samperi@mancol.UUCP (Dominick Samperi) (03/03/88)
Here is a bug that has bitten me several times. Any ideas?
The bug: If I post an article to several news groups, at least one of
which is moderated, I get a message telling me that my article is being
sent to the moderator, BUT my article is NOT posted to the unmoderated
groups that were also listed!
--
Dominick Samperi, Manhattan College, NYC
manhat!samperi@NYU.EDU ihnp4!rutgers!nyu.edu!manhat!samperi
philabs!cmcl2!manhat!samperi ihnp4!rutgers!hombre!samperi
(^ that's an ell) uunet!swlabs!mancol!samperiheiby@falkor.UUCP (Ron Heiby) (03/04/88)
Dominick Samperi (samperi@mancol.UUCP) writes: > Here is a bug that has bitten me several times. Any ideas? > > The bug: If I post an article to several news groups, at least one of > which is moderated, I get a message telling me that my article is being > sent to the moderator, BUT my article is NOT posted to the unmoderated > groups that were also listed! Not a bug. A feature. The idea is that the moderator will cross-post the article for you after approving it for the moderated group. (There may also be some coordination effort if multiple moderated newsgroups are cross-posted.) Speaking now as a moderator, most of the time, cross-posting requests are not appropriate. For example, when I approve something for comp.unix, I *never* cross-post to comp.unix.*. In those cases, I don't even send a note back to the poster on it. In most of the other cases, the person has chosen good newsgroups other than the one I moderate, so I say so in my bounce message. If the news system worked as you suggest, then we would have duplicate articles floating around, with people seeing your posting in the unmoderated group(s), then again in the moderated group(s). -- Ron Heiby, heiby@mcdchg.UUCP Moderator: comp.newprod & comp.unix "I believe in the Tooth Fairy." "I believe in Santa Claus." "I believe in the future of the Space Program."
det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) (03/07/88)
In article <285@mancol.UUCP>, samperi@mancol.UUCP (Dominick Samperi) writes: > Here is a bug that has bitten me several times. Any ideas? > > The bug: If I post an article to several news groups, at least one of > which is moderated, I get a message telling me that my article is being > sent to the moderator, BUT my article is NOT posted to the unmoderated > groups that were also listed! Hmmm, if this is really biting other people, than its *possible* that its a bug. (the jury is still out, people) Anyway, i had at least one user doing exactly that -- posting an article to 3 groups, one of which was moderated, and he kept complaining that his articles were never seen again. I didn't think that News had a cosmic_justice() function, so i couldn't figure out why the heck they weren't showing up....! -- Derek Terveer det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG uunet!rosevax!elric!hawkmoon!det
spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) (03/11/88)
(Refering to a complaint that posting an article to multiple groups,
one of which is moderated, results in the article not being posted.)
Every few months we have to explain this again. It is not a bug.
Consider what happens when you post an article. It goes out
with all the newsgroups you posted to in the header so that only
one copy gets shipped, but so it appears in every group on every machine
through the magic of links. Now if one of those groups is moderated,
and if the article were successfully posted to the other groups,
then every machine getting a copy will see the moderated newsgroup
and see no moderated stamp, so it will attempt to mail a copy to
the mdoerator and be unable to post it locally. *That* would
be a bug.
The way it works now is that postnews sends your article to the
moderator. If the moderator believes the cross posting is appropriate,
s/he will post it to all the groups (moderators can successfully
crosspost to their group).
If you want to post something to multiple groups, and you want
it to go to the unmoderated ones immediately, send it to
the moderated group separately if you don't want this behavior.
You lose the chance of tying in followups, but that is the price
you pay for being impatient. (1/2 :-)
The same mechanism takes over if you try to crosspost between
two moderated groups, btw, but the resolution is trickier.
--
Gene Spafford
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spafpage@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) (03/11/88)
spaf@uther.cs.purdue.edu.UUCP (Gene Spafford) wrote: >Every few months we have to explain this again. It is not a bug. Every few months I have to offer the solution: don't allow articles to be crossposted to moderated groups. Instead, post the article to every non-moderated group as if the poster didn't specify a moderated group, and mail each moderator listed a copy of the message/article. Sure, it means multiple messages, but that's one of the prices you pay for moderation. >Consider what happens when you post an article. It goes out with all >the newsgroups you posted to in the header so that only one copy gets >shipped, but so it appears in every group on every machine through the >magic of links. It's easy enough to change the newsgroups and article-id lines. >If the moderator believes the cross posting is appropriate, s/he will >post it to all the groups (moderators can successfully crosspost to >their group). That doesn't work when one of the groups is an Internet mailing list, it doesn't work when there's more than one moderated newsgroup in the newsgroup list (moderators tend to get terratorial about other people posting to 'their' newsgroups) and/or could cause multiple moderated postings, and/or could result in NO postings (the "other guy will do it" syndrome), and it doesn't work when the moderator edits the newsgroups line before posting (most moderators have posting software that creates the Newsgroups: linefor them). >send it to the moderated group separately if you don't want this behavior. You're asking humans to adapt to the code, rather than the other way around. You're also asking them to know ahead of time what groups are moderated and what groups are not. Documenting a misfeature does not make it a feature. ..Bob -- Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. page@swan.ulowell.edu ulowell!page "I don't know such stuff. I just do eyes." -- from 'Blade Runner'
IRWIN@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Irwin Tillman) (03/11/88)
In article <3479@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>, spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) writes: >(Refering to a complaint that posting an article to multiple groups, >one of which is moderated, results in the article not being posted.) ... >The way it works now is that postnews sends your article to the >moderator. If the moderator believes the cross posting is appropriate, >s/he will post it to all the groups (moderators can successfully >crosspost to their group). Those of you using version P of Netnews (VM/CMS implementation), should note that this is handled differently there. Postnews takes the list of newsgroups you supply and divides it into those that are moderated and those which are unmoderated. If the unmoderated list is not empty, the article is posted immediately, with a Newsgroups header containing only the unmoderated newsgroups. If the moderated list is not empty, the article is mailed to each moderator. A newsgroup which *you* moderate is considered unmoderated.