
Google Groups hacked; spammers are moving your posts and adding SEO keywords - stickfigure
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/google-appengine/-wZXS27YtyY
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JoachimSchipper
On Usenet, "Google groups" - which provides easy Usenet access to the
clueless, and violates netiquette by default - is only one notch above "AOL".
Search "eternal september" for more information.

(By the way, aioe.net provides a good free newsserver, as does eternal-
september.org. Of course, you'll have to go elsewhere for binaries.)

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ordinary
Thanks for those references, though it's aioe.org, not .net.

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luriel
Somehow I don't find this too surprising, Google Groups was promising many
years ago, but this days it is in a rather depressing state:

\- Search works much worse than either inside Gmail or googling a different
web archive of a mailinglist (I think this has improved a bit recently, but
before it was so broken as to be unusable) \- The UI was clunky, and the new
(half finished, there are still parts of the site with the old one) is even
clunkier (why can't people at Google even give pages proper URLs?) \- It is a
spam cesspool, the only way to keep spam out of a group is to make every first
email moderated, this again is strange given how well spam filtering works in
Gmail.

I still tend to use it because the hassle of running a mailing list server is
just not worth it, and for some reason I trusted Google wouldn't take it down
any time soon (but given their track record with other products, I guess I was
being naive), but is sad that Google is doing such a poor job with a product
that easily could be much better.

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bretthellman
Is google still investing resources in Google Groups? It doesn't look that
way.

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ExpiredLink
Google abandoned "Google" Groups (Usenet belongs to Google?) years ago and
gave in to spammers.

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jaredsohn
I think the 'Google Groups' name refers more to being a Google search engine
that searches groups (similar to 'Google Photos' or 'Google Videos').

Google Groups isn't just Usenet either -- they also allow creating private and
public groups similar to Yahoo Groups.

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inty
I wonder if it's just bug abuse? Does anyone remember when you could remove
random websites from Google's index by simply logging into your account and
then inserting another website address? I wouldn't be surprised if this was a
similar exploit.

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ChuckMcM
Sad state of affairs. I agree its ok for Apps folks but it isn't even as good
as Yahoo Groups in terms of implementation. Sad really because its a useful
service.

That being said, looking at all the ways folks try to infiltrate PHP based
forum groups using search engines to identify weak implementations I think its
just part of the environment one has to live in.

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runn1ng
What am I supposed to see? I just see the new version of Google Groups.

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biot
Read the thread.

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Psychoee
Google has a serious quality problem. Check out the link to the Google Groups
page...

1.) Does not scroll with the mouse wheel unless you are in 'certain areas' of
the page (aka broken). 2.) They are using Frames, like this is 1999 3.)
Instead of easy-to-read button names, they are icons of unknown purpose. 4.)
Why all the wasted white space?

Google is a bunch of college smart alecs... you see that in the tone of their
posts. But sites like Google Groups are garbage.

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thezilch
Not that I use Google Groups / Usenet from a browser often, but here it
goes...

#1 and #2 Google should consider the scroll from any UI component; however, I
have to wonder where you have drawn such a conclusion to 1999 UI/UX. You are
seriously against fixed-position controls?

#3 You must have an axe to grind with Google and/or Gmail. At Gmail, the
label-less buttons were daunting for all of one minute. In the case of Google
Groups, the buttons are quite obvious and ubiquitous with their other
properties. Again, if you at all use Google Apps, the buttons are a non-issue;
are we going to complain about the obvious purpose of the "home" button on an
iPhone?

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Psychoee
#1 and #2 are annoying. They need to stop it.

#3 I do not want to mouse over everything to find out what button to click.
I'd prefer it if they labeled the buttons.

I prefer interface design that isn't stupid.

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millzlane
The buttons should have labels. Google shouldn't assume every person who log's
onto any Google app will know what they mean.Even though I'm a power user and
I still prefer labels to icons.

