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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!jbs
From: jbs@mit-eddie.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: A minor gripe with moderated group handling
Message-ID: <4890@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 19-Feb-87 16:23:30 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.4890
Posted: Thu Feb 19 16:23:30 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Feb-87 21:29:45 EST
References: <283@gaia.UUCP> <1426@munnari.oz> <4350@columbia.UUCP>
Reply-To: jbs@eddie.MIT.EDU (Jeff Siegal)
Organization: MIT, EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 60

In article <4350@columbia.UUCP> chris@columbia.edu (Chris Maio) writes:
>In article <1426@munnari.oz> kre@munnari.oz (Robert Elz) writes:
>>This isn't necessary - the "moderated groups that aren't moderated"
>>should simply be marked as unmoderated, with a 2 way gateway to the
>>mailing list.  That's done for a lot of other lists, it can certainly
>>be done for mod.computers.vax and the few others in this category.
>
>I'm curious as to exactly how the existing two-way gateways work.  How do they
>determine whether an article was originally posted to usenet or mailed to the
>mailing list, i.e. whether or not to mail the article to a mail reflector?

All articles received from Usenet (netnews) are mailed to the
reflector, except those posted by the gateway software.  Specifically,
this involves using the undocumented -x flag on inews.  Since the
gateway software is on the mailing-list, it receives a copy of all
messages, including those posted via Usenet.  When such an (Usenet
posted) article is recieved, it is rejected by inews, because its
Message-Id is already in the history file.

>For our local mailing-list/newsgroups, I [...] set up a simple 
>sendmail-inews interface [...]
>No special entries in the sys or aliases files are necessary

But an entry in the mailpaths file is necessary.

>there
>are no odd changes to the headers,

Actually, to comply with the standards, you do need to change the
headers, since mail needs a To: line, but netnews has none.

>and it works like a charm.  Why do something
>more complicated?
>My feeling is that if you want to link a newsgroup to a mailing list, you
>should treat the entire netnews distribution mechanism as one recipient on the
>mailing list; all submissions, whether done with mail or with inews, should be
>mailed to the primary mail reflector and then redistributed.

This works great for local groups, but when long distances and
unreliable mailers are involved, it isn't so nice.

Problem one is delay.  Even on the DDN part of the Internet
(ARPANET/MILNET), mail can take a day or more to be delivered.  In
UUCP land, it can be days.  If you post a message this way (send via
mail to reflector it can be a week before anyone sees the message.  If
you are posting a request for info or assistance, this can be bad.
With netnews, your neighbors (and their neighbors, etc.) will see the
message soon, and may be able to provide the information you need.

Problem two is reliability.  UUCP mail is notoriously unreliable.  If
you are mailing from a distant UUCP site, there is a significant
probability that your message will be lost without a trace, or be
returned to you due to a bad path or broken mailer.  Add to this the
fact that you won't know that your message was lost for a week (see
previous paragraph) and thus can't resubmit it until at least that
much time has passed.  With netnews, once the message has been
distributed to several sites, the redundancy virtually assures that it
will reach the entire net (including the gateway site).

Jeff Siegal