Re: newsgroup of all mailing lists ?

[Matti Aarnio <matti.aarnio@zmailer.org>]

On Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 07:40:33PM +0100, jones wrote:
> dear all
> 
> I would like to know which kind people turn the mailing list into a
> newsgroup ?

   There are several Issues with this.

   - News system uses  Message-ID  header content to detect when
     a message has already gone thru the system, and when not.
     That is, the Message-ID MUST BE UNIQUE for the message to
     be stored into the message spool.

   - User posting to multiple lists (e.g.  linux-kernel, linux-net
     for an example pair) MAY get sent out in single SMTP transfer
     all the way to vger.kernel.org ( except when the user's system
     uses braindead systems splitting things in transfer - like is
     the habit of qmail ...).   The message WILL get split into
     multiple deliveries when it goes via Majordomo to each separate
     destination list.   Both messages have SAME  Message-ID value.
     (The Message-ID is supposed to be generated by the posting
      user client.)

   - Having any arbitrary   email->news  gateway now trying to feed
     those two separate messages to news will result in random
     success/failure order (depending of various latencies).

   - Things are worse, there are lots of these gw:s around to feed
     lists to news.  Those same news servers also often leak the groups
     into the global net, and may poison your local message-id database,
     and hence the local copy feed to spool might fail.
     ( Again timing and propagation delays affect the thing.. )

   - Things get even more worse; some want to have bi-directional
     gateway in between the email and the news.  Those are full
     nightmares in broad daylight...


  It is not trivial.

  We ( postmaster@vger.kernel.org ) don't recommend making bidirectional
  gateways -- one mistake there, and the system causes duplication of
  messages at the list it is linked with.   When we detect that mistake,
  the usual court-martial is swift, and feed from VGER to the GW is
  removed instantly.

  I think these loop problems were one of the reasons why one of us
  (DaveM) strongly opposes list<->news gateways.  I am somewhat less
  in opposition, and my thinking is that the only way we can have
  reliable (hah!) list<->news gw is by running it centralized at VGER.
  Modern VGER has muscle for it, but don't expect it to happen any
  time soon.

  There were other problems too -- completely clueless people asking
  clueless questions at  linux-kernel  group.   Where cluefull place
  for most of those would have been  linux-newbie ...

  We try to keep some decent Signal to Noise ratio here.


  Using a email->news gw script, and keeping the destination group
  in local area (local spool) will work usually.  Creating brand new
  Message-ID:s at email->news injection in form which consists of
  e.g. local list-specific prefix catenated with original message-id
  string.


  I will attempt to schedule posting this text into vger's web for
  the curious, plus add sample  email->news  injector doing this
  message-id conversion.


> this would enable me to read at my leisure and not have my inbox overflow.
> I am connected to NTL (UK) the same as I believe Mr. A Cox, but I can not
> find a working newsgroup the NTL administrator has asked me for details and
> I am afraid I don't know (hence this mail).
> 
> can someone give me some advice ?
> 
> regards
> 
> john jones
> 
> p.s. I am not subscribed to the list so can you CC me or the list whichever
> is appropriate 
> 
> p.p.s. I am interested in other lists such as linux-mips and not just the
> core linux M.L.


/Matti Aarnio