The Google Groups KillFile is a very simple, but useful script for those folk that use Google Groups to access Usenet. In normal client side newsreaders there is the concept of a killfile that allows you to filter out posts based on subject or author which allows you to cut through some of the noise. Unfortunately if you have to use a web based client, namely Google Groups this feature is sadly missing which is where the Google Groups KillFile GreaseMonkey script fits in. Once you install the script it will add a small X next to each authors name. If you click the X then you will no longer see any posts by that user.You will need the following..
If you are in the titles only view you will see an X next to the user’s name, clicking this places the author in the killfile. If you are in the other view with Message Text view you will see a link that says Ignore User, again clicking this places the user in the killfile.
At the top right there is a new menu option Kill File, that when clicked displays the current killfile where you can remove people you have previously placed on the list.
You should realise that if someone replies to the troll the message will no longer be blocked as the authors name will change. So as always don’t feed the trolls :)
Hope this proves useful; the usual it’s not my fault if it breaks disclaimer applies.
– Damian
Hi Damian !
thanks for the reply, now it’s working for me too.
i don’t know why but when i tried first to install your greasemonkey googleGroups.user.js script it didn’t work and no X’s were shown when browsing the google groups. so i thought it isn’t compatible with a newer grasemonkey version that posted in the requirements list.
happy that it’s working now with
Firefox 2.0.0.11
GreaseMonkey 0.7
and your latest Google Groups killfile script ( http://www.penney.org/googleGroups.user.js )
thanks !
brgds tiwag
(removed typos from previous posting)
Hi Damian !
thanks for the reply, now it’s working for me too.
i don’t know why but when i tried first to install your greasemonkey googleGroups.user.js script it didn’t work and no X’s were shown when browsing the google groups. so i thought it isn’t compatible with a newer greasemonkey version than the one posted in the requirements list.
i’m happy that it’s working now with
Firefox 2.0.0.11
GreaseMonkey 0.7
and your latest Google Groups killfile script
( http://www.penney.org/googleGroups.user.js )
thanks !
brgds tiwag
[...] add-on, so runs on multiple platforms. I rely on this plug-in to run the KillFile script that gives kill files like behavior for Google [...]
Would it be possible to make this script when it removes the posts by killfiled people grab enough posts from the next page to make it be the normal 30 posts per page? This would speed up browing the archives.
I’ve found one user I can’t seem to killfile – see original poster at this URL :
http://groups.google.com/group/aus.tv/browse_frm/thread/b1e336ab72bfeba7/bda3ec8d28aebb3b#bda3ec8d28aebb3b
It’s another MI5 persecution post, so I’d like to kill it. However, when I add it to my killfile, the script stops displaying X’s and still displays both this user and several other users that are already in my kill file.
Any suggestions ?
Thanks,
Adam
thx for the plugin, its great !
req: can it do subject based kill, because theres always these MI5 spammers, and they use the MI5 in subject, or M’I5 or M-I`5 or you understand, its the letters M, I, 5, and sometimes with another letter or symbol between those.
?
Any chance of adding a wildcard (*) feature in the subject line to kill such nuisances as the “MI5 Persecution” plague? Also, it would be great to have the ability to kill posts by boilerplate text, like signatures, in order to keep ahead of the rapid nym-shifters (like Rob Cypher).
it would be great to hide all posts by crossposters cause he always hits lots of groups symul
so block all that have more than one newsgroup listed
Damian: There is a problem adding names with apostrophes, punctuation, or spaces in the username. For example, “who’sthat” or “Hi, I’m Chucky”. Is there a method to add the name manually? What file are the names store in?
Sorry for the late replies guys…
Simon: The names aren’t stored in a file, they are a firefox property, type about:config and you’ll find them in there (filter for gg or kill i think). You are spot on in that apostrophes will hurt it, need a better way to escape them when I add them.
Monty: Subject based killing is definitely doable but I simply don’t have the time at the moment to implement it
Adam: Hmmm, I’ll have to look into that and get back to you
Archon: That isn’t possible I’m afraid, the script can only work with the data on the page served.
AGT: That is a problem yes, I wildcard the entire username so h becomes *h*.. I forget why :) I’ll look into fixing that.
I’ve hacked up the topic list handling in the copy I’m using so that it kills by topic, rather than user, and does a regular expression match, rather than a check for equality, if you’d like to look at it.
The changes aren’t major; when handling the topic list, it uses a different XPath pattern and uses RegExp’s exec rather than equality when checking for a match; it prepends “User:” or “Topic:” to the killfile entry, depending on which it is; and it prompts the user in the killfile set routine to allow the user to edit the killfile entry before entering it.
Damian, thanks for the note on about:config .
Using kill in the filter box works. Then I double-click on the greasemonkey entry that appears, and get a text-editable box with the killfile list.
Some questions:
1. So, we can just go ahead and edit the killfile list?
2. Can we do wildcard characters?
2a. And, is * the proper wildcard, or something is else?
3. What is the meaning of all the “…” appearing in the list entries?
Thanks Damian, great work on providing this service to us!
Mark
p.s. I find it easier to copy-and-paste the killfile list into a text editor like notepad, so that the entire string can be seen at once.
Jeff thanks for updating the script; if you send me the changes you made and I’ll host them here, I was working on something similar last night but no point duplicating effort.
Mark, the … is how Google shows actual email addresses, they do it so spammers can’t just scrape addresses via Google Groups (not that they couldn’t just do it via another Usenet client). Wildcarding won’t work right now, lets see how Jeff implemented it and maybe that would work.
Thanks for replying Damian.
FYI, this “MI5 persecution” usenet plague has really picked up in recent weeks. They seem to be generating many (30? 100?) new email addresses every day to generate posts in some groups, so it is very time-consuming to have to add them one-by-one to the killfile list.
In case you’re wondering why the sudden interest in subject-based kills, and wildcards, that is why!
Mark
Great little script you’ve built there! I was thrilled to find it, as I really didn’t want to install a dedicated newsreader, but was dealing with a real noisy troll problem. Thanks so much.
Just some quick feedback: Someone mentioned ~’s in usernames causing a problem. I’m also see this behaviour with other non-ascii characters, for instance
By JonnyQuest2®
doesn’t give you the “ignore user” option.
Thanks again.
Damian, I sent the marked-up script to what looked to be your Gmail address, but it’s been several days, so I’m guessing you didn’t get it. Where should I send it?
(BTW, the regular expression stuff I put in just used Javascript’s native RegExp support.)
Damian:
Another satisfied customer here. I tried the BHO for MSIE over at holysmoke.org, but your script works better and is more intuitive — it was enough to make me switch from MSIE to Firefox (at least for reading Google Groups!).
Thanx,
Fred Goodwin
Damian: thanx for the script — I’m having the same problem as Adam.
Somewhere along the way, the “X”s stopped displaying and I can’t seem to bring them back (although “Ignore User” is still showing on individual posts). I’ve tried un-killing various troll-names, to no avail.
Even restoring my entire killfile doesn’t bring back the Xs.
Fred, Jeff Urs has done some work on the script and I’ll be posting that shortly. I’ll explain the new features and upload it later today. Hopefully it will take care of any issues you are having.
Damian:
Thanx — I know you’re not being paid to support us, but you do have our everlasting gratitude.
Another bit of info:
My KF is empty but the Xs still don’t appear in the NG I read most often. However, if I go to a NG I’ve never read before, I see the Xs.
Not sure if that helps you diagnose the problem, but I thought I’d post it.
Thanx again.
Could you send me a link to the NG where you are having the issue?
Sorry to keep coming back — someone posted this string as a way to filter all the MI5 spam:
{M[,'` \.\-]I[,'` \.\-]5.p.}
It assumes you can filter on subject, which I don’t think you’re current script does. But just in case any of the readers know how to do it, I thought I’d add this contribution.
I’ve just released the new version with Jeff’s updates (better author matching/topic blocking). Please post comments to the new 3.4 thread
[...] > anyone. There is a not very good Killfile for it if you use Firefox with Greasemonkey. http://www.penney.org/ggkiller.html https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748 A tip for using it is not to killfile a series [...]