> pirates (of the copyright kind), troll, netcops and spammers. Don't forget the mentally ill, who ruined a lot of science newsgroups. It became hard to find s

> pirates (of the copyright kind), troll, netcops and spammers. Don't forget the mentally ill, who ruined a lot of science newsgroups. It became hard to find solid discussion among university-employed experts once the newsgroup attracted cranks who wanted to propound their ideas, e.g. "Perpetual motion machines are possible!" or "I have deciphered Linear A!" Even if you killfiled the mentally ill, a lot of the experts got bogged down in pointlessly trying to refute the cranks, so you would see their replies and it totally destroyed the group's culture. That said, I am not sure why you find pirates a problem. Sharing binaries actually goes back to the golden age of Usenet, before Eternal September.