Re: Why is there not a taurus newsgroup

This general group is good. The Taurus seems to make up a high percentage.

If you want Taurus specific forums, check out these sites:

In news:alt.autos.ford, snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.ca (Ron) posted on 16 Jul 2004

To me, this is a Taurus/Sable-specific newsgroup. I have my NNTP program set to download only messages which contain "taurus" or "sable" in the subject line. Sure, I probably miss a lot of posts from people who post messages with subjects like the following:

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Problem Why? Irritating...

People who post subjects like that probably just can't get their car to run because they ran out of gas.

So I filter messages. And with that filtering, I still have 1,608 messages from this newsgroup since December 25.

You know, we could all benefit from always including the model of our vehicles when we post. That way we can all filter out everything except what we want to talk about. Some very old newsgroups actually use a similar method to combat spam. So, it would be great to see subject lines like this:

{1998 Sable} Overheating Problem {1992 Taurus} Car Shifts Very Roughly {1988 Mustang} Door Light Stays On - Doors Are Closed {1968 Mustang} Suddenly Dies Going Down the Road

How nice it would be. How easy it would be for each of us to filter ONE newsgroup. Just have our newsreaders look for the cars we want to talk about and filter out everything else. New people who post should always download the message headers to see how people are posting. Any numbskull can tell what we're doing by looking at the above example, and if they still have so little common sense as to post:

Help me, please!!!!

...then they don't deserve any help, in my opinion.

Yes, I know I never include the {1998 Sable} tag when I post, but that's because I know a lot of people actually filter on all "strange" characters since spammers use them advertise {S|E_X-U*A^L!I,T.Y} to get around our filters for "sexuality" but I would gladly post this way if it could become an accepted convention here.

As for now, I always make sure I at least include "Sable" in my message header so my own posts will come back to me.

Damaeus

_________________________________________________________

So is my car a Thunderbird, a T-Bird or just a 'Bird?

:-)

In news:alt.autos.ford, Bill Turner posted on Sun, 25 Jul

In the case of Forte Agent, a simple filter like this:

subject: {bird}

...will find every message with Thunderbird, T-Bird, Bird, or 'Bird.

Of course, it'll also find "Birdwatching" so you could end up with some non-Thunderbird-related topics, but at least you won't have to look at posts about Ford Festiva.

"Damaeus" wrote

Won't find "I have a 1988 Turbo Coupe..." Will find "Watch me shagging this bird in the back seat of my Ford Festiva..."

In news:alt.autos.ford, "MasterBlaster" Will find "Watch me shagging this bird in the back seat of my Ford Festiva..."

You would want to have your filters watch for any common term used for Thunderbirds. I accept that I probably miss a few messages about Sables and Taurii, but I'm very satisfied with the traffic I do get.

Damaeus