Bill wrote:
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Post by BillWhat is your reasons for singling out this person?
There are several regulars here that regularly cross post.
As a matter a fact ElaineJ, Jim and James A. Chamblee are guilty of
cross posting in the thread below.
Perhaps the most flagrant regular cross poster would have to be Chamblee
with 10 cross posts in the last two days. Lucky you no longer see his
cross posts.
There are at least two separate issues here, both involving crude
attempts to "push" material into the unsuspecting news reader:
1. Cross posting: This was intended to allow discussion on a topic
between groups, but has come to be used as a "push" technique to impose
material on as large a population as possible. The real culprits here
are the ones initiating the thread and recently grub of left wing
notoriety has been the most abusive. If someone wants to respond to a
cross posted thread (not normally advisable) it perpetuates the problem.
Jerry has been responding to a number of these lately and he certainly
has the right to do so, but it just perpetuates the problem IMV. It is
difficult to prune the list if you do not recognize the sender as a
regular to soc.retirement. It is silly to prune to soc.retirement when
the person that you wanted to reply to is not a regular reader. Of
course, it is easy to not pay attention and simply reply to a post, not
realizing that it is cross posted. I have not noticed that ElaineJ, Jim
or James A. Chamblee have initiated a cross posted thread and I suspect
that the 10 cross posts that you cited above are replies. Of course,
most of the cross posts that Rita has attributed to William Boyd are
also replies and I, for one, would be willing to give him the benefit of
the doubt in that regard. He is guilty of much worse behavior.
2. Name changing: Changing of aliases is a second approach that a few
people use in order to "push" material past filters. There are two in
this ng that do this regularly--perhaps there are more, but two are the
worst offenders as far as I have been able to determine. Bob Wood of
Stanton, CA (at least I think that is his real name) is the most
notorious and also the most dedicated using many aliases and several
machines. I think that I have even seen cases where he has impersonated
other name changers, and he sometimes carries on conversations between
his aliases just to keep us guessing. He also uses a number of tricks
to avoid identification or at least make it difficult. You might
recognize him as Boog, Sordo, Stanley, Gabe, various Bobs, but not the
Ol' Original, and many others. To him, this is a game and he enjoys
trying to fool the rest of us. The second name changer is William Boyd
or Troy (or whatever his real name is). His attempts are much more
crude and he was identified last May as the originator of the Ruth Downs
posts, primarily because he used an ancient piece of software. He has
learned a bit over the intervening months and has responded to criticism
by changing his manner of posting and even using other machines.
Generally if you see a name that you don't recognize and the post has a
right wing slant, it is probably one of these two using yet another alias.
Why do they do this? Who knows for sure! Perhaps a desperate need to
have their often profane and generally simplistic dogma read by others.
Whatever their motive, it is really pretty stupid since most readers
of usenet resent it in the same way that we resent telemarketers, spam
and junk mail. In the end, I believe that it damages their cause, but I
doubt that any logic will dissuade them from continuing.
