From: c23st@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com (Spiros Triantafyllopoulos)
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy
Subject: Re: keeping that pesky nuisance off of news.admin.*
Date: 30 Dec 92 04:08:07 GMT
Organization: Delco Electronics Corp.

In article <6603.2b405a7b@hayes.com> msieweke@hayes.com writes:
>I've been watching this Syrdar Argyc problem for a while and I have 
>a few observations and a few suggestions for keeping it off of 
>news.admin.policy.

Ah, another ARggic newbie. Let me assist, please.

>First, Syrdar is not an AI program.  Syrdar has an automated program
>that searches every message in several newsgroups and brings to his
>attention any message containing certain keywords.  (Some of the keywords
>are probably Syrdar, Argyc, Tyrkey, Hysan, Mytlu, and slayghter.)
>The automated program creates an automatic followup message with
>a new subject line and followups to several new groups.  Syrdar adds 
>a few lines of semi-relevant text to his followup before the automated 
>program adds large quantities of propyganda.

This is true. In addition there are people on the net (i.e. myself,
Eduard Wiener of Duke, and others) who are on the Mutlu hall of fame.
ANY message I post in any of the groups Argic frequents will result
in a message cross posted. 

The use of keywords is debatable. If Argic has reached his statuatory (sp!)
limit for the da, even the phrase "TURKEY ARMENIA CHICKEN POT PIE"
will not do anything. If, on the other hand, Argic is looking for
articles to respond to, anything's fair game. Examples include
irrelevant discussions about the phone system in Greeece, 
animal sacrifices in south florida, employment opportinities
for non-citizens, and the such.

>Second, Syrdar has no interest in meaningful dialogue.  You can't
>reason with it.  Syrdar's host does not accept electronic mail.

False, and True. I've engaged Argic (back when he had the arxids to post
under his own name) in a discussion regarding living standards in
Greece and Turkiye. After about 8 rounds in which he posted
mostly original text (yes!) and some reasonable arguments (yes!
yes!) I got bored.  As for him accepting email, his secretary
(postmaster@anatolia.mn.org) makes sure to screen all email.

>Third, Syrdar's link site is run by a sympathetic friend.  You can't
>reason with the sysadmin.

True. Too bad the sympathetic friend does not post articles...
I've got to give it to them, the setup is brilliant. A reasonable
person pays the uunet bill, a lunatic friend uses Mr. reasonable's
machine as net news gateway, who do we blame?

>Fourth, Syrdar may not be a single person.  There's no easy way to tell.

Pleeeeez. On occasion a mr. or ms. Nejat KELLY of syracuse U. prepares
articles for Mr. Argic but the operation is singlehanded. 

>Now, how do we keep Syrdar out of news.admin.*?

You *don't*. And you *shouldn't*. When the last round of this kind
of discussion were held, I predicted that if Mutlu can get away with
it there is nobody to prevent anybody and anything to flood the net 
with Hair-club-for.men.com infomercials. Ahoy and behold, a Presidential
candidate gets a compuserve account and floods the net, the guy with
the stock market floods the net, and the guy selling support over
email floods the net. Makes me long for B1FF...

>1.  Don't spell the name correctly.  If you misspell the name, Syrdar's
>automated program will not bring your posting to its attention.

The automated program only prepares articles AFTER selection. Won't work.

>2.  Don't follow up one of its posts.

This has not worked in other groups.

>3.  If you must follow-up to a post, edit the headers to misspell any
>relevant keywords.

Won't work because of reason #1.

>If we must discuss this nuisance in news.admin.*, this will keep the
>garbage followups to a minimum.

I'd rather have the nuisance till I realize there's a problem and
identify a solution. Two hours drilling for a root canal is a small
price to pay for no pain afterwards.

>Solutions?  I don't have any.  At a reasonable site, the sysadmin would
>have cut this jerk off long ago.  Since resonable measures won't work,
>I leave it up to more devious minds to decide what to do.

The devious minds have tried and failed. Since you work for a leading
modem maker, an undocumented extension to the AT command set that
hangs up when the string MUTLU comes thru would be handy :-), i.e.

   AT SMUTLU=1 SARGIC=1

Spiros
-- 
Spiros Triantafyllopoulos                    c23st@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com
Software Technology, Delco Electronics       (317) 451-0815
GM Hughes Electronics, Kokomo, IN 46904      [A Different Kind of Disclaimer]
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy