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- Organization: The American University - University Computing Center
- Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 15:24:52 EST
- Expires: 22 Apr 97 00:00:00 GMT
- From: Jim McIntosh <jim@american.edu>
- Message-ID: <97072.152452JIM@auvm.american.edu>
- Newsgroups: bit.admin,news.answers
- Subject: NetNews/Mailing List Gateway Policy
- Followup-To: bit.admin
- Approved: jim@american.edu
- Lines: 181
- Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu bit.admin:1214 news.answers:97098
-
- Archive-name: bit/policy
- Last-modified: 1 July 1994
-
- ************************************************************
- *** General Information on Mailing List/Netnews gateways ***
- ************************************************************
-
- This document gives general information on gateways between Electronic
- Mailing Lists and Netnews as implemented in Netnews version 2.5 by Linda
- Littleton at Penn State University. It includes guidelines on how to
- establish a new Mailing List/Netnews gateway.
-
- *** What are Electronic Mailing Lists?
-
- Electronic Mailing Lists are controlled by a software package called a
- Mailing List Mananger (or MLM). Since the most widely used MLM is called
- ListServ many people refer to electronic mailing lists as "Listserv
- lists". (Listserv, which stands for List Server, is a MLM that runs on
- VM/CMS, AIX, VMS, and other platforms. It is a product of LSoft, Inc.
- Write to sales@lsoft.com for more information on Listserv.)
-
- MLMs provide "mail-exploding" capabilities so that people with a common
- interest can communicate with each other by sending mail to a particular
- address (one address per mailing list), which then redistributes the mail
- to each person "subscribed" to the list. Each person subscribed to a
- particular list gets a copy of each piece of mail in their mailbox.
-
- *** What is Netnews?
-
- Netnews is a bulletin board system in which articles on a variety of
- topics are arranged in "newsgroups" and stored in a shared location from
- which individual users can read them. These newsgroups can be local
- newsgroups, available only at a user's site, or may be shared with other
- sites to form a world-wide bulletin board system called Usenet.
-
- *** What does the gateway do?
-
- The gateway software (which is a built-in part of the VM/CMS Netnews
- server from Penn State) puts each piece of mail for a particular list
- into a corresponding Netnews newsgroup and also sends each Netnews-
- originating posting to the newsgroup back to the mailing list. Generally
- gatewayed groups on Netnews are given the name bit.listserv.<listname>.
- When appropriate, the items in a mailing list might also be cross-posted
- to a "mainstream" Usenet group.
-
- *** Moderated or Unmoderated Newsgroup
-
- The newsgroup gatewayed to a list can be either moderated or unmoderated.
- If it is unmoderated, all posts are immediately accepted in the newsgroup
- and make their way eventually to the mailing list. If the newsgroup is
- moderated the posts are not accepted in the newsgroup, but instead sent
- through e-mail to a moderator address. This moderator can be a human
- being who decides if the post is appropriate, or can even be the mailing
- list address (where, for example, the list owner may from time to time
- set the list to "Send= Private" to limit the mail coming from Usenet to
- the mailing list).
-
- Whether the mailing list is edited is a separate decision from whether
- the newsgroup is moderated. Many unedited mailing lists are gatewayed to
- moderated newsgroups so the list owner can impose controls when and if
- inappropriate posts come from the newgroup to the mailing list.
-
- *** Why have a gateway?
-
- The major reason sites decide to carry gatewayed mailing lists is so
- their users can read these lists via shared disks, rather than requiring
- each user to receive each item to their mailbox. In addition, the gateway
- gives greater exposure and wider readership to the list since the list
- can be now be read by users at thousands of Usenet sites.
-
- *** The gateway can be LOCAL or GLOBAL
-
- On a per-group basis, the gateway can be either LOCAL (only users on the
- machine where Netnews is running will see the Listserv items) or GLOBAL
- (the Listserv items will propagate to other Usenet sites). To avoid
- problems that can be caused by multiple sites gatewaying the same group,
- we request that only a handful of sites set up global gateways and that
- other sites receive these groups through their normal news feeds.
-
- *******************************
- *** AN IMPORTANT PRECAUTION ***
- *******************************
-
- It is important that no more than one site per list set up a GLOBAL
- gateway. If more than one site does a GLOBAL gateway for a particular
- list, the list may get duplicates of some articles. It is the list
- owner's responsibility to make sure there are not multiple global
- gateways for the list and to "signoff" any suspect gateway site should
- problems start to occur. No GLOBAL gateway should ever be established
- without the express permission of the list owner.
-
- In the event that two sites did set up a global gateway for the same
- list, here is what might happen. If a user anywhere on the net posted an
- article to the group via Netnews and the article found its way to both of
- the global gateway sites, both of these sites would forward the article
- back to the mailing list. The mailing list would therefore receive two
- copies and although Listserv will usually detect the duplicate posting,
- it will return one of the copies to the author with a message saying that
- the post was a duplicate. Since the author only posted once, this will
- cause them some confusion. Also, it is possible that both posts would be
- distributed to the list if a MLM other than Listserv is controlling the
- mailing list. Netnews would not have a problem handling this (since it
- checks message-id's for duplicates), but it is the people who get the
- items in their mailboxes who would see two copies of the article.
-
- *** Gateway registration
-
- In order to avoid problems caused by multiple gateways, a list of
- gatewayed newsgroups is maintained by David Lawrence (tale@uunet.uu.net).
- This list is posted monthly to bit.admin, and copies are available from
- listserv@american.edu by sending the command GET NETGATE.GATELIST as the
- first and only line in the body of a piece of e-mail. This file is also
- available via anonymous ftp from ftp.american.edu.
-
- Please consult this list before establishing a gateway between a mailing
- list and a newsgroup to verify no gateway already exists. If you set up a
- gateway you should have it added to the list by writing to David Lawrence
- at tale@uunet.uu.net, or by writing to news-adm@american.edu.
-
- *** Setting up the gateway.
-
- The gateway is set up by having the Netnews service machine subscribe to
- the mailing list in the same way that a subscriber would. The MLM must
- ensure that each post has a unique Message-ID. If none is present in the
- incoming post, the MLM must add one. Also, the posts must come from some
- consistent address in the "Return-Path" (generally OWNER-<listname>).
- With LSoft's Listserv these requirements can be met by setting the
- FULLHDR option on (additionally the NOFILES option should be set, and
- NORENEW should be set if the list expires subscriptions).
-
- *** Guidelines for establishing a Mailing List/Netnews gateway.
-
- It is the responsibility of the person requesting the gateway to do the
- following:
-
- 1. Get the approval of the mailing list owner(s) and the MLM
- administrator at the host node. (For Listserv, send a "REVIEW
- listname" command to the Listserv at the host node for the names
- and addresses of the list owner(s), and a "RELEASE" command to
- the same address for the Listserv administor's name and address.)
- Send them each a copy of this document. If the list owner or
- MLM administrator objects, the gateway is not done.
-
- 2. Get the approval of the mailing list readers. This could be done
- somewhat informally by posting to the list and asking if there
- are objections. If the issue was controversial, a formal vote
- should be held according to the same guidelines as for creating a
- new Usenet group. If there was no major dissenting opinion a vote
- will not be needed.
-
- 3. If there is a Usenet group where crossposting would be logical,
- get the approval of the people who read that group (in the same
- way as approval of the mailing list readers was gotten).
-
- 4. Post to bit.admin to see if there are any objections. The subject
- of the posting should be "Gateway for <listname> under
- discussion". Explain briefly what the list is for. If you are
- proposing that the list be gated to something besides
- "bit.listserv.<listname>", this should be stated. Again, if there
- was no major dissenting opinion within seven days, a vote would
- not be needed; otherwise a vote would be held.
-
- Steps 2, 3, and 4 can all be done at the same time.
-
- 5. Write to news-admin@american.edu to say that all of the criteria
- have been met. Indicate the gateway site (if you wish some site
- besides auvm.american.edu to be the gateway), mailing list name,
- mailing list host node, list owner(s), and a short (45 character
- maximum) description of the list. News-admin will establish
- and/or register the gateway, and then post to bit.admin to say
- that the gateway is operational. The subject of the posting will
- be "Gateway for <listname> operational".
-
- If for some reason you cannot follow the steps outlined here (for
- example, if you do not get the bit groups, so cannot post to bit.admin),
- write to news-admin@american.edu to explain the situation.
-
- *** Where to address questions
-
- Questions about Listserv/Netnews gateways can be posted to bit.admin or
- sent to news-admin@american.edu.
-