The killfile myth

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden]
says...

Quoted message said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say they do.
I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they would miss something.

<long post snipped>

I really appreciate the general tenor of your post. Be open to new
experiences, you say! Appreciate the good in people! All great ideas.
But when these ideals bump up against reality, they fall flat.

My killfile is one of my most precious possessions. Without it I would
have abandoned this NG long ago. I do not killfile people capriciously
nor do I do it to "get" people (no one gives a [censored] if I killfile them,
really!). But there is a small number of posters who are regularly
offensive, obscene, ignorant, and/or stupid. They rarely or never
contribute anything of value, and their minds are shut tight against
learning anything. Think of sheldon and chung and wolf and the
projectile vomit whatever!

--
Peter Aitken
Visit my recipe and kitchen myths pages at www.pgacon.com/cooking.htm

Lefty said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say
they do.

All the freaking time.

Quoted message said:

I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they
would miss something.

Not likely. I can't read 20% of this newsgroup as it is. And there are
more important ones to read than this (sorry gang).

Trust me, if I tell you you're plonked, you're plonked. XanaNews makes
it so easy, a click op.

Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)

Lefty said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say they do.
I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they would miss something.

This ng is like a high-rise walkup in Brooklyn,where virtually every ethnic
group is represented. As you pass each door there is a different smell. You
either like the smell or you don't -- but to the people cooking behind each
door, theirs smells great.

It would be nice if you could become a giant and get a whiff of the whole
building at once so you could classify it, but you can't. So you cannot say
"that building smells great", or "that building stinks". Like passing by
those doors you can click on a topic header here, and just by seeing the
number of posts, drifts, and the posters, you can get a whiff of that whole
building -- if you tap into each thread drift you will get good smells and
bad.

You could killfile the ones you deem as usually bad smelling; like holding
your nose, closing your eyes, and plugging your ears as you pass certain
doors; but by doing so you might also miss out on the music. That intolerant
[censored], that whining [censored], that know-it-all, might be the best horn player
you've ever heard.

Creative people always have their eyes, noses, ears, and palates open to new
things. They can tolerate a lot of stinky chitterlings cooking in the pot if
the cooker takes a break and plays Schubert, or Marley really well.

Great food is an art. There is no place for killfiles in art, because
perfection is a sum-total of myriad imperfections.

You can dislike, argue, rant, call somebody a fool in one of their cooking
posts but next time you pass their door you may hear great music. Creative
people change levels; you can now appreciate that poster on a different
level. So you called them names about cooking ten posts ago--that doesn't
mean you cannot like what they say about the music and tell them so. So
the killfile is actually killing possibilities.

Thus, this ng does not stick entirely to cooking because art has no specific
boundaries -- a writer's block can sometimes be overcome by changing media,
like painting a landscape. Should writers ngs never discuss landscapes
because it is not Writing?

You need to be open to continuums in this world, as in the real world
(whatever that means to you), to enrich your life, and your art -- and It's
OK to be [censored]-off just as much as it's OK to be smarmy.

(Obfood: see "stinky chitterlings" [aka chittlin's] above.)

<Did not snip>

Nice post! There are a few that have followed MY posts and their comments
are always [censored]..so when I see them behind me I delete THEM and don't
read their [censored]. I sometimes read their posts in other threads and try to
figure out if they actually have a brain.. some do some don't. There are
some that continually have conversations..sort of like instant messenger..
I never read those. It doesn't make them bad people though..nothing
personal. Post what you like read what you want. If this NG was just a
bunch of imported/repeated same recipes over and over Master Cook
ingredients list it would not be worth much. Long lists of recipes with no
personal comments about the posters experience are useless to me. Some of
these folks are pretty funny in many ways. I have actually laughed to
near tears over the good ones. L0L

Lefty said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say they do.
I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they would miss something.

I wonder how many people use killfile and don't say so. I never bother to
announce that I'm going to killfile someone or something. I don't really
understand the point of all those announcements.

I don't actually use killfile that often anyway - it's even easier to
simply ignore uninteresting or annoying posts than it is to killfile them.

--
Cheryl

"Peter A" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden]
says...

Quoted message said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say they

do.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they would miss

something.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

<long post snipped>

I really appreciate the general tenor of your post. Be open to new
experiences, you say! Appreciate the good in people! All great ideas.
But when these ideals bump up against reality, they fall flat.

My killfile is one of my most precious possessions. Without it I would
have abandoned this NG long ago. I do not killfile people capriciously
nor do I do it to "get" people (no one gives a [censored] if I killfile them,
really!). But there is a small number of posters who are regularly
offensive, obscene, ignorant, and/or stupid. They rarely or never
contribute anything of value, and their minds are shut tight against
learning anything. Think of sheldon and chung and wolf and the
projectile vomit whatever!

--
Peter Aitken

I know what you mean. I was speaking for myself because I truly hate to miss
anything. I find that some of the good stuff is embedded in thread drift
that started out from Sheldon or those others.

It is important also to change perspective and look at the world from the
point of view of Art sometimes, even if it seems naive or pie-in-the-sky
(obfood :-) because Art makes the Absurd real and the real Absurd. That way
you can read Chung and laugh while you puke.
--
Lefty

Life is for learning
The worst I ever had was wonderful

Lefty said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say they do.

It's a requirement in this group. It's huge, it has a not-so-good
signal to noise ratio, and time is short. Filtering is a must...
by subject, by thread, by sender, etc.

Keep in mind that using filters (much better term than killfile)
doesn't necessarily mean that if a specific person is filtered
their posts are never, ever seen, at least the way I'm set up.

Filtered posts come in marked as read. All I need to do to
read them is click on them, which I do from time to time.

In my world, most specific posters are filtered out not
as some sort of punishment, but instead because their posts
don't contain material of interest, historically (as I said,
time is short). I sometimes spot check this and filters do
change over time.

Quoted message said:

(Obfood: see "stinky chitterlings" [aka chittlin's] above.)

No.

--
Reg

Peter A said:

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden]
says...

Quoted message said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say they do.
I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they would miss something.

<long post snipped>

I really appreciate the general tenor of your post. Be open to new
experiences, you say! Appreciate the good in people! All great ideas.
But when these ideals bump up against reality, they fall flat.
Think of sheldon and chung and wolf and the
projectile vomit whatever!

I appreciate the tenor also. Chung has a message most likely but I
don't want it. Did not come here for church. I don't personally know the
other three that you have FINGERED in your post but I have seen the posts
of two of them. I don't know who wolf is post wise. Sheldon has a unique
way with words and offers more than most here EVER do. I don't see him
trailing particular posters but rather subject matter. He has his opinion
and sometimes the truth hurts. <ouch> I like his posts for the most part
and I like your posts for the most part. Your post this time seems to be
about fueling a fire? <lol>

BTW.. went to the coast and caught a nice LOAD of speckled trout and red
fish. If you have a recipe that you like for these guys please post 'em.

Lefty said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say they do.
I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they would miss something.

I have two people killfiled. Also, lots of threads and words that may
appear in subject lines - things I'm not interested in.

Carol
--

Some people are like Slinkies... they don't really have a purpose but
they bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.

Stolen from "traid" on the IRC

Lefty said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say they do.
I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they would miss something.

This ng is like a high-rise walkup in Brooklyn,where virtually every ethnic
group is represented. As you pass each door there is a different smell. You
either like the smell or you don't -- but to the people cooking behind each
door, theirs smells great.

It would be nice if you could become a giant and get a whiff of the whole
building at once so you could classify it, but you can't. So you cannot say
"that building smells great", or "that building stinks". Like passing by
those doors you can click on a topic header here, and just by seeing the
number of posts, drifts, and the posters, you can get a whiff of that whole
building -- if you tap into each thread drift you will get good smells and
bad.

You could killfile the ones you deem as usually bad smelling; like holding
your nose, closing your eyes, and plugging your ears as you pass certain
doors; but by doing so you might also miss out on the music. That intolerant
[censored], that whining [censored], that know-it-all, might be the best horn player
you've ever heard.

Creative people always have their eyes, noses, ears, and palates open to new
things. They can tolerate a lot of stinky chitterlings cooking in the pot if
the cooker takes a break and plays Schubert, or Marley really well.

Great food is an art. There is no place for killfiles in art, because
perfection is a sum-total of myriad imperfections.

You can dislike, argue, rant, call somebody a fool in one of their cooking
posts but next time you pass their door you may hear great music. Creative
people change levels; you can now appreciate that poster on a different
level. So you called them names about cooking ten posts ago--that doesn't
mean you cannot like what they say about the music and tell them so. So
the killfile is actually killing possibilities.

Thus, this ng does not stick entirely to cooking because art has no specific
boundaries -- a writer's block can sometimes be overcome by changing media,
like painting a landscape. Should writers ngs never discuss landscapes
because it is not Writing?

You need to be open to continuums in this world, as in the real world
(whatever that means to you), to enrich your life, and your art -- and It's
OK to be [censored]-off just as much as it's OK to be smarmy.

(Obfood: see "stinky chitterlings" [aka chittlin's] above.)
--
Lefty

Life is for learning
The worst I ever had was wonderful

I read the newsgroups on the internet via Google Groups, so don't have
to spend time on download/catchup those messages, so time and space not
an issue.

Reg said:

It's a requirement in this group. It's huge, it has a not-so-good
signal to noise ratio, and time is short. Filtering is a must...
by subject, by thread, by sender, etc.

I used to filter when I used other newsreaders but Google doesn't
provide any. Google does provide information useful in reading pretty
efficiently. Besides showing the most recent poster's name, it shows
you the total number of posts in a thread and the number of authors.

When I see a thread with a small number of authors and a large number
of posts -- say a ratio of less than 1:4 or 5 authors to posts -- I
know it's just the chitchatters talking back and forth and there won't
be any content. Just keep scrolling.

When I see the opposite, a high ratio of authors to posts, I know it's
some topic that has caught general interest. Take a look at it.

When I see Chung or [insert your least favorite posters here], just
keep scrolling.

Google also shows the number of posts in a thread since you last
looked. When I see a high number of new posts in a thread I previously
stopped reading there's a good chance the thread has drifted to a new
topic, so I'll go check it out.

I still wish Google would add some form of filtering so certain kinds
of things just wouldn't show up at all, but until then -- or until all
the scrolling gives me carpal tunnel syndrome -- it's okay. -aem

This is going to sound a bit peculiar. Some newsgroups become dead when the
vitreole stops. I enjoy Sheldon, and when he quiets the NG quiets as well,
sometimes too much. This is also particularly true for alt.food.barbecue,
which doesn't surprise me. One can envision the macho barbecue chef
thumping his chest as he hovers over his grill out in the patio. Please
don't take this wrongly. There is a point, obvously, where the mission of
the group fails because of this.
The one adverse affect of this, however, is to keep new posters from
posting. This is unfortunate. We're all here for new ideas. I have learned a
lot here and on other food related NGs from new and old posters.
Kent

"Lefty" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say they
do.
I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they would miss
something.

This ng is like a high-rise walkup in Brooklyn,where virtually every
ethnic
group is represented. As you pass each door there is a different smell.
You
either like the smell or you don't -- but to the people cooking behind
each
door, theirs smells great.

It would be nice if you could become a giant and get a whiff of the whole
building at once so you could classify it, but you can't. So you cannot
say
"that building smells great", or "that building stinks". Like passing by
those doors you can click on a topic header here, and just by seeing the
number of posts, drifts, and the posters, you can get a whiff of that
whole
building -- if you tap into each thread drift you will get good smells and
bad.

You could killfile the ones you deem as usually bad smelling; like holding
your nose, closing your eyes, and plugging your ears as you pass certain
doors; but by doing so you might also miss out on the music. That
intolerant
[censored], that whining [censored], that know-it-all, might be the best horn
player
you've ever heard.

Creative people always have their eyes, noses, ears, and palates open to
new
things. They can tolerate a lot of stinky chitterlings cooking in the pot
if
the cooker takes a break and plays Schubert, or Marley really well.

Great food is an art. There is no place for killfiles in art, because
perfection is a sum-total of myriad imperfections.

You can dislike, argue, rant, call somebody a fool in one of their cooking
posts but next time you pass their door you may hear great music. Creative
people change levels; you can now appreciate that poster on a different
level. So you called them names about cooking ten posts ago--that doesn't
mean you cannot like what they say about the music and tell them so. So
the killfile is actually killing possibilities.

Thus, this ng does not stick entirely to cooking because art has no
specific
boundaries -- a writer's block can sometimes be overcome by changing
media,
like painting a landscape. Should writers ngs never discuss landscapes
because it is not Writing?

You need to be open to continuums in this world, as in the real world
(whatever that means to you), to enrich your life, and your art -- and
It's
OK to be [censored]-off just as much as it's OK to be smarmy.

(Obfood: see "stinky chitterlings" [aka chittlin's] above.)
--
Lefty

Life is for learning
The worst I ever had was wonderful

In article <[email hidden]>,

Lefty said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say they do.
I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they would miss something.

I just checked my filters for this group, I have 42. I've only had
killfile capability for six months, so these are all from that time
period. Before then I just didn't read posts from certain people.

Quoted message said:

You could killfile the ones you deem as usually bad smelling; like holding
your nose, closing your eyes, and plugging your ears as you pass certain
doors; but by doing so you might also miss out on the music. That intolerant
[censored], that whining [censored], that know-it-all, might be the best horn player
you've ever heard.

Creative people always have their eyes, noses, ears, and palates open to new
things. They can tolerate a lot of stinky chitterlings cooking in the pot if
the cooker takes a break and plays Schubert, or Marley really well.

It's not a music group, it's a food group.

Quoted message said:

You can dislike, argue, rant, call somebody a fool in one of their cooking
posts but next time you pass their door you may hear great music. Creative
people change levels; you can now appreciate that poster on a different
level. So you called them names about cooking ten posts ago--that doesn't
mean you cannot like what they say about the music and tell them so. So
the killfile is actually killing possibilities.

It's not a music group, it's a food group.

I don't KF people because I don't like them, I KF them because I'm not
interested in reading their posts. I have people in my KF that I like,
they just aren't posting anything worthwhile.

I have 24 hours in a day. I have things to do besides read junk on this
group. I could easily find several hundred hours of things to do every
day. I have to kill a lot of possibilities already. That's life.

--
Dan Abel
[email hidden]
Petaluma, California, USA

Lefty said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say they do.
I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they would miss something.

Well, I do. I have quite a few people killfiled and some
subjects as well.

Kate

--
Kate Connally
“If I were as old as I feel, I’d be dead already.”
Goldfish: “The wholesome snack that smiles back,
Until you bite their heads off.”
What if the hokey pokey really *is* what it's all about?
[email hidden]

Kate Connally wrote on 06 Apr 2006 in rec.food.cooking

Quoted message said:

Lefty said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say
they do. I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they
would miss something.

Well, I do. I have quite a few people killfiled and some
subjects as well.

Kate

Me too I've killfiled many spammers, patches, others that annoy me and many
thread titles. But Strangely not sheldon.

--
-Alan

On Thu 06 Apr 2006 09:32:34a, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it Lefty?

Quoted message said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say they
do. I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they would miss
something.

I use both a killfile and a score file (filter). There are 15 individuals
permanently in my killfile. I am not the least bit curious about what they
have to say. There are occasions when I see something they wrote quoted in
another post, but I rarely read it even then. I have 8 filters that focus
on specific topics or keywords, including those most often found in SPAM.
All in all, this is quite effective.

--
Wayne Boatwright Õ¿Õ¬
________________________________________

Okay, okay, I take it back! UnScrew you!

"Wayne Boatwright" <wayneboatwright_at_gmail.com> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Thu 06 Apr 2006 09:32:34a, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it Lefty?

Quoted message said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say they
do. I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they would miss
something.

I use both a killfile and a score file (filter). There are 15 individuals
permanently in my killfile. I am not the least bit curious about what
they
have to say. There are occasions when I see something they wrote quoted
in
another post, but I rarely read it even then. I have 8 filters that focus
on specific topics or keywords, including those most often found in SPAM.
All in all, this is quite effective.

--
Wayne Boatwright Õ¿Õ¬

I'm not afraid that I would miss garbage mouths, rudeness, people acting
crazy, insults, mean-spirited people, opinions on religion and politics.
Why would anyone want to see a snake striking at you or anyone else?
I don't have many people killfiled, I generally ignore their post when I see
they have posted.
OTOH, I have my favorite people who I read most of their posts whether or
not it is OT, because they lift my spirit.
This is one bet you lost on me ;-))
Dee Dee

Reg said:

Keep in mind that using filters (much better term than killfile)
doesn't necessarily mean that if a specific person is filtered
their posts are never, ever seen, at least the way I'm set up.

Filtered posts come in marked as read. All I need to do to
read them is click on them, which I do from time to time.

Reading news is a personal science.

Most of my filters are in my head. I have a few physical filters
for Chung, crossposting, and people who don't delimit their posts
from the one their replying to. Otherwise, most of my filters are
stored in my head and work by the subject line and the poster.

I probably only read the first post of 10% of the threads here.
And only follow 50% of those 10% of threads. After that, I don't
read another 25% of the posters here for various reasons. Mostly
because you have nothing to say except what you consider to be
cute.

If I didn't read the thread the first time around, my newsreader
shows that so I don't have to keep looking at dozens of subjects
every time I download new headers. I just look at the threads
I've read before and evaluate any new (the most recent) threads.

If I'm gone for a few days. I look at the most recent 12 hours
worth of threads, and mark everything else read.

Many threads that constantly get appended to and exceed 30 posts,
I physically kill/ignore, so they don't keep clogging up the
screen.

I don't use the killfile arbitrarily since, depending on my mood,
I might want to poke fun at some idiot or am bored and have
nothing else to read at the moment.

Like I said, it's a very exact, but dynamic science. And if you
don't like the way I read news, then you can kiss my ass in
advance.

ObFood: Chicken Caesar Salad from Logan's Roadhouse. With blue
cheese, bacon, walnuts, red onion, and some pretty darn good
grilled chicken. Not exactly traditional, but very acceptable.

Tonight will be ... (oops...better save that for another ObFood)

-sw

"dee" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Lefty said:

I wonder how many people actually use Killfile even though they say they
do.
I'll bet very few --I think people are too afraid they would miss
something.

Quoted message said:

I read the newsgroups on the internet via Google Groups, so don't have
to spend time on download/catchup those messages, so time and space not
an issue.

I do that a lot, too, Dee. It is a good way for me to read a complete group
of messages, and then to save them in one Word document; particularly if
there are some very good points made about a recipe. Even cutting and
pasting them as a group of messages to a Word document, then it is easy to
cut out all the extraneous stuff -- you know, signatures, etc.
Dee Dee

Steve Wertz said:

Reg said:

Keep in mind that using filters (much better term than killfile)
doesn't necessarily mean that if a specific person is filtered
their posts are never, ever seen, at least the way I'm set up.

Filtered posts come in marked as read. All I need to do to
read them is click on them, which I do from time to time.

Reading news is a personal science.

Most of my filters are in my head. I have a few physical filters
for Chung,

If i had known how easy the mail filters were on the Mac OS X system i
would have upgraded long ago.

On my old OS 8.5 one had to type in manually the address and tittles or
any other information one wanted to filter and i could never seem to get
them to work properly, with the new "Panther" system its just a one
click operation.

So easy that i now filter for the slightest reasons, the least amount of
offensiveness (IMO) or off topic posting (make money sending e mails!)
or mere associations, i.e. replies to "Chung" get filtered even if they
are anti - chung.

Quoted message said:

ObFood: Chicken Caesar Salad from Logan's Roadhouse. With blue
cheese, bacon, walnuts, red onion, and some pretty darn good
grilled chicken. Not exactly traditional, but very acceptable.

On an asparagus kick recently, $1.00 per pound and falling, cream of
asparagus soup last night with home made garlic cheese croutons.

Thinking of a asparagus and blue cheese fritatta for tonight. But maybe
beef and asparagus stir fry with black bean sauce, i get a pint of the
sauce for 2 dollars at a local Chinese restaurant.
---
JL

Quoted message said:

Tonight will be ... (oops...better save that for another ObFood)

-sw