OT: spam in this newsgroup

OT: spam in this newsgroup

[Ralf Fassel]

I see _lots_ of posts in this group containing `unusual' charsets like
    Content-Type: text/html; charset="ks_c_5601-1987"
and since I'm not fluent in far-east, I wonder whether these are
people from Korea posting genuine emacs-related questions in their own
language or whether this is plain spam.  I don't see that much of it
in other (even emacs-related) groups, how come g.e.b. is swamped by
this?  Again, I don't mean to offend anybody, and if I'm just being
ignorant about the world opening up, please forgive me ;-)

R'

Re: OT: spam in this newsgroup

[elf]

I agree with your sentiment. 

It would be nice if all that spam could be stopped at the gateway.

Since the "Emacs maintainers only understand English (so please
submit your bug-reports in English)" is there a point in allowing
posts with non-Latin1 charsets through?

Re: OT: spam in this newsgroup

[Dan Jacobson]

I was bored so, well, I looked at other peoples posts instead of my
own, and

>>>>> "e" == elf  <elf@ee.ryerson.ca> writes:

e> Since the "Emacs maintainers only understand English (so please
e> submit your bug-reports in English)" is there a point in allowing
e> posts with non-Latin1 charsets through?

whatsyourproblem?  There, try my big5 .sig for size.  And furthermore,
how am I to have erudite discussions with Handa about the benefits of
some mule thingy.  Obviously your request is, well, xxx-centric.
-- 
http://jidanni.org/ Taiwan(04)25854780 積丹尼

Re: OT: spam in this newsgroup

[elf]

jidanni@deadspam.com (Dan Jacobson) writes:

> whatsyourproblem?  There, try my big5 .sig for size.  And furthermore,
> how am I to have erudite discussions with Handa about the benefits of
> some mule thingy.  Obviously your request is, well, xxx-centric.

That's a valid argument (for once). In the buffer that is created
when Help->Send Bug Report... is selected, it says:

        This bug report will be sent to the Free Software Foundation,
        not to your local site managers!

        Please write in English, because the Emacs maintainers do not
        have translators to read other languages for them.

To address your concerns, then, any subject-line that is entirely
non-latin-1 (?)  can be considered spam.

There are lots of messages that meet this heuristic.

Re: OT: spam in this newsgroup

[Dan Jacobson]

>>>>> "e" == elf  <elf@ee.ryerson.ca> writes:

e>         Please write in English, because the Emacs maintainers do not
e>         have translators to read other languages for them.

e> To address your concerns, then, any subject-line that is entirely
e> non-latin-1 (?)  can be considered spam.

OK, but it must be entirely... however, I think that even if I say
Subject: mule: I think ○ should be listed under ling2
The whole contents of the subject might become encoded even if there's
only one Chinese char...

>>>>> "R" == Ralf Fassel <ralfixx@gmx.de> writes:

R> I see _lots_ of posts in this group containing `unusual' charsets like
R>     Content-Type: text/html; charset="ks_c_5601-1987"
R> and since I'm not fluent in far-east, I wonder whether these are
R> people from Korea posting genuine emacs-related questions in their own

Actually it only takes about two hours to master the Korean alphabet,
and one can then even make out words like Kleenex spelled in Korean. 

R> language or whether this is plain spam.  I don't see that much of it
R> in other (even emacs-related) groups, how come g.e.b. is swamped by
R> this?  Again, I don't mean to offend anybody, and if I'm just being
R> ignorant about the world opening up, please forgive me ;-)

yes, Korean Kleenex has little to do with emacs.  Actually I would
like folks to find better spam triggers than going the charset
direction or country of origin type direction, as one day a real user
will get his first bug "whitywalled" and never touch emacs again:  Joe
from Asia's first emacs bug report somehow triggers a spam filter, Ah,
Joe says "Oh, so I come from the land of spam [ISPs], fine, sorry to
unfreshen your air, it won't happen again".
-- 
http://jidanni.org/ Taiwan(04)25854780

Bug reports in English only? (Re: OT: spam in this newsgroup)

[Karl Eichwalder]

elf@ee.ryerson.ca writes:

>         This bug report will be sent to the Free Software Foundation,
>         not to your local site managers!
>
>         Please write in English, because the Emacs maintainers do not
>         have translators to read other languages for them.

I'm wondering whether that's still a valid restriction.  I like to help
with bug reports written in German.  My proposal:

    Please write in English if possible, because the Emacs maintainers
    do not necessarily/always?[please, choose a good word] have
    translators to read other languages for them.

-- 
ke@suse.de (work) / keichwa@gmx.net (home):              |
http://www.suse.de/~ke/                                  |      ,__o
Free Translation Project:                                |    _-\_<,
http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/po/HTML/             |   (*)/'(*)

Re: Bug reports in English only? (Re: OT: spam in this newsgroup)

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

Karl Eichwalder <keichwa@gmx.net> writes:

   I'm wondering whether that's still a valid restriction.  I like to help
   with bug reports written in German.  My proposal:

       Please write in English if possible, because the Emacs maintainers
       do not necessarily/always?[please, choose a good word] have
       translators to read other languages for them.

etc/SERVICE lists people who declare their ability to go beyond the rigid (but
imminently practical) constraints currently in place.  i think the best thing
to do would be to encourage people to look in that file for local help.

thi

Re: Bug reports in English only? (Re: OT: spam in this newsgroup)

[Miles Bader]

keichwa@gmx.net (Karl Eichwalder) writes:
> I'm wondering whether that's still a valid restriction.  I like to help
> with bug reports written in German.  My proposal:
> 
>     Please write in English if possible, because the Emacs maintainers
>     do not necessarily/always?[please, choose a good word] have
>     translators to read other languages for them.

I don't think it's really a `restriction', but rather just a strong
warning that bug reports are much more likely to be considered if the
maintainers can read them.  Even if there are some other-language
speakers reading the bug report lists (and in fact there are quite a
few), the only guarantee that can currently be given is that english
will be understood (though to be honest, I guess German would be a
pretty good bet too...).

So in a general sense, it's still a better bet for someone to use
terribly broken english than some other language, and the message shown
has to emphasize that; I'm a bit worried that anything less strong that
the current message would result in people thinking `well, _maybe_
someone understands language Foo, and my english isn't very good, so...'

[Note that if someone's english _isn't_ understandable, then it's
often easy to see where they sent their message from, and for a speaker
of that country's language to ask for a clarification, if they happen
to be reading the list -- and if there is no such speaker reading, well,
the reporter isn't any worse off!]

-Miles
-- 
Yo mama's so fat when she gets on an elevator it HAS to go down.

Re: Bug reports in English only? (Re: OT: spam in this newsgroup)

[Karl Eichwalder]

miles@gnu.org (Miles Bader) writes:

> So in a general sense, it's still a better bet for someone to use
> terribly broken english than some other language, and the message shown
> has to emphasize that;

I can't tell you numbers but my feeling is many a lot users will stay
away from sending reports because of the language issue.  You may say,
there are already enough reports.

> I'm a bit worried that anything less strong that the current message
> would result in people thinking `well, _maybe_ someone understands
> language Foo, and my english isn't very good, so...'

Probably.  Okay, I don't want to insist.

> [Note that if someone's english _isn't_ understandable, then it's
> often easy to see where they sent their message from, and for a speaker
> of that country's language to ask for a clarification, if they happen
> to be reading the list -- and if there is no such speaker reading, well,
> the reporter isn't any worse off!]

Why can't you say this instead of the current message?  Whenever I've
got to file a report I feel offended a little bit by the current wording
(okay, it's better than it was on 20.x).  Reading the message again
just now I think it can stay as is; obviously it's me who must change
his mind ;-)

-- 
ke@suse.de (work) / keichwa@gmx.net (home):              |
http://www.suse.de/~ke/                                  |      ,__o
Free Translation Project:                                |    _-\_<,
http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/po/HTML/             |   (*)/'(*)

Re: Bug reports in English only? (Re: OT: spam in this newsgroup)

[Richard Stallman]

I changed it to this:

	Please write in English if possible, because the Emacs
	maintainers usually do not have translators to read other
	languages for them.

We can see how that goes.

Re: Bug reports in English only? (Re: OT: spam in this newsgroup)

[Karl Eichwalder]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> We can see how that goes.

Thanks a lot; it sounds perfect.  I'm also curious how it will go.  I
just wrote another message as an answer to Miles--please ignore it.

-- 
ke@suse.de (work) / keichwa@gmx.net (home):              |
http://www.suse.de/~ke/                                  |      ,__o
Free Translation Project:                                |    _-\_<,
http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/po/HTML/             |   (*)/'(*)

Re: spam in this newsgroup

[Karl Chen]

I can't read Korean either but the html renders in my newsreader and these
are all very obviously spam (flashing pictures, links, etc.).

--
Karl

"Ralf Fassel" <ralfixx@gmx.de> wrote in message
news:ygawuuux45c.fsf@jupiter.akutech-local.de...
> I see _lots_ of posts in this group containing `unusual' charsets like
>     Content-Type: text/html; charset="ks_c_5601-1987"
> and since I'm not fluent in far-east, I wonder whether these are
> people from Korea posting genuine emacs-related questions in their own
> language or whether this is plain spam.  I don't see that much of it
> in other (even emacs-related) groups, how come g.e.b. is swamped by
> this?  Again, I don't mean to offend anybody, and if I'm just being
> ignorant about the world opening up, please forgive me ;-)
>
> R'