Are spams on comp.lang.python a major nuisance?

[Skip Montanaro]

> CMIIW correct me if I'm wrong.  Google Groups is a Usenet/c-l-py
> gateway.  Other gateways aren't contributing to spam.  What are they
> doing that G-Groups is not?

Actually Google Groups appears to be just displaying the Usenet
newsgroup
comp.lang.python.  The spam filtering which is the topic of this
thread
is applied to the mailing list python-list at python.org side of things.
The
gateway between the mailing list and the Usenet newsgroup is on
mail.python.org I believe.

As to what Google Groups isn't doing, it's not clear.  I just visited
this
group and saw lots of spam.  My guess is that we on the mailing list
side
of things don't see a lot of that because of the spam filter.  It
seems
Google Groups makes it more difficult to report/eliminate spam than
other
more traditional Usenet newsgroup software might.  First you need to
view
the message (even though it's frequently obvious from the subject
alone
that it's spam), then click the "More Options" link, then the "Report
Message" link, then type something in the description field of the
form they display and click the Submit button.  After that, who knows
how long it takes for them to send out a Usenet cancel message?  Most
people probably see the subject and move on to the next message.

In short, it would appear that Google makes it harder to cancel spam
than they ought to.  Why they don't have spam filters similar to
what's
on Gmail to trap this stuff is unclear.

Skip

(Sent via Google Groups, so Grant will probably not see this...)