• What is this FAQ for?
• I don't know how to use Turnpike at all, will this FAQ show my how?
• I use some inferior newsreader instead of turnpike, will this FAQ show me how to set up killfiles on that?
• How do I set up killfiles then?
• What Kill rules should I use?

What is this FAQ for?

It is intended to show Turnpike users how to set up their killfile so as to avoid downloading all (or at least most) of the wannashags, pornsite ad's and other spam that currently plagues the group.

I don't know how to use Turnpike at all, will this FAQ show me how?

No, this guide assumes that you already have Turnpike setup and have a basic understanding of how to use it, If not further guidance can be found in the built in help file, from the FAQ at: http://www.turnpike.com/tpikefaq.html or from the newsgroup: demon.ip.support.turnpike.

I use some inferior newsreader instead of turnpike, will this FAQ show me how to set up killfiles on that?

Not as such, I only know how to use Turnpike. However I gather that the regular expressions used by Turnpike are fairly standard so you may be able to adapt the rules suggested here.

How do I set up killfiles then?

Turnpike does not have a global kill facility so first of all you need to select the newsgroup you want to set up the killfile for. Having done that, from the menu bar, select "Classify" from the menu bar, "Kill..." from the resulting pop-up manu and "Review rules" from the menu box that follows that. You should now see the following dialogue box; if you haven't set up any rules yet it will be blank.

Select "Add..." from the buttons on the right hand side of the "Kill rules" box, this brings up the "News article kill rule" dialogue where you can actually enter a kill rule. If you want to know more about the various types of rule you can enter with this see the built in help otherwise just enter the rules as listed here.

How to enter the rules.

Each rule is listed as follows:

• Accept/Reject: Check the appropriate entry at the top of the box.
• Type of rule: Enter the rule that follows in the appropriate space and make sure the checkmark is in the space next to it.
• The actual kill rule: The easiest way to enter it is to highlight it here then copy it with CTRL+C and paste it into the dialogue box with CTRL+V.
• A brief explanation of what it does.

After you have entered each rule click "OK" then "Add.." to add the next rule. When you have added all the rules just click "OK" to finish. Note that killfiles are processed from the top down and Turnpike stops when it gets a match so it is important that the rules are in the right order. However if you do get them in the wrong order you can use the the "Move up" and "Move down" buttons on the "Kill rules" box to shuffle them afterwards.

What Kill rules should I use?

Reject
Custom rule /^X-Changes: NONE/h
The line "X-Changes: NONE" is included in the headers of the FAQ if it hasn't changed since the last time it was posted so that you only need download it when it changes.

Accept
Subject line matching uk.singles Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
The FAQ is (or was) over 200 lines long so without this the next line would kill it.

Reject
Longer than 200
Kills pictures and other binaries which are invariably much more than 200 lines when encoded in a post.

Reject
Written by Ralph Taite <taite@panix.com>
Don't think he's been around much recently but he's staying in here anyway.

Reject
Custom rule /^References:.*panix\.com>$/h
Kills followups to Ralph.

Reject
Custom rule /^References:.*panix\.com> <[^>]*>$/h
Kills followups to followups to Ralph.

Note that the above two rules will kill followups to anyone from Panix, however Ralph is the only one we've had recently. They do only kill followups though, posts from Panix subscribers themselves are not killed (apart from Ralph).

Reject
Custom rule /^Newsgroups:.*,.*,.*,.*,/h
Kills articles crossposted to 5 or more newsgroups.

Reject
Custom rule /^Newsgroups:.*personals.*/h
Kills articles crossposted to any personals group.

Reject
Custom rule /^Newsgroups:.*sex.*/h
Kills articles crossposted to any group with sex in the title.

Accept
Custom rule /^References:/h
The problem with killing on subject line is that many uk.singles threads start out as piss takes or flames of personals and tend to keep the same subject line, hence killing on subject will tend to take out lots of good stuff too. This rule means that the following rules will only work on the first post in a new thread and so you will still get to see all the good stuff that follows on.

Reject
Custom rule /(SWM|SWF|sex|!!!|\?\?\?|\$|ISO)/s
Reject
Custom rule /(female|personal|free|guy|woodfarm)/s
Reject
Custom rule /(fetish|psychic|male|jpg|looking)/s
Reject
Custom rule /(gay|seek|lesbian|£££|hi|price)/s
Reject
Custom rule /(want|girl|boy|man|meet|men)/s
These five lines match a selection of words that I've found appear regularly in the subjects of wannashags, spams etc. You could do it with a separate "Subjects matching" entry for each word but it's less tedious to enter it this way. I would have put them in one entry but Turnpike didn't seem to like a line that long, I could have put it on fewer lines even so but this way you can see all of it in the "kill rules" box. I did have "bi" in there too until Lizzy announced her "BIrthday".

Reject
Custom rule /(@.*single|@.*site)/a
Rejects anything with single or site in the domain part of the email address, always a bad sign.

Reject
Custom rule /nntp-posting-host: 202\.158\.8\./h
This one may not be necessary now, a while back we got a load of porn site add for which this line in the header was the only common feature.

Copyright © 1997 David Reid