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Re: Religious evangelism in comp.lang.c... again...

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On 21/12/16 17:26, Robert Spanjaard wrote:
> On 21-12-16 18:22, Keith Thompson wrote:
>> Robert Spanjaard <spamtrap@arumes.com> writes:
>>> Your abuse department isn't very responsive. Do you really want to go
>>> back
>>> to the old days where people simply filtered ALL posts originating from
>>> Google News to get rid of all the trash?
>>
>> Robert, nobody at Google is going to read your post to
>> comp.lang.c and do something about it.  If you want to complain to
>> groups-abuse@google.com, by all means do so, but don't waste our time
>> by posting it here.
>
> That's exactly what I tried, but forgot to change the destination.
>
>> But meanwhile, let me urge you one last time to STOP replying
>> publicly to Rick's off-topic posts, or at least stop publicly
>> quoting them.
>
> Or else?
>
>> *PLONK*
>
> Ah, no or else... Like I care.

Robert, I realise your intentions are good (and I had already guessed, 
perhaps unlike Keith, that your OP was intended to be sent to Google, 
not to this group). But you are in danger of alienating at least some of 
the more clueful members of this group, over a very silly matter.

I don't know whether Keith's "plonk" notification was literal (in that 
he has now decided to start filtering out your posts). If so, I hope he 
will re-consider.

But I also hope that you will recognise the futility of trying to reason 
with Rick C Hodgin. He is determined to pollute this newsgroup with his 
hazy and sometimes crazy theology, and he firmly believes (wrongly, in 
my view) that God approves of his action, so he is beyond persuasion, 
whether through reasoning or through more, uh, robust provocations 
(which, by the way, have the effect of alienating those subscribers to 
this group who are Christians but who do not pollute the group with 
off-topic religious diatribes).

There is literally nothing you can do to stop him.

The best thing you can do is limit the damage, and the best way to do 
that is to add Rick C Hodgin to your killfile and never respond to him 
again.

He contributes nothing of value to the C discussions here, so you won't 
be missing anything.

Keith Thompson, on the other hand, is a highly valued member of the 
group, an expert C programmer, and generally a reasonable person. If he 
is filtering your articles out, it is not him but you who will be the 
poorer for it.

What you do is of course your affair. But if you wanted my 
recommendation, it would be to (a) killfile Rick C Hodgin immediately, 
and (b) post an apology, or at least an assurance that you won't be 
engaging with Rick C Hodgin's crackpot religious articles any more. I 
would hope that someone here would reply to such an assurance, giving 
Keith the opportunity to re-consider his plonking. Keith is an eminently 
reasonable person, and I am quite sure he would take such an 
opportunity, if offered.

And to the several others who feel the urge to reply to Rick C Hodgin's 
confused religious nonsense, I hope that you will see why the best 
response to such an urge is to killfile him instead.

It is everybody's right to post whatever drivel they like in this 
newsgroup, but it is nobody's right to demand an audience. The most 
effective message you can send to Rick C Hodgin in comp.lang.c is to 
refrain from responding to him *at all*, and the easiest way to do that 
is by killfiling him.

Of course, if everybody does that, it does mean that if Rick C Hodgin 
comes up against a genuine C problem and really does need advice from 
this group, he won't be able to get it. Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.

-- 
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

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Religious evangelism in comp.lang.c... again... Robert Spanjaard <spamtrap@arumes.com> - 2016-12-21 16:26 +0100
  Re: Religious evangelism in comp.lang.c... again... "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-12-21 07:29 -0800
    Re: Religious evangelism in comp.lang.c... again... Robert Spanjaard <spamtrap@arumes.com> - 2016-12-21 16:43 +0100
    Re: Religious evangelism in comp.lang.c... again... gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2016-12-21 16:06 +0000
    Re: Religious evangelism in comp.lang.c... again... Mark Storkamp <mstorkamp@yahoo.com> - 2016-12-21 10:18 -0600
      Re: Religious evangelism in comp.lang.c... again... "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-12-21 08:45 -0800
  Re: Religious evangelism in comp.lang.c... again... Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2016-12-21 09:22 -0800
    Re: Religious evangelism in comp.lang.c... again... Robert Spanjaard <spamtrap@arumes.com> - 2016-12-21 18:26 +0100
      Re: Religious evangelism in comp.lang.c... again... Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2016-12-21 17:49 +0000
        Re: Religious evangelism in comp.lang.c... again... Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2016-12-21 10:05 -0800
          Re: Religious evangelism in comp.lang.c... again... Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2016-12-21 18:33 +0000

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