Rube Bumpkin wrote:

> 1) This is the Siljaline who posts regularly with helpful advice about
> updates to Spybot and other anti-spyware programs. He may be not seeing
> his own posts and be testing to see if it's something wrong with this
> specific newsgroup.

What a wagon load of manure.

Making "test" posts to a discussion group won't tell you one damned
thing. If it doesn't who up it's just another post that went
missing. No additional information at all. Hell, it could even be
misleading because in some hierarchies they're filtered
automatically. If it does show up you get the exact same amount of
information as you would testing in groups that were created for
the purpose. Unless of course you're stupid enough to believe in
some sort of Usenet gremlin that hops from group to group eating
your messages specifically. <laugh!>

There's also a couple good ways to see if your posts are showing up
that don't involve "test" posts at all. I doubt too many readers
are so dumb they can't at least figure out how to navigate Google
for one. And there's all sorts of "real" news servers out there
that can be read for free. Even a quick email fired off to a couple
regulars would be both a more polite, and technical sound way to
sort things out.

> In either case, your approbation is unwarranted and/or unnecessary.

No son, as an old guard type who has been hanging out in Usenet
forums since Usenet was a pup I can tell you that it was the test
post itself, and your whining about people not appreciating it, that
were unnecessary. Pointing out in no uncertain terms the idiocy of
making the test post itself though, is absolutely necessary to help
maintain good S/N ratios.

Or would you feel like a bear in buckwheat having APS turned into
the new alt.test?

We can do that. <evil grin>