gnu@l5.uucp (John Gilmore) (10/22/85)
I just tried to post a message to "mod.std.c,net.internat". It didn't work. The message was mailed to the mod.std.c moderator and it never made it to net.internat. I reversed the order of the newsgroups and it still did the same thing. I haven't tried cross-posting to two mod. groups but I suspect that is broken too. Luckily I kept a copy of the article, so I was able to edit off the header and post it to net.internat separately -- but of course the followups will occur separately in the two groups. No flames about cross-posting, please; the message was relevant to both (C language proposals to help programmers use international character sets.) I'm running 2.10.3 4.2bsd-beta.
kre@munnari.OZ (Robert Elz) (10/22/85)
John Gilmour (sun!gnu) complained that cross posting to mod groups is "broken". I would have thought that obvious, since only the moderator can post to a mod group. If your posting had been sent to net.internat, and then the moderator of mod.std.c (or whichever) had posted it, it would have ended up in two groups - as two separate postings, one you made, and one from the moderator. The correct thing to do, would be to ask the moderator to cross post the article for you. That is easy for a moderator to do. Similarly, if something really belonged in two mod groups, the two moderators could co-operate between them to post the article, so it is only sent once (by one of the moderators) but approved by both. Robert Elz seismo!munnari!kre kre%munnari.oz@seismo.css.gov
stv@qantel.UUCP (Steve Vance@ex2499) (10/22/85)
In article <209@l5.uucp> gnu@l5.uucp (John Gilmore) writes: >I just tried to post a message to "mod.std.c,net.internat". It didn't work. >The message was mailed to the mod.std.c moderator and it never made it to >net.internat. I'm glad to see this has been partially fixed in 2.10.3. If you try this from a 2.10.2 system, it will POST THE ARTICLE to BOTH GROUPS, even if you aren't the moderator! At least it will if there is a non-moderated group first in the list. This should obviously be fixed so that a copy of the article is mailed to the moderator of each moderated newsgroup in the newsgroup list, then THE NAMES OF THE MODERATED GROUPS SHOULD BE REMOVED from the newsgroup list. Otherwise, all systems receiving the article that are running older news software will post to the "mod." groups on their machine as well as the non-moderated groups. Hopefully this can be fixed before 2.10.3 is officially released. Me fix it? I haven't even gotten my 2.10.3-beta working yet! You do it! -- Steve Vance {dual,hplabs,ihnp4}!qantel!stv dual!qantel!stv@berkeley Qantel Corporation, Hayward, CA
gnu@l5.uucp (John Gilmore) (10/26/85)
In article <987@munnari.OZ>, kre@munnari.OZ (Robert Elz) writes: > John Gilmour (sun!gnu) complained that cross posting to mod > groups is "broken". I would have thought that obvious, since > only the moderator can post to a mod group. [Note: I'm John Gil*more* and I'm l5!gnu. I don't work at Sun.] [Soon to be nebula!gnu, but that's another story.] What I expected was that the message get would get MAILED to the moderator of mod.std.c and POSTED to net.internat. Assuming the moderator eventually posted my article, both articles should show up in both newsgroups, with both newsgroup names in the header, so followups will go to both groups. Just as if I had posted to net.internat and net.lang.c, for example, except that the moderator has a chance to turn down the message for their newsgroup. It occurs to me that this doesn't work well, though. If the moderator reposts it with the same message-id, their version will be rejected since my un-Approved: version will already be out in the net. If with a different message-id, it will show up twice in the net. group. Maybe the thing to do is to mail a copy and post a copy, with different Newsgroups: lines but with a Followup-To: line for both groups; if so, this should be done automatically rather than making every such poster think deep thoughts about the structure of the net. > The correct thing to do, would be to ask the moderator to cross > post the article for you. That is easy for a moderator to do. Suppose the moderator rejects it? I'd like to be able to post it to the unmoderated group anyway. And followups to my unmoderated posting should go to the mod-group moderator as well as to the unmoderated newsgroup; they might convince the moderator that the message really was worth his groups' reading. > Similarly, if something really belonged in two mod groups, the two > moderators could co-operate between them to post the article, so it > is only sent once (by one of the moderators) but approved by both. I guess if it all works out in the end I'm satisfied. The things I am complaining about are: 1. It didn't do the expected thing. 2. I don't want a moderator censoring my postings to an unmoderated group. 3. I don't want the extra delay in my postings to an unmoderated group. 4. I haven't seen any evidence that moderators can cooperate in approving a cross-posting. Does it work technically? Do they do it? I don't object to mod groups -- they have their place -- but if the net really wants to use them (rather than "if a few net admins really want us to use them") then they ought to work -- and work as well as what they're claimed to replace.
kre@munnari.OZ (Robert Elz) (10/27/85)
In article <218@l5.uucp>, gnu@l5.uucp (John Gilmore) writes: > [Note: I'm John Gil*more* and I'm l5!gnu. I don't work at Sun.] Sorry about the name mixup - that's one of the things that happens when you try and avoid including text from previous postings, & rely on quoting from memory (especially true when its my memory in question!) > I guess if it all works out in the end I'm satisfied. The things I > am complaining about are: > > 1. It didn't do the expected thing. Maybe not what you expected, its exactly what I would expect, earlier news versions did unusual things with such cross postings. > 2. I don't want a moderator censoring my postings to an unmoderated group. It seems to me that moderators very rarely "censor" anything. They may occasionally reject articles (in which case you just post it), but I would have expected to have heard from people if moderators started making inappropriate editing changes. (Correcting spelling and such, if any moderator actually goes to that trouble, I wouldn't expect would bother anyone) > 3. I don't want the extra delay in my postings to an unmoderated group. It sounds as if you what you want is to post your article twice, how can you conceivably have one posting that both has a delay, and doesn't? > 4. I haven't seen any evidence that moderators can cooperate in > approving a cross-posting. Does it work technically? Do they do it? I don't know that it has ever happened, but it certainly could. > > I don't object to mod groups -- they have their place -- but if the net > really wants to use them (rather than "if a few net admins really want > us to use them") then they ought to work -- and work as well as what they're > claimed to replace. I suspect that in this last sentence you really mean "and work the same as ..". Moderated groups aren't the same as net groups. For some (most) purposes they are a LOT better, but they do have some disadvantages (even leaving aside the workload on the moderator). Where a group really is moderated, I much prefer to read it than unmoderated groups, I know that the "thousand answers" problem is going to be weeded out, as are most of the perennial questions from naive users. Of course, where the moderated group is just an automatic mailing list (mail in, & its redistributed) we get the disadvantages with none of the advantages. Another aspect of all this is that cross postings are way overused (abused). If any article that you are posting belongs in one group then it almost certainly DOES NOT belong in any others. Exceptions exist where an article doesn't really belong one place, and you are trying to find a suitable home for a topic (testing out readers of several groups to see which set are most interested in a discussion). Announcements sometimes might qualify too. Remember that readers who unsubscribe to a newsgroup do so because they don't want to see articles on a topic, you shouldn't force them to see something by posting in some other group. If you think that readers of some group realy might be interested in something that belongs in another group, then don't cross-post, post a pointer article instead (and note, I'm not suggesting this because I care about "notes" sites, I don't, but because I care about being forced to look at things cross posted to a group that I read when it was also posted to (and belonged in) another group). Robert Elz seismo!munnari!kre kre%munnari.oz@seismo.css.gov