, Philip Herlihy wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Mon, 17 Aug 2020 10:06:44 +0100, in alt.comp.os.windows-10
you wrote:

Using it now. I exported everything (and downloaded the original
installer) before installing the 2020 version, but it
automatically imported everything and replaced the 2010 version
without any grief. Not particularly noticing any changes.

The man reason I gave up using it years ago was the lack of
ability to reformat edited paragraphs, including quoted ones.
Is that still a problem with Gravity?

Limited. You can "wrap selected lines" as I've done with the
paragraph above, after deleting the newline between two lines. I
guess that wraps to the configured line length.

Thanks.