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From: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: handling of moderated newsgroups in 2.11
Message-ID: <21056@styx.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Dec-86 21:41:12 EST
Article-I.D.: styx.21056
Posted: Wed Dec  3 21:41:12 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Dec-86 21:24:43 EST
References: <9732@sun.uucp> <2476@diamond.Diamond.BBN.COM> <9781@sun.uucp> <1354@munnari.oz>
Reply-To: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore CA
Lines: 40
Summary: Local mod groups, recnews, sys file

In article <1354@munnari.oz> kre@munnari.oz (Robert Elz) writes:
> In article <9781@sun.uucp>, shannon@sun.uucp (Bill Shannon) writes:
> > Our local moderated groups are fed by a mail alias that uses recnews.
> > There is no real moderator in the loop.
> 
> Huh?  Why?  If there's no moderator, how can this group possibly
> be a moderated group.
> . . .
> The only possible explanation I can think of is that you have
> some people who want to treat the group as a mailing list,
> getting info from it by mail, and replying by mail, and others
> that want to treat it as a newsgroup.

Right. In our case, the local mod group is used for action
requests and problems reports and the article goes through a script that
formats some information, adds a report number, etc.

> An easy way to do that is ..
>
> [Add an entry to sys that mails the articles to an alias]
> ...
> Please, DON'T "fix" recnews to add approved headers.  "Approved"
> should mean "approved by the responsible human", not "mailed
> to a magic address".

I don't agree that you should have to have a sys file entry for each
local mod group. "Approved" will have different meanings at different
sites: it might mean approved by a human, approved (as to sender,
etc.) by a program, mailed to a "magic address" (and perhaps prcessed
by a script), or whatever. The software should make it easier for
administrators to accomplish and automate local tasks, not more
difficult.

We have not yet installed 2.11 and I suppose I am going to have to
either do something with recnews or put a hack like Mr. Elz suggests
in the sys file. The former seems less of a pain than the latter.

Michael C. Berch
ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.arpa
UUCP: ...!lll-lcc!styx!mcb   ...!lll-crg!styx!mcb  ...!ihnp4!styx!mcb