ftp.pasteur.org/FAQ//ftp-pasteur-org-FAQ.zip/FAQ/uk/newsadmins-faq

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Newsgroups: uk.net.news.announce,uk.answers,news.answers
Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!yama.mcc.ac.uk!cs.man.ac.uk!clerew!chl
From: [e-mail] (Charles Lindsey)
Subject: UK Newsadmin's FAQ
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Followup-To: uk.net
Summary: Information for News Administrators specifically relevant to
    maintaining the uk.* hierarchy.
Supersedes: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Charles Lindsey)
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 08:36:57 GMT
Approved: [e-mail] (with permission from [e-mail])
Expires: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 08:36:56 GMT
Lines: 521
Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu uk.net.news.announce:1999 uk.answers:307 news.answers:173052

Archive-name: uk/newsadmins-faq
Posting-frequency: every 4 weeks
Last-modified: Tue Sep 14 10:55:37 BST 1999

        UK Newsadmin's FAQ
        ------------------

------------------------------

Subject: Introduction

This FAQ is prepared by Charles Lindsey <[e-mail]> for the
purpose of disseminating the current status concerning management of the uk.*
hierarchy to newsadmins througout the UK and elsewhere.

I don't know whether these particular questions are in fact "Frequently
Asked", but I certainly believe that they should be.

Comments and suggestions for future editions to [e-mail] please.

This FAQ is archived at
    <http://www.usenet.org.uk/newsadmins.html> and at
    <ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/news.answers/uk/newsadmins-faq>

------------------------------

Subject: Table of Contents


    1.  Recent Changes
    2.  Who manages the uk.* hierarchy?
    3.  Who is control?
    4.  What is usenet.org.uk?
    5.  Who are the UK Volunteer Votetakers?
    6.  What about the wales.* and scot.* hierarchies?
    7.  So which groups should I take on my site?
    8.  How do I send articles to a moderated group?
    9 . Who are the moderators of the uk.* groups?
    10. What other sources of information are there?
    11. Where can I find an up-to-date list of newsgroups?
    12. PGP signature of control messages
    13. What other questions are there?

------------------------------

Subject: 1. Recent Changes

Wed Mar  4 15:12:29 GMT 1998    New committee
Mon May  4 12:49:24 BST 1998    New control address for nl.* groups
Mon Sep 14 19:09:48 BST 1998    Revised moderated group access
Wed Oct  7 09:40:43 BST 1998    New control.ctl/controlperm
Fri Oct 30 19:47:17 GMT 1998    New BT member on Committee
Tue Nov  3 21:01:27 GMT 1998    New wales.* hierarchy
Thu Dec 10 09:50:43 GMT 1998    New UKVoting coordinator
Mon Jan 18 17:02:01 GMT 1999    New committee
Mon Jan 18 17:02:01 GMT 1999    wales.* again
Fri Feb 12 11:06:31 GMT 1999    Committee dates
Thu Jun  3 16:45:04 BST 1999    New moderator info
Wed Jun 16 10:43:17 BST 1999    More new moderator info
Fri Sep  3 11:05:51 BST 1999    New info about scot.*
Tue Sep 14 10:55:37 BST 1999    Removed epsrc mod info, etc.

------------------------------

Subject: 2. Who manages the uk.* hierarchy?

Three documents set out the procedures for creating and/or removing/renaming
newsgroups within the uk.* hierarchy.

    GUIDELINES FOR GROUP CREATION WITHIN THE UK HIERARCHY
    <http://www.usenet.org.uk/guidelines.html>
    <ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/news.answers/uk/guidelines>
    VOTING PROCEDURES WITHIN THE UK HIERARCHY
    <http://www.usenet.org.uk/voting.html>
    <ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/news.answers/uk/voting>
    THE UK USENET COMMITTEE
    <http://www.usenet.org.uk/committee.html>
    <ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/news.answers/uk/committee>

These documents were accepted on 7 Aug 95 following a vote conducted in
uk.net.news, with the results, respectively, of
        (93 yes : 13 no)
        (91 yes : 13 no)
        (76 yes : 23 no)

Essentially, they provide for a Committee to be elected each October, with a
person known as Control, answerable to the Committee, to oversee the process
of group creation.

The Committee elected in October 1998 comprises

Permanent members
    For BTnet -    Stuart Davies
    For Demon -    Dave Williams
    For Pipex -    Mark Turner
    For PSINet -    James Dyer
Open members
Until Oct 99
    Paul Carpenter
    Thomas Lee
Until Oct 2000
    Claire Speed
    Dave Mayall
Until Oct 2001
    Charles Lindsey
    Iain Bowen
Newsadmin members
Until Oct 99
    Jon Harley
    (2 vacancies)

The committee as a whole may be reached by email to [e-mail].

------------------------------

Subject: 3. Who is control?

The Committee (as elected in October 1997) have confirmed the appointment of

    Richard J. Letts

to exercise the functions of Control on their behalf. For official purposes
Richard may be reached at [e-mail] (unofficially,
[e-mail] will also find him). It is requied that all RFDs
and CFVs should be posted to uk.net.news.announce in accordance with the
Guidelines document.

BTNet, Demon, Eunet-GB and Pipex wish it to be known that they will in
future honour all and only newgroup and rmgroup control messages for the
uk.* hierarchy issued by [e-mail], and they urge all other
news administrators to adopt that same policy.

------------------------------

Subject: 4. What is usenet.org.uk?

A domain name. Silly question! Next?

But to be serious, it is a domain name set up to facilitate communication
with the Committee, in such a manner that the relevant officers can be
reached even if their identities change. Currently, the following services
are available.

    [e-mail]        to reach Control
    [e-mail]        to reach the whole Committee
    [e-mail]        to reach the group of independent
                    UK Volunteer Votetakers
    http://www.usenet.org.uk    the UK Usenet Website

------------------------------

Subject: 5. Who are the UK Volunteer Votetakers?

A group of people, independent of the Committee, who are empowered by the
VOTING PROCEDURES to conduct votes. The coordinator of this group is Robert
Felton, reachable via [e-mail].

------------------------------

Subject: 6. What about the wales.* and scot.* hierarchies?

For wales.*, there is a similar elected committee (reached at
[e-mail]) and control (reached at [e-mail]).

For scot.* there is also an elected committee, (reached at
[e-mail]) and control
(reached at [e-mail]) and also a website at
<http://www.scot.news-admin.org/>.

------------------------------

Subject: 7. So which groups should I take on my site?

Well that is your prerogative to decide. If you want to take a standard uk.*
"full feed", then you should accept the periodic 'newgroup', 'rmgroup' and
'checkgroups' control messages issued by [e-mail], and (for the
uk.* groups) no others. You may of course decide to take less than this if
your disc space and/or range of interests are limited.

It is possible to automate the acceptance of these control messages issued by
[e-mail], and it is always safe to do so if you first verify the
PGP signatures with which they are authenticated (if you are unable to do
that, it is recommended that at least 'rmgroup's and 'checkgroups' be
inspected manually before acceptance - there are not so many of those,
anyway).

If you run CNews, then the following 'controlperm' file will achieve the
necessary effects. Note that this example also shows the correct way to handle
control messages for the "Big-8" and also what is believed to be correct for
several other hierarchies. Note that this example assumes that you have
installed the latest patch for CNews to implement the verification of PGP
signatures.

        --------------------------------

# Four/five fields per line,
# first a newsgroup pattern,
# second an author name (or "any"),
# third a set of operations ("n" newgroup, "r" rmgroup, "c" checkgroups),
# fourth a set of flags ("p" do it iff poster's identity is pgpverified,
#    "y" do it, "n" don't, "q" don't report at all, "v" include
#    entire control message in report) (default "yv"),
# fifth (optionally) the entity allowed to pgpsign it.

# Dave Lawrence runs the main Usenet hierarchies
comp,sci,misc,rec,soc,talk,news,humanities [e-mail] n p news.announce.newgroups
# but his name can be forged, so don't let him rmgroup unless you use 'p'...
comp,sci,misc,rec,soc,talk,news,humanities [e-mail] r p news.announce.newgroups
# likewise checkgroups
comp,sci,misc,rec,soc,talk,news,humanities [e-mail] c p news.announce.newgroups
# and nobody else gets any attention in these hierarchies
comp,sci,misc,rec,soc,talk,news,humanities    any    nrc    nv

uk        [e-mail]    nrc    p uk.net.news.announce
wales        [e-mail] nrc    p wales-usenet
eunet        [e-mail]        n    y
eunet        [e-mail]        rc    nv
de        [e-mail]    nrc    p de.admin.news.announce
nl        [e-mail]    nrc    p nl.newsgroups
nz        [e-mail]    nrc    p nz-hir-control
bionet        dmack@*.bio.net        n    y
bionet        dmack@*.bio.net        rc    nv
bionet        kristoff@*.bio.net    n    y
bionet        kristoff@*.bio.net    rc    nv
bionet        shibumi@*.bio.net    nrc    nv
linux        [e-mail]    nrc    nv
bit        jim@*american.edu    nrc    p bit.admin
biz        [e-mail]    n    y
biz        [e-mail]    rc    nv
clari        [e-mail]    nrc    p ClariNet.Group

# it's really tempting to change this one to nq...
alt        any            nr    nv
alt        any            c    nq

# to.all groups are manually manipulated only
to        any            nrc    nq

# final default:  refuse noisily
all        any            nrc    nv

        --------------------------------

If you run INN, the corresponding file is 'control.ctl' and the facilities
available are slightly different. Here is the nearest equivalent to the
'controlperm' file above.

        --------------------------------

##  $Revision: 1.4 $
##  control.ctl - access control for control messages
##  Format:
##    <message>:<from>:<newsgroups>:<action>
##  The last match found is used.
##    <message>    Control message or "all" if it applies
##            to all control messages.
##    <from>        Pattern that must match the From line.
##    <newsgroups>    Pattern that must match the newsgroup being
##            newgroup'd or rmgroup'd (ignored for other messages).
##    <action>    What to do:
##                doit    Perform action (usually sends mail too)
##                doifarg    Do if command has an arg (see sendsys)
##                doit=xxx    Do action; log to xxx (see below)
##                drop    Ignore message
##                log        One line to error log
##                log=xxx    Log to xxx (see below)
##                mail    Send mail to admin
##                verify-ddd    doit if pgpverified by ddd
##                verify-ddd=xxx
##            xxx=mail to mail; xxx= (empty) to toss; xxx=/full/path
##            to log to /full/path; xxx=foo to log to ${LOG}/foo.log
##    last entry matched is used
##    DEFAULT
all:*:*:mail

##    CHECKGROUPS MESSAGES
checkgroups:*:*:mail
checkgroups:[e-mail]:comp.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*|soc.*|talk.*|humanities.*:verify-news.announce.newgroups=mail
checkgroups:[e-mail]:uk.*:verify-uk.net.news.announce=mail
checkgroups:[e-mail]:wales.*:verify-wales-usenet=mail

##    IHAVE/SENDME MESSAGES
ihave:*:*:drop
sendme:*:*:drop

##    NEWGROUP MESSAGES
##  Any newsgroups
newgroup:*:*:mail
newgroup:[e-mail]:comp.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*|soc.*|talk.*|humanities.*:verify-news.announce.newgroups=newgroup
newgroup:[e-mail]:uk.*:verify-uk.net.news.announce=newgroup
newgroup:[e-mail]:wales.*:verify-wales-usenet=newgroup
newgroup:[e-mail]:eunet.*:doit=newgroup
newgroup:[e-mail]:de.*:verify-de.admin.news.announce=newgroup
newgroup:[e-mail]:nl.*:verify-nl.newsgroups=newgroup
newgroup:[e-mail]:nz.*:verify-nz-hir-control=newgroup
newgroup:dmack@*.bio.net:bionet.*:doit=newgroup
newgroup:kristoff@*.bio.net:bionet.*:doit=newgroup
newgroup:shibumi@*.bio.net:bionet.*:mail
newgroup:[e-mail]:linux.*:doit=newgroup
newgroup:jim@*american.edu:bit.*:verify-bit.admin=newgroup
newgroup:[e-mail]:biz.*:doit=newgroup
newgroup:[e-mail]:clari.*:verify-ClariNet.Group=newgroup

##    RMGROUP MESSAGES
##  Any newsgroups
rmgroup:*:*:mail
rmgroup:[e-mail]:comp.*|misc.*|news.*|rec.*|sci.*|soc.*|talk.*|humanities.*:verify-news.announce.newgroups=mail
rmgroup:[e-mail]:uk.*:verify-uk.net.news.announce=mail
rmgroup:[e-mail]:wales.*:verify-wales-usenet=mail
rmgroup:[e-mail]:eunet.*:mail
rmgroup:[e-mail]:de.*:verify-de.admin.news.announce=mail
rmgroup:[e-mail]@a3.xs4all.nl:nl.*:verify-nl.newsgroups=mail
rmgroup:[e-mail]:nz.*:verify-nz-hir-control=mail
rmgroup:dmack@*.bio.net:bionet.*:doit=mail
rmgroup:kristoff@*.bio.net:bionet.*:doit=mail
rmgroup:shibumi@*.bio.net:bionet.*:doit=mail
rmgroup:[e-mail]:linux.*:doit=mail
rmgroup:jim@*american.edu:bit.*:verify-bit.admin=mail
rmgroup:[e-mail]:biz.*:doit=mail
rmgroup:[e-mail]:clari.*:verify-ClariNet.Group=mail

        --------------------------------


------------------------------

Subject: 8. How do I send articles to a moderated group?

Normally, you mail it to a server which keeps an up-to-date list of
moderators. In CNews, one of the following entries in your 'mailpaths' file
should suffice.

        --------------------------------
bionet    [e-mail]
gnu    [e-mail]
linux    [e-mail]
it    [e-mail]
nl    [e-mail]
nz    [e-mail]
all    [e-mail]
        --------------------------------

The entries for gnu.* and nz.* were taken from the "nz.* Usenet Hierarchy
FAQ". Entries for other top-level hierarchies would be welcomed.

The arrangements in INN are, as usual, similar but different. I believe the
following should work.

        --------------------------------
bionet.*:[e-mail]
gnu.*:[e-mail]
linux.*:[e-mail]
it.*:[e-mail]
nl.*:[e-mail]
nz.*:[e-mail]
*:[e-mail]
        --------------------------------


It is also possible to use moderators.isc.org which is an MX record pointing
to most of the sites which maintain a complete list of moderators worldwide.
It should automatically select the 'nearest', which in practice should be
moderated.news.pipex.net for the UK. However, I am not convinced that it
really does find the nearest (as opposed to choosing one at random) which is
why I have suggested using moderated.news.pipex.net above.

Note that moderators.uu.net, which used to be the official global address,
still works but does not seem to be kept up to date anymore. Also
britain.eu.net, which used to be an official submission address within the UK
is not one of the sites currently listed under moderators.isc.org, so its
continued use is not to be recommended.

------------------------------

Subject: 9. Who are the moderators of the uk.* groups?

You do not really need this information, unless you want to construct your
'mailpaths' file d-i-y style. But here is the information available at the
present time, if you really like to see it. Note how all except some of the
very early ones go through "@usenet.org.uk". This has been done so that
any change requested by the moderator can be implemented speedily, without the
necessity of negotiating the details with isc.org.

uk.adverts.stolen.announce    [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
uk.announce            [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
uk.announce.events        [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
uk.answers                      [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
uk.business.telework        [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
uk.education.students.aged11-14    [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
uk.education.students.aged7-11    [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
uk.gay-lesbian-bi        [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
uk.net.news.announce        [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
uk.org.bcs.announce        [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
uk.org.starlink.announce    [e-mail]
uk.people.bdsm.personals    [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
uk.politics.announce        [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
uk.religion.christian        [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
uk.religion.jewish        [e-mail]
                [e-mail]
uk.telecom.moderated        [e-mail]
                [e-mail]

Where a separate "-request" address is provided, this is guaranteed to point
to a human moderator rather than his robot. Such addresses should be used to
contact the man himself, as opposed to when submitting an article.

Currently,
  uk.announce
  uk.announce.events
  uk-business-telework
  uk-education-students-aged11-14
  uk-education-students-aged7-11
  uk-gay-lesbian-bi
  uk.religion.jewish
  uk-telecom-moderated
are the only groups where this makes a difference. In the other cases, the two
aliases actually point to the same address, although this may change in the
future.

------------------------------ Subject: 10. What other sources of information are
there? You might like to look at the following regular postings to news.admin.misc.
    How to become a Usenet site
<ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/news.answers/usenet/site-setup>
    Usenet Software: History and Sources
<ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/news.answers/usenet/software/part1>

You might like to join the mailing list [e-mail]
(send subscription requests to [e-mail] with
    subscribe uk-netnews-managers
    end
in the body of the message).

The following Web site is maintained on behalf of the Committee. It contains
the official management documents for uk.* as referred to above, the complete
set of charters for uk.* groups, and pointers to much other useful
information.

<http://www.usenet.org.uk>

Many of these same documents, together with FAQs for some uk.* newsgroups can
also be obtained from an Email Listserver. Send email to
[e-mail] with the following in the body of the message
    help
    index
    end

A message "Checkgroups message (with INET groups)" is posted regularly to
news.admin.misc. This contains a correct list of all the groups in the
"Big-8" Usenet hierarchy.

Checkgroups messages for the UK hierarchy will be issued periodically by
Control.

------------------------------

Subject: 11. Where can I find an up-to-date list of newsgroups?

A checkgroups message giving the exact current state of the uk.* hierarchy
will be issued by [e-mail] approximately every 6 months.
In between, for an up-to-date list see

<http://www.usenet.org.uk/newsgroups.html>.

------------------------------

Subject: 12. PGP signature of control messages

The headers of control messages issued by [e-mail] are
authenticated with a PGP signature. See

<ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/pgpcontrol/README[.html]>

for technical details, patches for CNews and INN, and a list of public keys
used by various control message issuers worldwide. For control messages issued
by [e-mail] the public key is:

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: 2.6
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=SaMt
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

------------------------------

Subject: 13. What other questions are there?

Well, you should tell me that.