fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU (Erik E. Fair) (11/12/85)
Some sites out there have attempted to comply with the fa -> mod conversion by adding aliases to the netnews aliases file. This does not work. The articles posted in fa.* do not have the necessary magic cookie in them that will allow them to circulate in mod.* groups. What happens is that the software will mail a copy of the article back to the original sender, with a notation indicating that posting to a mod.* group is not allowed if you're not a moderator. This will beat your system to death with mail messages (one per article) and annoy either the ARPANET list administrator, or some poor ARPANET person who knows nothing of USENET. In sum, DO NOT put in ANY aliases in the netnews aliases file which point unmoderated traffic into a moderated group. It will not work, and it will consume many system resources, and annoy remote people while not working. Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu