[9fans] Moderator's Note: comp.os.plan9 Newsgroup.

Discussion:

(too old to reply)

9***@mail2news.bath.ac.uk

2013-07-15 13:24:44 UTC

The comp.os.plan9 Usenet Newsgroup is a moderated Newsgroup.
Articles require approval before being posted. It has been
moderated from here, the University of Bath, since the 1990's. I,
the current moderator, will be leaving the University at the end of
this month and our Usenet server will be turned off in late August
of this year. So a new moderator for comp.os.plan9 is required.

Newsgroup articles are also sent to the 9fans mailing list.
Messages sent to the 9fans mailing list are auto-injected into the
comp.os.plan9 Usenet Newsgroup. This bi-directional gateway will
disappear when our Usenet server is turned off. So a volunteer to
take over this service is also required.

Further details of the above are given below.

Moderating the Newsgroup isn't labour-intensive. For example I've
approved and posted some 18 articles in the last three months. The
vast majority of these articles have arrived via Google Groups.

The moderator will need access to a Usenet system and have the right
to post articles to a moderated Newsgroup. I.e. articles from the
moderator which include an Approved: header are accepted. Volunteer
moderators are requested.

I suspect the reason that moderating the Newsgroup isn't arduous is
that the majority of the articles in the comp.os.plan9 Newsgroup are
gatewayed in from the 9fans mailing list at:

http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/mailing_lists/

and most serious plan9 adherents are members of this mailing list.

Currently our Usenet server acts as a bi-directional gateway.
The articles from the 9fans mailing list are injected into the
comp.os.plan9 Newsgroup and articles approved for the Newsgroup are
sent on to the mailing list.

Gatewaying the 9fans mailing list into the Newsgroup will obviously
keep running until our Usenet server is switched off, but a
replacement elsewhere is ideally required.

The minimum requirement for gatewaying mailing list articles into
the Newsgroup is to be subscribed to the 9fans mailing list and
have access to a Usenet system with the right to post articles to a
moderated Newsgroup.

Manually injecting 9fans mailing list articles into the Newsgroup
is labour-intensive. It needs to be automated. There are probably
several ways of doing this, but we've set this up directly on our
Usenet server. Our setup is similar to the following.

We use the mail domain mail2news.bath.ac.uk for mailing lists we
wish to inject into Newsgroups. Mail for this domain is handled by
the Usenet server, which is running exim as its MTA and INN as its
Usenet software. All incoming email is checked for viruses using
ClamAV.

An address in the mail2news.bath.ac.uk domain is subscribed to the
9fans mailing list. Email arriving for this address is checked to
see it has the correct envelope sender (9fans-***@9fans.net).
If so, the INN program "mailpost" is used to inject the message
into the Newsgroup. The "mailpost" program keeps a record of the
Message-ID's it has seen. So there's no problem with looping, ie
the attempted injection of the same message a repeated number of
times.

Newsgroup articles could be injected into the mailing list by using
INN "news2mail" channel script. However, betraying my original
Cnews roots, this is done by a shell script driven by the fragment:

# Inject articles posted to the comp.os.plan9 Newsgroup back into
# the mailing list, ***@9fans.net, using a locally written script.
# The script should include safeguards against looping, ie not
# re-injecting articles that originally came from the mailing list.
plan9mail!\
:comp.os.plan9\
:Tp:/opt/news/bin/plan9mail %s

in INN's newsfeeds file.

The above script uses the news2mail program from the antique but
usable newsgate.tar.Z package to send email. The anti-looping
checks include ensuring the Newsgroup article doesn't include a
header of the form:

X-BeenThere: ***@9fans.net

which indicates this was a 9fans mailing list article injected into
Newsgroup.

The above may sound complex, but it's fairly maintenance free once
set up. We clearly won't be able to continue with this service once
our Usenet server is decommissioned. A volunteer to set up and run
a similar service is required.

--
Dennis Davis, BUCS, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
***@bath.ac.uk Phone: +44 1225 386101

hiro

2013-07-15 16:04:30 UTC

Permalink

Will your replacement set up a facebook or google-plus relay then?
I thought about this already for quite some time after I've seen the
successful migration of both tech-savy and novice users to web 2.0
services. There is just no way to argue against finally making it
possible to fully exploit our modern touch-interfaces that also make
it so trivial to include scrolling media rich content, images, videos
without the typical mimecode problems.

Post by 9***@mail2news.bath.ac.uk
The comp.os.plan9 Usenet Newsgroup is a moderated Newsgroup.
Articles require approval before being posted. It has been
moderated from here, the University of Bath, since the 1990's. I,
the current moderator, will be leaving the University at the end of
this month and our Usenet server will be turned off in late August
of this year. So a new moderator for comp.os.plan9 is required.
Newsgroup articles are also sent to the 9fans mailing list.
Messages sent to the 9fans mailing list are auto-injected into the
comp.os.plan9 Usenet Newsgroup. This bi-directional gateway will
disappear when our Usenet server is turned off. So a volunteer to
take over this service is also required.
Further details of the above are given below.
Moderating the Newsgroup isn't labour-intensive. For example I've
approved and posted some 18 articles in the last three months. The
vast majority of these articles have arrived via Google Groups.
The moderator will need access to a Usenet system and have the right
to post articles to a moderated Newsgroup. I.e. articles from the
moderator which include an Approved: header are accepted. Volunteer
moderators are requested.
I suspect the reason that moderating the Newsgroup isn't arduous is
that the majority of the articles in the comp.os.plan9 Newsgroup are
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/mailing_lists/
and most serious plan9 adherents are members of this mailing list.
Currently our Usenet server acts as a bi-directional gateway.
The articles from the 9fans mailing list are injected into the
comp.os.plan9 Newsgroup and articles approved for the Newsgroup are
sent on to the mailing list.
Gatewaying the 9fans mailing list into the Newsgroup will obviously
keep running until our Usenet server is switched off, but a
replacement elsewhere is ideally required.
The minimum requirement for gatewaying mailing list articles into
the Newsgroup is to be subscribed to the 9fans mailing list and
have access to a Usenet system with the right to post articles to a
moderated Newsgroup.
Manually injecting 9fans mailing list articles into the Newsgroup
is labour-intensive. It needs to be automated. There are probably
several ways of doing this, but we've set this up directly on our
Usenet server. Our setup is similar to the following.
We use the mail domain mail2news.bath.ac.uk for mailing lists we
wish to inject into Newsgroups. Mail for this domain is handled by
the Usenet server, which is running exim as its MTA and INN as its
Usenet software. All incoming email is checked for viruses using
ClamAV.
An address in the mail2news.bath.ac.uk domain is subscribed to the
9fans mailing list. Email arriving for this address is checked to
If so, the INN program "mailpost" is used to inject the message
into the Newsgroup. The "mailpost" program keeps a record of the
Message-ID's it has seen. So there's no problem with looping, ie
the attempted injection of the same message a repeated number of
times.
Newsgroup articles could be injected into the mailing list by using
INN "news2mail" channel script. However, betraying my original
# Inject articles posted to the comp.os.plan9 Newsgroup back into
# The script should include safeguards against looping, ie not
# re-injecting articles that originally came from the mailing list.
plan9mail!\
:comp.os.plan9\
:Tp:/opt/news/bin/plan9mail %s
in INN's newsfeeds file.
The above script uses the news2mail program from the antique but
usable newsgate.tar.Z package to send email. The anti-looping
checks include ensuring the Newsgroup article doesn't include a
which indicates this was a 9fans mailing list article injected into
Newsgroup.
The above may sound complex, but it's fairly maintenance free once
set up. We clearly won't be able to continue with this service once
our Usenet server is decommissioned. A volunteer to set up and run
a similar service is required.
--
Dennis Davis, BUCS, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK

Scott Elcomb

2013-07-15 16:22:10 UTC

Permalink

Post by hiro
Will your replacement set up a facebook or google-plus relay then?
I thought about this already for quite some time after I've seen the
successful migration of both tech-savy and novice users to web 2.0
services. There is just no way to argue against finally making it
possible to fully exploit our modern touch-interfaces that also make
it so trivial to include scrolling media rich content, images, videos
without the typical mimecode problems.

Gmane has some handy web-based tools like RSS feeds, threaded reader
and a blog-style interface. Not direct integration with social, but
close enough for my needs.

<http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.os.plan9.general>

Best,

--
Scott Elcomb
@psema4 on Twitter / Identi.ca / Github & more

Atomic OS: Self Contained Microsystems
http://code.google.com/p/atomos/

Member of the Pirate Party of Canada
http://www.pirateparty.ca/

john francis lee

2013-07-15 22:03:07 UTC

Permalink

Isn't google the now well-known devil itself ?

--
john francis lee
246/3 Moo 22
Thanon Kaew Wai
Mueang Chiangrai 57000
Thailand

Skip Tavakkolian

2013-07-15 23:07:38 UTC

Permalink

the nature of any large, all encompassing thing is to be good and evil all
at the same time. proof: imagine a company (Google, Microsoft, Oracle, GE,
etc.) that spans the universe. your perception of whether that thing is
mostly good or mostly evil is a reflection of your belief about the nature
of the universe.

Post by john francis lee
Isn't google the now well-known devil itself ?

Post by 9***@mail2news.bath.ac.uk
The comp.os.plan9 Usenet Newsgroup is a moderated Newsgroup.
Articles require approval before being posted. It has been
moderated from here, the University of Bath, since the 1990's. I,
the current moderator, will be leaving the University at the end of
this month and our Usenet server will be turned off in late August
of this year. So a new moderator for comp.os.plan9 is required.
Newsgroup articles are also sent to the 9fans mailing list.
Messages sent to the 9fans mailing list are auto-injected into the
comp.os.plan9 Usenet Newsgroup. This bi-directional gateway will
disappear when our Usenet server is turned off. So a volunteer to
take over this service is also required.
Further details of the above are given below.
Moderating the Newsgroup isn't labour-intensive. For example I've
approved and posted some 18 articles in the last three months. The
vast majority of these articles have arrived via Google Groups.
The moderator will need access to a Usenet system and have the right
to post articles to a moderated Newsgroup. I.e. articles from the
moderator which include an Approved: header are accepted. Volunteer
moderators are requested.
I suspect the reason that moderating the Newsgroup isn't arduous is
that the majority of the articles in the comp.os.plan9 Newsgroup are
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/**wiki/plan9/mailing_lists/<http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/mailing_lists/>
and most serious plan9 adherents are members of this mailing list.
Currently our Usenet server acts as a bi-directional gateway.
The articles from the 9fans mailing list are injected into the
comp.os.plan9 Newsgroup and articles approved for the Newsgroup are
sent on to the mailing list.
Gatewaying the 9fans mailing list into the Newsgroup will obviously
keep running until our Usenet server is switched off, but a
replacement elsewhere is ideally required.
The minimum requirement for gatewaying mailing list articles into
the Newsgroup is to be subscribed to the 9fans mailing list and
have access to a Usenet system with the right to post articles to a
moderated Newsgroup.
Manually injecting 9fans mailing list articles into the Newsgroup
is labour-intensive. It needs to be automated. There are probably
several ways of doing this, but we've set this up directly on our
Usenet server. Our setup is similar to the following.
We use the mail domain mail2news.bath.ac.uk for mailing lists we
wish to inject into Newsgroups. Mail for this domain is handled by
the Usenet server, which is running exim as its MTA and INN as its
Usenet software. All incoming email is checked for viruses using
ClamAV.
An address in the mail2news.bath.ac.uk domain is subscribed to the
9fans mailing list. Email arriving for this address is checked to
If so, the INN program "mailpost" is used to inject the message
into the Newsgroup. The "mailpost" program keeps a record of the
Message-ID's it has seen. So there's no problem with looping, ie
the attempted injection of the same message a repeated number of
times.
Newsgroup articles could be injected into the mailing list by using
INN "news2mail" channel script. However, betraying my original
# Inject articles posted to the comp.os.plan9 Newsgroup back into
# The script should include safeguards against looping, ie not
# re-injecting articles that originally came from the mailing list.
plan9mail!\
:comp.os.plan9\
:Tp:/opt/news/bin/plan9mail %s
in INN's newsfeeds file.
The above script uses the news2mail program from the antique but
usable newsgate.tar.Z package to send email. The anti-looping
checks include ensuring the Newsgroup article doesn't include a
which indicates this was a 9fans mailing list article injected into
Newsgroup.
The above may sound complex, but it's fairly maintenance free once
set up. We clearly won't be able to continue with this service once
our Usenet server is decommissioned. A volunteer to set up and run
a similar service is required.
--
Dennis Davis, BUCS, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK

--
john francis lee
246/3 Moo 22
Thanon Kaew Wai
Mueang Chiangrai 57000
Thailand

Matthew Veety

2013-07-16 02:45:02 UTC

Permalink

Oracle was a terrible example. That company is about one man, his ego, and what he wants to inflict upon humanity.

the nature of any large, all encompassing thing is to be good and evil all at the same time. proof: imagine a company (Google, Microsoft, Oracle, GE, etc.) that spans the universe. your perception of whether that thing is mostly good or mostly evil is a reflection of your belief about the nature of the universe.

Post by john francis lee
Isn't google the now well-known devil itself ?

--
john francis lee
246/3 Moo 22
Thanon Kaew Wai
Mueang Chiangrai 57000
Thailand

Kurt H Maier

2013-07-16 03:12:29 UTC

Permalink

Post by Skip Tavakkolian
the nature of any large, all encompassing thing is to be good and evil all
at the same time. proof: imagine a company (Google, Microsoft, Oracle, GE,
etc.) that spans the universe. your perception of whether that thing is
mostly good or mostly evil is a reflection of your belief about the nature
of the universe.

this is what passes for proof these days?

Skip Tavakkolian

2013-07-16 05:42:51 UTC

Permalink

when discussing "good" and "evil", thought experiment proofs are the only
thing anyone can offer.

I should have prefaced what i said with: "if you insist on assigning
goodness or wickedness to things, then it follows that any large, all
encompassing ...".

Post by Skip Tavakkolian

Post by Skip Tavakkolian
the nature of any large, all encompassing thing is to be good and evil

all

Post by Skip Tavakkolian
at the same time. proof: imagine a company (Google, Microsoft, Oracle,

GE,

Post by Skip Tavakkolian
etc.) that spans the universe. your perception of whether that thing is
mostly good or mostly evil is a reflection of your belief about the

nature

Post by Skip Tavakkolian
of the universe.

this is what passes for proof these days?

hiro

2013-07-16 06:29:05 UTC

Permalink

You guys does not take the End-user into account at all.

Post by Skip Tavakkolian
when discussing "good" and "evil", thought experiment proofs are the only
thing anyone can offer.
I should have prefaced what i said with: "if you insist on assigning
goodness or wickedness to things, then it follows that any large, all
encompassing ...".

Post by Skip Tavakkolian

Post by Skip Tavakkolian
the nature of any large, all encompassing thing is to be good and evil

all

Post by Skip Tavakkolian
at the same time. proof: imagine a company (Google, Microsoft, Oracle,

GE,

Post by Skip Tavakkolian
etc.) that spans the universe. your perception of whether that thing is
mostly good or mostly evil is a reflection of your belief about the

nature

Post by Skip Tavakkolian
of the universe.

this is what passes for proof these days?

ses101+ (Scott Schwartz)

2013-07-15 17:49:49 UTC

Permalink

Speaking for the mailing list side, thanks for all your service,
for so long and so well!

Christian Neukirchen

2013-07-17 09:51:10 UTC

Permalink

Post by 9***@mail2news.bath.ac.uk
The comp.os.plan9 Usenet Newsgroup is a moderated Newsgroup.
Articles require approval before being posted.

Does this still make sense given the low traffic from Usenet?

--
Christian Neukirchen <***@gmail.com> http://chneukirchen.org

Aram Hăvărneanu

2013-07-17 10:26:20 UTC

Permalink

Post by Christian Neukirchen
Does this still make sense given the low traffic from Usenet?

Usenet is full of spam. Of all places, it seems the least likely where
spam would have any effect, but I support spam is a gas that expands
everywhere.

--
Aram Hăvărneanu