Serving a group
William Elliot
Can it be more than one address?
The specified address is the address of the server.
The server can be any individual account that
receives the new posts by email.
The server will forward the new posts to the moderators.
The moderators can process the new posts with software
on their computer and inject them into the newsgroup
using their Internet account.
What options are possible for a server that's not dependent
upon a single individual?
Paul W. Schleck
Hash: SHA1
In <2009101200...@agora.rdrop.com> William Elliot <ma...@rdrop.remove.com> writes:
>The usenet relay sends news posts to a specified address.
>Can it be more than one address?
No, but the address can be a submission address for a mailing list,
"exploding" it to multiple recipients. Also, tools like "Procmail" can
be used to forward the messages as a pseudo, user-configurable, mailing
list for a recipient address that delivers to a Unix shell account, not
requiring a full-blown mailing list like Listerv or Majordomo.
>The specified address is the address of the server.
>The server can be any individual account that
> receives the new posts by email.
>The server will forward the new posts to the moderators.
That's one possible approach, but certainly not the only one. WebSTUMP,
for example, keeps the articles on the server, where moderators operate
on them from a web interface, and articles are posted to a news server
from the host that runs the web server. This makes moderation a "read
articles and push buttons" proposition, making it very easy to recruit
other moderators that have demonstrated good on-line conduct and
newsgroup subject expertise.
>The moderators can process the new posts with software
>on their computer and inject them into the newsgroup
>using their Internet account.
One potential pitfall to this approach is that if each moderator would
have to inject articles into their local news server, depending on local
site policies, posting directly to moderated newsgroups may raise red
flags with that site's administrators, or might be outright impossible.
Also, multi-sourced submissions may make it hard to detect others'
forgeries. If PGPMoose signing is used, each moderator would have to
have a local copy of the private key for the newsgroup, a potential
security pitfall. If a moderator leaves your team, do you then have to
regenerate your newsgroup's keys? Also, posting locally dumps a lot of
technical complexity on each individual moderator, and each moderator's
specific local environment. Would they have a Unix shell account
injecting articles with inews? Would they be using a Windows-based
solution to do the article injection? Would important article headers
be formatted consistently among all these different environments? These
technical and training challenges may make it hard to recruit additional
moderators. A single-server approach like WebSTUMP reduces moderation
to a "read articles and push buttons" proposition.
>What options are possible for a server that's not dependent
>upon a single individual?
Well, one option, and certainly not the only one, is a Panix shell
account running STUMP/WebSTUMP with more than one technical moderator
possessing the login credentials. Assistance is available to make this
a turnkey proposition for those with newsgroup subject expertise, but
not a lot of deep expertise in the mechanics of moderation. Based on
your questions, you and your team may be faced with a trade-off between
modest expense to set up a turnkey solution, versus having to expend a
lot of effort to get up to speed on the technical details and day-to-day
labor of moderation.
I have attempted to engage you and Bart Goddard off-line via E-mail
regarding some of these issues and technical options. Perhaps my
messages were lost or misdirected (I sent them to the unmunged version
of your address above). Perhaps you were mulling over my offer,
possibly weighing them against many other offers and suggestions you
have received via E-mail. I haven't received a reply from you or Bart
on this subject (I did receive replies from Bart on other subjects
related to this proposal). I am happy to provide any reasonable
assistance you may require to evaluate the Panix option and decide if it
is right for you. I have no vested interest in Panix except as a
satisfied customer.
- --
Paul W. Schleck
psch...@novia.net
http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/
Finger psch...@novia.net for PGP Public Key
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Martin X. Moleski, SJ
>The usenet relay sends news posts to a specified address.
>Can it be more than one address?
No.
But depending on how you have the mail server configured
that receives the single relay from the ISC, it might,
in turn, forward that single e-mail to a recipient
list.
>The specified address is the address of the server.
Well, a mailing address on the server.
Let's say the domain name of the server is example.com.
Let's say the name of the group is sci.math.moderated.
Someone makes a post to sci.math.moderated.
NNTP relays it to:
The ISC relays check their list of aliases and
send the post as e-mail to:
What happens after that depends on the way
the mailbox at example.com is configured
(plain old mailbox, alias for a mailing
list, or a more full-blown set of
moderation scripts).
>The server can be any individual account that
> receives the new posts by email.
>The server will forward the new posts to the moderators.
>The moderators can process the new posts with software
>on their computer and inject them into the newsgroup
>using their Internet account.
Yes, that is possible.
Of course, you should have some mechanism to
prevent the moderators from submitting multiple
copies of the same post. How are you going to
let them know in a timely fashion that the post
has already been approved and sent to the group
by another mod?
>What options are possible for a server that's not dependent
>upon a single individual?
What I've done in the past is to open an account
under my own name, taking responsibility for paying
the annual fee. Then I gave the essential subscription
information to a group of trusted friends so that if
(when) I die, become incapacitated, or resign in a
huff, they can take over the site.
There's always more than one way to reach goals
in the practical order. That's the way I've
approached it.
Marty
--
Co-chair of the Big-8 Management Board (B8MB) <http://www.big-8.org>
Unless otherwise indicated, I speak for myself, not for the Board.
Steve Bonine
> The usenet relay sends news posts to a specified address.
> Can it be more than one address?
No, but it would be easy to make the target address a forwarder that
sent incoming emails to several different addresses.
> The specified address is the address of the server.
The specified address is an email address. Email is sent to an
application on a server that accepts it.
> The server can be any individual account that
> receives the new posts by email.
> The server will forward the new posts to the moderators.
Maybe. Maybe not. The server may queue the posts so that moderators
can view them, usually using a web interface.
> The moderators can process the new posts with software
> on their computer and inject them into the newsgroup
> using their Internet account.
Maybe. Maybe not. The moderators can also access the moderation
platform via the web and approve posts which are then injected by the
moderation platform.
> What options are possible for a server that's not dependent
> upon a single individual?
The most robust option is hosting at a commercial provider. This costs
<gasp> money but is the best method of assuring that if one individual
decides not to supply the host that there is no impact to the newsgroup.
The other component that's needed is a group of moderators with
multiple people who know how to administer the server at the commercial
provider, again so that if any one individual leaves there is no impact
to the newsgroup.
William Elliot
> William Elliot wrote:
>> The usenet relay sends news posts to a specified address.
>> Can it be more than one address?
>
> No, but it would be easy to make the target address a forwarder that sent
> incoming emails to several different addresses.
>
Is a forwarder a facility that's offered by internet servers with their
individual accounts? Is it a service that's provided by a company or
institute?
>> The specified address is the address of the server.
>
> The specified address is an email address. Email is sent to an
> application on a server that accepts it.
>
>> The server can be any individual account that
>> receives the new posts by email.
>> The server will forward the new posts to the moderators.
>
> Maybe. Maybe not. The server may queue the posts so that moderators can
> view them, usually using a web interface.
>
Thought this seems a more efficient method, it also appears more
complicated. Do it's require the service of a company or institute or can
individuals be the server? Does it require special internet service?
Steve Bonine
> On Mon, 12 Oct 2009, Steve Bonine wrote:
>> William Elliot wrote:
>>> The usenet relay sends news posts to a specified address.
>>> Can it be more than one address?
>>
>> No, but it would be easy to make the target address a forwarder that
>> sent incoming emails to several different addresses.
>>
> Is a forwarder a facility that's offered by internet servers with their
> individual accounts? Is it a service that's provided by a company or
> institute?
Some ISPs offer the service as part of their basic offering. A
forwarder is nothing more than a program that runs on a server and
accepts email but then instead of making it available for access via a
mail client or a web browser it turns around and sends the email to
other addresses.
>>> The server will forward the new posts to the moderators.
>>
>> Maybe. Maybe not. The server may queue the posts so that moderators
>> can view them, usually using a web interface.
>>
> Thought this seems a more efficient method, it also appears more
> complicated. Do it's require the service of a company or institute or
> can individuals be the server? Does it require special internet service?
It does require a one-time effort to set up the moderation platform.
However, once it's done, no additional work is required for the
moderators; they simply use their web browser to view the articles.
Thus I would say that in the long run it's less complicated, especially
if there are several moderators.
You should avail yourself of one of the offers of help that has been
extended to you to get a moderation platform going. That's assuming
that you still want to move forward with the proposed newsgroup (for
which we've not seen a formal RFD).
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
faster if you e-mail me directly.
My e-mail address (oddly enough) is <mol...@canisius.edu>.
If you have Skype, that would be even better. You can
search for my e-mail address, I think, and find my Skype
identity (it looks a lot like mx moleski, if I remember
correctly). Once upon a time, I had a Google Talk account,
too. OK, I've downloaded it and logged in, FWIW.
Meanwhile, Steve Bonine has answered your recent questions
so I won't go back over the same ground again ...