Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!hal!ncoast!allbery From: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) Newsgroups: comp.sources.d Subject: Re: How can a moderator take a vacation? (Re: comp.sources.unix) Message-ID: <13186@ncoast.UUCP> Date: 27 Nov 88 17:35:03 GMT References: <184@twwells.uucp> <7681@well.UUCP> <200@twwells.uucp> Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) Followup-To: comp.sources.d Organization: Cleveland Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, Oh Lines: 67 As quoted from <200@twwells.uucp> by bill@twwells.uucp (T. William Wells): +--------------- | There is another, simpler, method: just have the moderator forward | his mail to the alternate moderator when he goes on vacation. This | has several drawbacks. First, if the moderator is also his system | administrator (as is the case with comp.archives), there is nothing | guaranteeing that his system will stay up while he is on vacation. | Second, there is an additional delay for the forwarded mail. Third, | it does nothing for the case where the moderator "disappears", after | things like accidents, etc. And, of course, it doesn't solve the | problem of people who send mail to the moderator's personal account | (though the moderator can forward anything in his queue when he goes | on vacation). +--------------- I've had an arrangement whereby if I disappear (accident, vacation, whatever) and it'll be longer than a few days, someone else on ncoast takes over comp.sources.misc for the duration. It's largely automated anyway; the submissions may not be as "clean" as when I'm doing it (experience counts for much) but they would go out. (In the case of an accident: if I'm not on for two days in a row it's a safe assumption that I'm out of commission.) The main drawback, again, is all the submissions that land in my mailbox despite repeated pleas to not do that. The main PROBLEM with this is what made me initiate the move to uunet in the first place: ncoast is not, in my opinion, stable enough for a moderated newsgroup to be housed on it. Think back to early September, when news.sysadmin was suddenly flooded with all the "where is ncoast?" postings because it took us a week to get a replacement CPU board. Unfortunately, I can't arrange to have someone else on UUNET handle comp.sources.misc, and I suspect Rick Adams would take a dim view of my giving someone else my password on UUNET to handle it for me a' la the current arrangement. And Rich Salz already has enough on his hands (it's his "vacation" that started this thread; you think he has time to handle comp.sources.misc when he doesn't have time enough to do .unix?) Perhaps a solution-- Have *all* the moderated newsgroups be housed on UUNET, with special accounts for them. The moderator(s) do all their work on UUNET -- and if the primary moderator disappears, the backup moderator (who has been logging in daily, or weekly, or whatever to check on the newsgroup's status) will pick up the slack until the primary announces his return via mail on UUNET. I will note that comp.sources.unix and (soon) comp.sources.misc will already be in a position to do this; I don't know about Rich Salz, but *my* account on UUNET will not be used for personal business, so I have no qualms about having people other than myself reading my mailbox there. (That is not intended to be any sort of flame or etc. on Rich Salz, I don't know the intent of his uunet account. I do get the impression that BBN is a bit more restrictive than ncoast in what users can do re: the Usenet, so it would be understandable if Rich's account is a bit more than just a comp.sources.unix moderator's account.) This would keep central control over the archive-numbers, which *are* quite often used by automated archiving systems, while allowing for smooth transfer of control not only when a moderator disappears for a short time but *also* when a moderator quits or is replaced. (Recall the mess when I had to give up comp.binaries.ibm.pc for lack of time.) The big minus is that everything depends on UUNET being functional; on the other hand, it could be argued that if UUNET goes down, the whole Usenet will be affected anyway, so it's no more of a problem than before. ++Brandon -- Brandon S. Allbery, comp.sources.misc moderator and one admin of ncoast PA UN*X uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery ncoast!allbery@hal.cwru.edu allberyb@skybridge.sdi.cwru.edu allbery@uunet.uu.net comp.sources.misc is moving off ncoast -- please do NOT send submissions direct Send comp.sources.misc submissions to comp-sources-misc@.