[gnu.config] Posting to GNU newsgroups is a no-no

montnaro@sprite.crd.ge.com (Skip Montanaro) (12/01/89)

I occasionally want to post to the gnu.* newsgroups but can never remember
the mailing lists to post to, or forget I'm supposed to mail, not post. (You
are supposed to send mail to a mailing list which is fed into the gnu.*
newsgroups.) Accordingly, my messages either disappear into thin air, they
don't reach everyone they should, or I get flamed for doing things wrong.

Below is a set of mail aliases to put in your ~/.mailrc file, extracted from
the MAILINGLISTS file that came with GNU Emacs 18.55. One would hope the
addresses are all correct. I faked gnu.emacs.ada just for completeness.

	alias gnu.announce		info-gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu
	alias gnu.chess			info-gnu-chess@prep.ai.mit.edu
	alias gnu.emacs			info-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu
	alias gnu.emacs.ada		bug-gnu-emacs-ada@esl.com
	alias gnu.emacs.bug		bug-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu
	alias gnu.emacs.gnus		info-gnus-english@cis.ohio-state.edu
	alias gnu.emacs.lisp.manual	gnu-manual@a.cs.uiuc.edu
	alias gnu.emacs.vms		vms-gnu-emacs@harvard.harvard.edu
	alias gnu.g++			info-g++@prep.ai.mit.edu
	alias gnu.g++.bug		bug-g++@prep.ai.mit.edu
	alias gnu.g++.lib.bug		bug-lib-g++@prep.ai.mit.edu
	alias gnu.gcc			info-gcc@prep.ai.mit.edu
	alias gnu.gcc.bug		bug-gcc@prep.ai.mit.edu
	alias gnu.gdb.bug		bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu
	alias gnu.ghostscript.bug	bug-ghostscript@prep.ai.mit.edu
	alias gnu.utils.bug		bug-gnu-utils@prep.ai.mit.edu

--
Skip (montanaro@crdgw1.ge.com)

merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) (12/02/89)

In article <MONTNARO.89Nov30132500@sprite.crd.ge.com>, montnaro@sprite (Skip Montanaro) writes:
| I occasionally want to post to the gnu.* newsgroups but can never remember
| the mailing lists to post to, or forget I'm supposed to mail, not post. (You
| are supposed to send mail to a mailing list which is fed into the gnu.*
| newsgroups.) Accordingly, my messages either disappear into thin air, they
| don't reach everyone they should, or I get flamed for doing things wrong.
| 
| Below is a set of mail aliases to put in your ~/.mailrc file, extracted from
| the MAILINGLISTS file that came with GNU Emacs 18.55. One would hope the
| addresses are all correct. I faked gnu.emacs.ada just for completeness.
[...]

If the posted articles do not find their way back to the mailing lists,
there are two solutions:

(1) run the same software that at least a dozen other newsgroups use
that takes articles from the UseNet side and reflects them (properly!)
to the mailing list, or

(2) make all the gnu.* groups (except gnu.config :-) MODERATED, with
the moderator address setup to do the reflection into the proper
mailing list, which will then throw back the article to the UseNet
side.

Setting the system up the way you've just described it is
irresponsible (if it truly is that brain damaged...).

Who can we get to do this properly?
-- 
/== Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ====\
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA, Sol III  |
| merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn	         |
\== Cute Quote: "Welcome to Oregon... Home of the California Raisins!" ==/

mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) (12/02/89)

In article <MONTNARO.89Nov30132500@sprite.crd.ge.com> 
<montanaro@crdgw1.ge.com> (Skip Montanaro) writes:
> I occasionally want to post to the gnu.* newsgroups but can never remember
> the mailing lists to post to, or forget I'm supposed to mail, not post. (You
> are supposed to send mail to a mailing list which is fed into the gnu.*
> newsgroups.) Accordingly, my messages either disappear into thin air, they
> don't reach everyone they should, or I get flamed for doing things wrong.

Hmmm, I have posted (directly) to the gnu.* groups and gotten
substantial response; I always assumed that they were bidirectionally
gatewayed with the mailing lists.  Is this not true?  Is the gateway
only unidirectional, from the mailing lists to the groups?

Can someone from OSU  or FSF clarify this?

--
Michael C. Berch  
mcb@tis.llnl.gov / mcb@presto.ig.com

karl@cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (12/02/89)

mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov writes:
   I always assumed that they were bidirectionally
   gatewayed with the mailing lists.  Is this not true?  Is the gateway
   only unidirectional, from the mailing lists to the groups?

The gateways are bidirectional.  Things posted to gnu.Stuff get sent
to info-gnu-Stuff and vice versa.

merlyn@iwarp.intel.com writes:
   (1) run the same software that at least a dozen other newsgroups use
   that takes articles from the UseNet side and reflects them (properly!)
   to the mailing list, or

That's what the gateway does.  There's a whole herd of aliases at OSU
which inhale mailing list stuff and toss it into the relevant
gnu.Stuff group, and hordes of /usr/lib/news/sys lines which pull out
the gnu.Stuff postings and spit them back out to the info-gnu-Stuff
lists.  It's Erik Fair's newsgate (or news2mail) code.  Weird stuff.
Functional and pretty complete, but weird.

The only exceptions are gnu.config and gnu.test, which exist as
newsgroups only, for obvious reasons.  The only non-obvious news/mail
mapping is (I think) gnu.announce, which maps to info-gnu.

   (2) make all the gnu.* groups (except gnu.config :-) MODERATED, with
   the moderator address setup to do the reflection into the proper
   mailing list, which will then throw back the article to the UseNet
   side.

This and other suggestions are being considered.  I just wrote Len
some mail about this a little while ago; we'll hash it out sometime soon.

   Who can we get to do this properly?

Well, I rather thought we were doing it OK in the first place.  If
things aren't getting between news and mail, then there's a breakage
somewhere, and to my knowledge, it isn't broken here, nor in Len's
list management.

--Karl

weening@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Joe Weening) (12/02/89)

The problem isn't with the gatewaying in either direction.  It's that
messages originating on USENET are harder to reply to by mail, because
brain-damaged software often screws up the headers.  Messages sent to
the mailing list are more likely to arrive with addresses that can be
replied to.
--
Joe Weening                                Computer Science Dept.
weening@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU          Stanford University

tower@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Leonard H. Tower Jr.) (12/02/89)

The OSU gateways between the gnu.all gnUSENET newsgroups and the gnu
mailing lists at prep.ai.mit.edu et al are working fine.  

Karl and the troops at OSU are doing a great job here.

We are trashing out the questions of increased moderation and spliting
some of the groups finer.  

You'll see the results when we're done.

thanx -len 

jacob@gore.com (Jacob Gore) (12/02/89)

/ gnu.config / weening@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Joe Weening) / Dec  1, 1989 /
The problem isn't with the gatewaying in either direction.  It's that
messages originating on USENET are harder to reply to by mail, because
brain-damaged software often screws up the headers.
----------

Not exactly.  It's just that USENET programs are frequently mis-configured
and produce Reply-To: or From: lines that are not useable (like "jane@gcm"
or "john@hoph." -- just examples, I don't mean to pick on these two people
(hi, John:-)).  Then someone who needs to reply to the message (like RMS)
tries using the accumulated Path: line, which is a generally a lost cause.

If your software is configured to produce a useable Reply-To: header line
or, in its absence, a useable From: line, then you can post away with no
fear.

Another issue is that if your question is very urgent, it will probably get
to FSF people faster if you mail it to the list (because if you post it, it
may take some time for it to work its way to Ohio State).  But with the
widespread use of NNTP, messages tend to move pretty quickly anyway.

Jacob
--
Jacob Gore		Jacob@Gore.Com			boulder!gore!jacob