Banned alt.coffee

#1: Post by **LouisF** » December 17th, 2018, 10:53 am

While I was reading the post "How Al's Rule Saved My Life" in the how-tos forum I tried to follow the link "Al's Rule" but what I did reach was a page with the following error message: "The group that you are attempting to view (alt.coffee) has been identified as containing spam, malware or other malicious content. Content in this group is now limited to view-only mode for those with access.
Group owners can request an appeal after they have taken steps to clean up potentially offensive content in the forum. For more information about content policies on Google Groups, please see our Help Centre article on abuse and our Terms of Service." (the URL looks like this: "https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/a ... VWID5RwaoJ"
Has anybody else had this experience? A week or so ago I did the same but reached the post where Al's rule was quoted by way of explanation on Home Barista.

I am perplexed.

#2: Post by HB » December 17th, 2018, 1:28 pm

It's true that alt.coffee was overrun by trolls and spammers long ago; apparently Google determined that it was also being used to spread malware. Many of the most experienced members on this site are former alt.coffee contributors (e.g., Jim Schulman, Marshall Fuss).

December 17th, 2018, 3:10 pm

Thanks for the info. Sad, isn't it? What perverse person can get pleasure from that sort of thing, I wonder.

#4: Post by **Javier** » December 17th, 2018, 3:30 pm

My initiation in coffee forums was alt.coffee. It was back when Jim Schulman, Greg Scace, Alan Frew, etc. were avid contributors. It was all good until trolls were posting incessantly.

Lately, and unfortunately, I am noticing a similar trend in Coffee Geek (and I am saying that in the most respectful way).

#5: Post by **another_jim** » December 17th, 2018, 4:01 pm

The social aspect of the internet changed with blogs, youtube, and social media. People with shared interests getting together on fora has proportionally declined, people putting their lives and interests in individual display cases has proportionally increased. It's very tempting to put content in a place where you have 100% control, and don't have to answer to every random passerby.

That is, until you see what happens when it turns into a big echo chamber. Long live Home-Barista, Coffeegeek, and all the other places where you might hear something from all the annoying people who you haven't hand picked.

#6: Post by **OldNuc** » December 17th, 2018, 4:31 pm

Google is acting as a usenet news service and monitoring the more popular usenet groups. alt.coffee still exists and it along with the others may be accessed by subscribing through a news site such as Giganews. You will have to get your own news reader and 30' high firewall with 4 strands of barbed wire and concertina razor wire on top to keep the bugs out. Usenet is not for the faint of heart and be sure to read the newsreader documentation so you can effectively filter out the crud.

#7: Post by **sandollars** » December 19th, 2018, 11:36 am

Meh, why risk it?

There's plenty of camaraderie and info right here and other less sketchy forums than alt.coffee. Just saying...

#8: Post by **another_jim** » December 19th, 2018, 2:07 pm

For historical research. If you want to know how some coffee making practice developed in the last 20 years, you need to start at alt.coffee.

Personally, I'm waiting for an AI search engine that will give me the historical timeline and evolution of every topic I search for. That would put Google out of business (unless they come up with it first). Of course, I've been hearing that it's around the corner since 1980s; so maybe I shouldn't hold my breath.

#9: Post by **Randy G.** » December 19th, 2018, 6:57 pm

Javier wrote:My initiation in coffee forums was alt.coffee. It was back when Jim Schulman, Greg Scace, Alan Frew, etc. were avid contributors. It was all good until trolls the troll were posting incessantly.

Lately, and unfortunately, I am noticing a similar trend in Coffee Geek (and I am saying that in the most respectful way).

#10: Post by **Chert** » December 19th, 2018, 7:08 pm

@Randy G.

That would be as cryptic almost as cryptic if you wrote "+.95".