[Imc] Daily Larrabee Spam Hidden

[Mike Lehman]

Again. Paul said it all yesterday. No need to repeat it.

It does make the need to come up with a straightforward way of defining
this stuff apparent. I suggest that any story that meets the definition
of being spammed by the same author to any three consecutive IMCs (in
the alpabetical list) on any two (or three, if we really want to cut
them slack) consecutive days merits this treatment.

While it is true that we can't identify such material at all times, much
of it is readily apparent by the fact that some strange author begins
appearing several days in a row at U-C IMC. Often the material is pretty
strange, too, but it needn't necessarily be, as it is still an abuse of
the IMC network.

I've taken to noting this in the comments to articles that are part of
this trend. It has been apparent at larger city IMCs for some time, but
is now trickling down to places like ours. In a way, it shows the use
people are beginning to make of the IMC system, but this is clearly an
abuse of it.  Whygo to another IMC, if 80% of the material is the same
as here, which is often the case at low-traffic IMCs. When you have a
small IMC, this kind of junk quickly takes over the Newswire. Some
people are far worse off than us, because we do have quite a bit of
locally posted material, but it still, taken as a whole, tends to push
what are much more locally relevant stories off the Newswire sooner than
it should.

We will try to get this formally implemented at Sunday's meeting, so
please attend or speak up if you have reservations or simpler ways of
defining such material. Once again, it is behavior and NOT content that
is important (although obnoxious and off-topic content certainly gets
you noticed faster when you do this.)
Mike Lehman