![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/92ca1b293a157a74babe8e7b79086bbc.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
We're using Mailman to gateway a Usenet newsgroup and email list. I'm curious, is that "severe breakage" in the archives that Barry Warsaw mentioned in his Apr 2 post fixed yet?
What Usenet newsgroups out there are being successfully moderated using Mailman? misc.industry.printing is the only one that I know of.
Also on the topic of moderating, it would be really useful if we could set up one or more "stationery" replies, which the moderator would choose from if rejecting a post (i.e. through a pulldown), rather than having to type in the responses to rejections over and over again. It would be ideal if the moderator could select a stationery from a pulldown, then once the appropriate stationery has been selected, the textarea would display that stationery response, which the moderator could tweak if s/he wanted to. If the moderator selected the "no stationery" option from the pulldown, then s/he could type in whatever they wanted into the textarea or leave it blank. If I knew Python, I'd help you guys build this functionality...
As an interim solution, I've gone in to the code that displays the "If you reject this post, explain" textarea and modified it to include a "Thank you but we're sorry..." message along with a link to the group charter inside the textarea. In fact, it might be a good idea to have a variable where such a message can be defined, but which could be defined differently for each list that is being moderated. Such a solution would not be the "ideal" stationery solution, but it would still be a timesaver. Just a thought...
Cheers, Stephan
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ab1c33fc0fd591a0ea174155233a6a51.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
"SS" == Stephan Spencer <sms@netconcepts.com> writes:
SS> We're using Mailman to gateway a Usenet newsgroup and email
SS> list. I'm curious, is that "severe breakage" in the archives
SS> that Barry Warsaw mentioned in his Apr 2 post fixed yet?
Yes, as Ben Gertzfield mentioned in a separate article, this was fixed in 1.0b11. What wasn't fixed is any /existing/ archives. You'd have to go back into the raw text file and insert the Unix From headers (e.g. "From ") in the appropriate places, and then regenerate the archives (with bin/arch).
SS> What Usenet newsgroups out there are being successfully
SS> moderated using Mailman? misc.industry.printing is the only
SS> one that I know of.
comp.lang.python and comp.lang.python.announce are now both being gated from Mailman lists (respectively, python-list@python.org and python-announce-list@python.org).
The announce list is interesting because the newsgroup c.l.py.a is moderated so you don't want messages posted to python-announce-list@python.org to go to the mailing list members or actually be gated to the n.g.
The trick I came up with is to set the python-announce-list alias to send directly to the n.g. moderators and /not/ to Mailman's post-wrapper. When the n.g. moderator approves of the message, they'll forward it on to the n.g. When Mailman sees the message show up on the n.g. it forwards it on to the list members pre-approved and without going through the aliases file again. So far, I /think/ this is working pretty well.
-Barry
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/92ca1b293a157a74babe8e7b79086bbc.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
I want to use Mailman's post-wrapper to send messages that we approve through Mailman on to the newsgroup we're moderating. Except Mailman doesn't put the required "Approved" line in the header, so the posting to Usenet gets rejected. Will you guys be fixing this so that the gating works with moderated newsgroups?
Cheers, Stephan Spencer
On Mon, 3 May 1999, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ab1c33fc0fd591a0ea174155233a6a51.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
"SS" == Stephan Spencer <sms@netconcepts.com> writes:
SS> I want to use Mailman's post-wrapper to send messages that we
SS> approve through Mailman on to the newsgroup we're
SS> moderating. Except Mailman doesn't put the required "Approved"
SS> line in the header, so the posting to Usenet gets
SS> rejected. Will you guys be fixing this so that the gating
SS> works with moderated newsgroups?
I use Mailman to gate the moderated newsgroup comp.lang.python.announce. The approach I've taken (which so far seems to be working) is to set up two lists, one which manages the Usenet moderation, and the other that manages the mailing list gateway. There's one trick, which you'll see below.
Here's essentially the sendmail aliases I have in place:
-------------------- snip snip -------------------- ## Newsgroup moderators python-announce: announce-moderators announce-moderators: clpya.moderators@where.they.are.com
## Mailman aliases python-announce-list: python-announce python-announce-list-admin: "|/export/parrot/mailmalt/mail/wrapper mailowner p ython-announce-list" python-announce-list-request: "|/export/parrot/mailmalt/mail/wrapper mailcmd pyt hon-announce-list" owner-python-announce-list: python-announce-list-admin python-announce-list-owner: python-announce-list-admin -------------------- snip snip --------------------
Normally, people wanting to make announcements should send them to python-announce@python.org. These get forwarded to the moderators, and when approved eventually show up on the n.g. (how the moderators actually do this is magic to me :-).
Folks can subscribe to announcements via python-announce-list which sucks messages off Usenet and does its thing. The trick is that python-announce-list forwards messages to python-announce and /not/ to the Mailman wrapper. Otherwise, random users would post to python-announce-list and the message would go out to the membership without having gone through the Usenet moderators. Not good. This is the one modification you need to make to the aliases that bin/newlist spits out.
This way, because Mailman treats Usenet postings as already approved, nothing more needs to happen.
-Barry
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/92ca1b293a157a74babe8e7b79086bbc.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
The magic that the moderators do (I've been one in the past) is just a laborious cut and paste of the message that comes in, reformatting the header by hand and reposting it to the newsgroup with the addition of a line to the message header like so:
Approved: [any email address]
When there is an "Approved" line in a newsgroup post, it will magically get posted to the moderated group. Mailman has a great interface for moderating a list. It would be a shame if we couldn't use it for moderating a newsgroup (and its list gateway). My wish would be the following:
Add a question to the Usenet gating administration page after the
spot where you prompt for the name of the newsgroup:
"Is this a newsgroup that you moderate? [ ] yes [ ] no"
If the list administrator checks "yes", then when the message gets
approved from the "Tend to pending administrative requests"
moderation interface in Mailman, that approved message gets posted to
Usenet with an additional line present in the header:
"Approved: [list admin's email address]
This eliminates the need of having 2 lists, and allows me to use
Mailman to moderate the newsgroup (and the list gateway).
What do you think?
Cheers, Stephan
On Tue, 18 May 1999, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ab1c33fc0fd591a0ea174155233a6a51.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
At first glance it looks like a reasonable approach, and probably not too hard to do. I don't forsee myself having time to work on it before the end of June.
-Barry
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ab1c33fc0fd591a0ea174155233a6a51.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
"SS" == Stephan Spencer <sms@netconcepts.com> writes:
SS> We're using Mailman to gateway a Usenet newsgroup and email
SS> list. I'm curious, is that "severe breakage" in the archives
SS> that Barry Warsaw mentioned in his Apr 2 post fixed yet?
Yes, as Ben Gertzfield mentioned in a separate article, this was fixed in 1.0b11. What wasn't fixed is any /existing/ archives. You'd have to go back into the raw text file and insert the Unix From headers (e.g. "From ") in the appropriate places, and then regenerate the archives (with bin/arch).
SS> What Usenet newsgroups out there are being successfully
SS> moderated using Mailman? misc.industry.printing is the only
SS> one that I know of.
comp.lang.python and comp.lang.python.announce are now both being gated from Mailman lists (respectively, python-list@python.org and python-announce-list@python.org).
The announce list is interesting because the newsgroup c.l.py.a is moderated so you don't want messages posted to python-announce-list@python.org to go to the mailing list members or actually be gated to the n.g.
The trick I came up with is to set the python-announce-list alias to send directly to the n.g. moderators and /not/ to Mailman's post-wrapper. When the n.g. moderator approves of the message, they'll forward it on to the n.g. When Mailman sees the message show up on the n.g. it forwards it on to the list members pre-approved and without going through the aliases file again. So far, I /think/ this is working pretty well.
-Barry
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/92ca1b293a157a74babe8e7b79086bbc.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
I want to use Mailman's post-wrapper to send messages that we approve through Mailman on to the newsgroup we're moderating. Except Mailman doesn't put the required "Approved" line in the header, so the posting to Usenet gets rejected. Will you guys be fixing this so that the gating works with moderated newsgroups?
Cheers, Stephan Spencer
On Mon, 3 May 1999, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ab1c33fc0fd591a0ea174155233a6a51.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
"SS" == Stephan Spencer <sms@netconcepts.com> writes:
SS> I want to use Mailman's post-wrapper to send messages that we
SS> approve through Mailman on to the newsgroup we're
SS> moderating. Except Mailman doesn't put the required "Approved"
SS> line in the header, so the posting to Usenet gets
SS> rejected. Will you guys be fixing this so that the gating
SS> works with moderated newsgroups?
I use Mailman to gate the moderated newsgroup comp.lang.python.announce. The approach I've taken (which so far seems to be working) is to set up two lists, one which manages the Usenet moderation, and the other that manages the mailing list gateway. There's one trick, which you'll see below.
Here's essentially the sendmail aliases I have in place:
-------------------- snip snip -------------------- ## Newsgroup moderators python-announce: announce-moderators announce-moderators: clpya.moderators@where.they.are.com
## Mailman aliases python-announce-list: python-announce python-announce-list-admin: "|/export/parrot/mailmalt/mail/wrapper mailowner p ython-announce-list" python-announce-list-request: "|/export/parrot/mailmalt/mail/wrapper mailcmd pyt hon-announce-list" owner-python-announce-list: python-announce-list-admin python-announce-list-owner: python-announce-list-admin -------------------- snip snip --------------------
Normally, people wanting to make announcements should send them to python-announce@python.org. These get forwarded to the moderators, and when approved eventually show up on the n.g. (how the moderators actually do this is magic to me :-).
Folks can subscribe to announcements via python-announce-list which sucks messages off Usenet and does its thing. The trick is that python-announce-list forwards messages to python-announce and /not/ to the Mailman wrapper. Otherwise, random users would post to python-announce-list and the message would go out to the membership without having gone through the Usenet moderators. Not good. This is the one modification you need to make to the aliases that bin/newlist spits out.
This way, because Mailman treats Usenet postings as already approved, nothing more needs to happen.
-Barry
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/92ca1b293a157a74babe8e7b79086bbc.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
The magic that the moderators do (I've been one in the past) is just a laborious cut and paste of the message that comes in, reformatting the header by hand and reposting it to the newsgroup with the addition of a line to the message header like so:
Approved: [any email address]
When there is an "Approved" line in a newsgroup post, it will magically get posted to the moderated group. Mailman has a great interface for moderating a list. It would be a shame if we couldn't use it for moderating a newsgroup (and its list gateway). My wish would be the following:
Add a question to the Usenet gating administration page after the
spot where you prompt for the name of the newsgroup:
"Is this a newsgroup that you moderate? [ ] yes [ ] no"
If the list administrator checks "yes", then when the message gets
approved from the "Tend to pending administrative requests"
moderation interface in Mailman, that approved message gets posted to
Usenet with an additional line present in the header:
"Approved: [list admin's email address]
This eliminates the need of having 2 lists, and allows me to use
Mailman to moderate the newsgroup (and the list gateway).
What do you think?
Cheers, Stephan
On Tue, 18 May 1999, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ab1c33fc0fd591a0ea174155233a6a51.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
At first glance it looks like a reasonable approach, and probably not too hard to do. I don't forsee myself having time to work on it before the end of June.
-Barry
participants (2)
-
Barry A. Warsaw
-
Stephan Spencer