Re: Ba.broadcast.moderated Dying?
Paul W. Schleck
Hash: SHA1
In <htmndr$gqm$1...@news.eternal-september.org> sfdavi...@yahoo.com (David Kaye) writes:
>Patty Winter <pat...@wintertime.com> wrote:
>>Yes, the moderation team has heard that wish from a number of people.
>>We aren't sure what the hangup is on getting Google Groups to carry the
>>group, but we recently pinged again someone who might be able to help.
>>If anyone here has an "in" at GG, please put a word in that person's ear!
>I'd actually warned about this before the newsgroup was even created. I knew
>someone who was working at Google at the time and was told that GG is a very
>low priority with Google. They just wanted something to sell ads around and
>had no interest in doing anything but spending minimal effort to maintain the
>system.
Considering that many other new newsgroups have been quickly and easily
created recently on Google Groups, including those in non-Big-8 local
hierarchies (e.g., uk.rec.cycling.moderated), what is likely the cause
is a very specific, and unanticipated, technical problem that even the
experts missed.
It is discussed in this thread from last August:
http://groups.google.com/group/ba.config/browse_thread/thread/6da90ac27b56f311
A reply to a recent E-mail to Russ Allbery suggests that we are waiting
on the Bay-Area (ba.*) Hierarchy Administrator, Ron Echeverri, to update
his signing key so that news sites including Google Groups will
authenticate, and honor, the digitally signed newgroup control messages
for ba.broadcast.moderated. News sites that currently carry
ba.broadcast.moderated are those that either don't require control
messages to be signed, or were responsive to personal requests by their
users to create the newsgroup anyway.
I certainly want to give volunteers who have served faithfully over many
years a fair chance to get this problem fixed, but even the busiest,
most distracted person should have been able to make progress on this in
a year's time (it should really have been fixed back in 1998 when the
config newsgroup for ba.* was changed from ba.news.config to ba.config,
but that's water over the bridge at this point). If such a volunteer
cannot carry out such basic duties within at least a year, it does
suggest that his position is effectively in abandonment.
Our alternatives at this point are either getting Ron to act in the
reasonably near future, or pursue the messy alternative of forcing the
issue with Ron and Russ and asking Ron to step down in favor of a
replacement hierarchy administrator for the Bay-Area newsgroups (ba.*).
Some background on the duties of such a hierarchy administrator is given
at:
http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/usenet-hier.html
Traditionally, such a hierarchy administrator is one who runs a news
server site local to that hierarchy. Right now, I am aware of only one,
maybe two, local server sites in the Bay Area whose administrators could
serve in that role.
Discussions are going on behind the scenes to possibly find such an
administrator if necessary, but even then, it's not clear whether there
is "higher authority" willing to force the issue with Ron if he does not
wish to step down, or does not reply at all. And I'm not sure that
making him step down is the appropriate long-term solution, anyway
(long-standing addresses and key ID's will have to be changed and
propagated, and any replacement might not serve nearly as long and
faithfully as Ron has; all we really need currently is one valid control
message for one newsgroup).
Discussion, and practical suggestions, from all interested parties are
welcome. Ron, Russ, and the ba.broadcast.moderated team have all been
CC'd on this message via E-mail.
- --
Paul W. Schleck
psch...@novia.net
http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/
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David Kaye
>Considering that many other new newsgroups have been quickly and easily
>created recently on Google Groups, including those in non-Big-8 local
>hierarchies (e.g., uk.rec.cycling.moderated), what is likely the cause
>is a very specific, and unanticipated, technical problem that even the
>experts missed.
All I can say is what I was told, that it's a very low priority at Google. If
what you're saying is true then there is hope yet, given that technical
glitches can usually be resolved.
Are you saying that ba.* newsgroups have been created recently?