[johnminter]

I remember Usenet and the science newsgroups. The author of the parent article mentioned the problem with trolls. There was one who was especially infuriating and unforgettable. He was from Dartmouth and used the screen name "Archimedes Plutonium". People would be discussing some topic on the science newsgroups and he would post off topic rants proclaiming the plutonium atom was god. Of course people took the bait. Dartmouth decided that was part of free speech. I think this was the origin of the advice "Don't feed the trolls".

[beezle]

That guy was in my kill file...along with a few others that made sci.physics and similar otherwise unreadable! I do miss those groups and do check in from time to time but they are still heavily weighted to crackpot theories rather than general questions, reasonable discussion and new results. Sad.

[downerending]

I miss USENET, but I really really miss kill files. In principle one can locate substitutes for various sites like HN, but in practice it often seems ineffective and unreliable.

I'd love to see a general solution to this.