tom (01/07/83)
Greatings friends, flammers, and netsters. Are you tired of reading apology apologies? Does the word "whopper" make your fingers cringe? Are light- bulb jokes wearing out your 'n' key? Well take heart America, Secretary.c is here. The program that throws away 'junk' news long before even the title ever reaches your overworked eye-balls. Here's how it works. Simply make a file of the phrases you wouldn't even mail to your mother-in-law (flame, big mac, etc.), and Secretary will do the rest. When run, Secretary will search the titles of unread netnews articles and, upon finding an offensive word, will modify your .newsrc so the the dastardly submission will never reach your sight. Options include the -h header option which checks the header up through the title. Thus if you have some least favorite flammers and/or AI projects, you can exclude them as well (erewhon!anonymous need never darken your door). And for total security, the -b option checks the entire article up through BUFSIZE characters. Seriously though, I am submitting this software in the hope of making at least a small dent in the amount of time it takes to wade through netnews. Also, since people can't flame about what they don't see, the subsequent reduction in net traffic might even benefit those who don't use Secretary. I will be posting the source to net.misc since there is nothing proprietary in it and a lot of people don't get net.sources. Look for it in the next few days. see you at UNICOM, Tom Neuendorffer mcnc!idis!tom or decvax!idis!tom or floyd!idis!tom