>Hey Mike,
>Seeing your sig I thought I could ask this to you. What is "twit filter" ? I understand the filter part :) e.g Is this message considered a "twit" ?

A twit filter is a feature that's been present in the news world, as well as in most OLR products, for decades. It selectively filters out messages based on originator, and in extreme measures, recipient identity as well. There are many individuals who I'd prefer did not occupy time and space period - a twit filter at least leaves them out of my line of sight while here on UT. I'm far less tempted to target things whose existance is oblivious to me.

The consequences of a twit filter are that if they post something that would be important to you, you won't see it - your loss. OTOH, if their existance offends your sense of advisable allocation of protoplasmic material, their ethics are abhorrant, their messages a major source of disinformation, or that they even draw a breath is offensive to you, BFD. I'll take the risk.

It is not a request to the sysop to do something about that foul-mouthed, misanthropic excuse for a pile of parrot droppings. It's an aid to your enjoyment of UT; you don't have to see what passes for message content from the individuals you filter, so it can't upset you. I'm using it, and I've used it with exactly the aims stated above.

I publish my email address in my sig - anyone can send me email. Trust me that I have filters on my incoming mail, and if I felt strongly enough to get them to the twit filter here, their messages won't make it past my filter on inbound mail. I'll not publish my twit list. If someone thinks I've twitted them here, they're welcome to address me in a more open atmosphere, such as news.devx.com off.ramp - but be warned, I wear Nomex there, making me fairly flame resistant, and will not hesitate to exercise vocabularly that some might find offensive, and I can and will be as descriptive as necessary. It's a free-fire zone, I operate in weapons-free status and will engage targets at range with the pyrotechnic appropriate to the situation and target; if you are not a twit, I'll just say "Hi - good to see ya" or the moral equivalent. OTOH, AIM 120 AAMRAMs are mounted under both wings, and the occasional low-yield tactical nuke has been employed in the past on targets that don't clear IFF.