I've been working on rewriting the documentation for the STUMP moderation software and one of the sections for setting up STUMP calls for the use
of a "victim group" for use when setting up moderation software that a
new moderator can use to set up and fine tune the software.

I can't really get behind the idea of purposely spamming a group, even a
dead group, so I've got another idea.

First, how does Usenet moderation work?

1. Someone posts an article to a moderated newsgroup.
2. An email is generated by their news server and that gets sent to the moderator for moderation. On Big-8 newsgroups, those emails addresses are
kept by the ISC in a list (that may not be the case for every hierarchy).
3. If the article is approved, the moderator injects it into a usenet
server with an approved header and if it is rejected, it either goes to /dev/null or if the moderator is nice, back to the original sender with a rejection reason.

My suggestion is to create a newsgroup where new moderators can opt in to receiving moderation emails via a strictly controlled mailing list for a certain amount of time. They are then the de-facto moderators of the
group. However they will still need access to a news server to inject
messages.

What about misc.test.moderated?

misc.test.moderated does this:

"At this time, the only purpose of misc.test.moderated is to provide a mechanism for people to test that their News server knows how to route submissions properly to moderated newsgroups. If you post a message to misc.test.moderated and receive this reply, that means your News
server did the right thing with your posting."

This is a distinctly different use case from what I am thinking about.

This is not a formal RFC. It's just an idea that's been floating around.
and I want to get more feedback before I go through the work of creating
an RFC, etc. I've talked with a few more seasoned Usenet pros in the past
few weeks about this and they seemed to be happy with the idea. My
question for you folks is, do you think this would be useful? Would it be likely that this could be a tool to get some derelict moderated groups
back to a functioning state and new groups created?

Thanks,
Jason

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 2021-12-19, Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:

<...>

This is not a formal RFC.

<...>

before I go through the work of creating an RFC

<...>

If ever you learn the difference between an RFC and an RFD, you might be
well on the way to being able to participate in discussions about Usenet without being laughed at.

Meanwhile, why not spare yourself future embarrassment by fucking off
out of news.groups?


--
PJR :-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Jason Evans wrote:

<snip>

This is not a formal RFC. It's just an idea that's been floating around.
and I want to get more feedback before I go through the work of creating
an RFC, etc. I've talked with a few more seasoned Usenet pros in the past
few weeks about this and they seemed to be happy with the idea. My
question for you folks is, do you think this would be useful? Would it be likely that this could be a tool to get some derelict moderated groups
back to a functioning state and new groups created?

Just change the moderation address for the newsgroup they will moderate.
Given that the group is dead, no one will be impacted. If the
submitted article appears in the target newsgroup, the moderation setup
is working. If it doesn't, it's not. Having a test group does not
change that or help with troubleshooting.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Peter J Ross <pjr@example.invalid> wrote:

On 2021-12-19, Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:

<...>

This is not a formal RFC.

<...>

before I go through the work of creating an RFC

<...>

If ever you learn the difference between an RFC and an RFD, you might be
well on the way to being able to participate in discussions about Usenet >without being laughed at.

Meanwhile, why not spare yourself future embarrassment by fucking off
out of news.groups?

He's one of the hierarchy administrators.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 2021-12-20, Steve Bonine <spb@pobox.com> wrote:

Jason Evans wrote:

<snip>

This is not a formal RFC. It's just an idea that's been floating
around. and I want to get more feedback before I go through the work
of creating an RFC, etc. I've talked with a few more seasoned Usenet
pros in the past few weeks about this and they seemed to be happy
with the idea. My question for you folks is, do you think this would
be useful? Would it be likely that this could be a tool to get some
derelict moderated groups back to a functioning state and new groups
created?

Just change the moderation address for the newsgroup they will
moderate. Given that the group is dead, no one will be impacted. If
the submitted article appears in the target newsgroup, the moderation
setup is working. If it doesn't, it's not. Having a test group does
not change that or help with troubleshooting.

Moderated newsgroups are owned by their moderators. If the moderators
want their groups to be dead, dead they must remain. Changing the
moderation address is a last resort, not to be done unless emails to the moderators bounce.

As a former and perhaps present moderator yourself, you ought to know
this stuff.


--
PJR :-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 2021-12-20, Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

Peter J Ross <pjr@example.invalid> wrote:

On 2021-12-19, Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:

<...>

This is not a formal RFC.

<...>

before I go through the work of creating an RFC

<...>

If ever you learn the difference between an RFC and an RFD, you might be >>well on the way to being able to participate in discussions about Usenet >>without being laughed at.

Meanwhile, why not spare yourself future embarrassment by fucking off
out of news.groups?

He's one of the hierarchy administrators.

I didn't look him up, but I assumed he was.

This bunch seem to be even more helplessly clueless than the toy radio
boys. They can't even work out how to set up a local moderated
newsgroup, or add "Distribution: local" to their headers.

Hint for clueless newbies: if you don't have INN, try installing
Leafnode 2 (not Leafnode 1) or Hamster (not Hamster Classic).


--
PJR :-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Jason Evans schrieb:

My suggestion is to create a newsgroup where new moderators can opt in to receiving moderation emails via a strictly controlled mailing list for a certain amount of time. They are then the de-facto moderators of the
group. However they will still need access to a news server to inject messages.

de.* has de.alt.test.moderated for that purpose.

Posts are forwarded to a maling list anyone can subscribe to (or can
subscribe his moderation software to), and anyone may approve postings
to that group; it still has a pro forma moderator.

| Archive-name: de-newusers/de-newsgruppen
| Posting-frequency: weekly
| Last-modified: 2021-12-16
| URL: https://www.kirchwitz.de/~amk/dni/de-newsgruppen
| URL: https://th-h.de/archives/faqs/de-newsgruppen.txt
[...]
| [Tests von Moderationssoftware.]
| Diese Gruppe dient zum Test des Postens in moderierten Gruppen
| und von Software zur Moderation derselben. Alle Einreichungen
| werden auf eine Mailingliste weitergeleitet, die über den
| Moderator abonniert werden kann. Das Veröffentlichen von
| Postings in dieser Gruppe ist jedermann gestattet.

Translation:

| [Tests of moderation software.]
| This group can be used to test posting in moderated groups and
| software for moderating them. All submissions will be forwarded to
| a mailing list that can be subscribed to via the moderator. Anyone
| is allowed to post in this group.

What about misc.test.moderated?

misc.test.moderated does this:

"At this time, the only purpose of misc.test.moderated is to provide a mechanism for people to test that their News server knows how to route submissions properly to moderated newsgroups. If you post a message to misc.test.moderated and receive this reply, that means your News
server did the right thing with your posting."

This is a distinctly different use case from what I am thinking about.

misc.test.moderated could easily serve both purposes.

My question for you folks is, do you think this would be useful?

I thought so.

Would it be
likely that this could be a tool to get some derelict moderated groups
back to a functioning state and new groups created?

I don't think a missing group to test your moderation software or posting/approving posts is the crucial point to revive old or create new moderated groups. It's missing people that can and want to moderate the
group (and people posting there, of course).

On the other hand, such a group wouldn't hurt.

-thh

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Peter J Ross wrote:

On 2021-12-20, Steve Bonine <spb@pobox.com> wrote:

Jason Evans wrote:

<snip>

This is not a formal RFC. It's just an idea that's been floating
around. and I want to get more feedback before I go through the work
of creating an RFC, etc. I've talked with a few more seasoned Usenet
pros in the past few weeks about this and they seemed to be happy
with the idea. My question for you folks is, do you think this would
be useful? Would it be likely that this could be a tool to get some
derelict moderated groups back to a functioning state and new groups
created?

Just change the moderation address for the newsgroup they will
moderate. Given that the group is dead, no one will be impacted. If
the submitted article appears in the target newsgroup, the moderation
setup is working. If it doesn't, it's not. Having a test group does
not change that or help with troubleshooting.

Moderated newsgroups are owned by their moderators. If the moderators
want their groups to be dead, dead they must remain. Changing the
moderation address is a last resort, not to be done unless emails to the moderators bounce.

As a former and perhaps present moderator yourself, you ought to know
this stuff.

Yes, Peter. I assumed (yes, I know the danger) that the decision had
already been made to change the moderator, so the newsgroup was owned by
the new moderator.

Where the participants might come from ... a much more important and
difficult question.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Wed, 22 Dec 2021 04:32:40 +0100, Thomas Hochstein wrote:

de.* has de.alt.test.moderated for that purpose.

Posts are forwarded to a maling list anyone can subscribe to (or can subscribe his moderation software to), and anyone may approve postings
to that group; it still has a pro forma moderator.

Hi Thomas,

Thanks! That's awesome. I'll look into adding de.alt.test.moderated to the STUMP documentation. It's great that such a group alreadty exists and we
don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Jason

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2021-12-23, Steve Bonine <spb@pobox.com> wrote:

Peter J Ross wrote:

On 2021-12-20, Steve Bonine <spb@pobox.com> wrote:

Jason Evans wrote:

<snip>

This is not a formal RFC. It's just an idea that's been floating
around. and I want to get more feedback before I go through the work
of creating an RFC, etc. I've talked with a few more seasoned Usenet
pros in the past few weeks about this and they seemed to be happy
with the idea. My question for you folks is, do you think this would
be useful? Would it be likely that this could be a tool to get some
derelict moderated groups back to a functioning state and new groups
created?

Just change the moderation address for the newsgroup they will
moderate. Given that the group is dead, no one will be impacted. If
the submitted article appears in the target newsgroup, the moderation
setup is working. If it doesn't, it's not. Having a test group does
not change that or help with troubleshooting.

Moderated newsgroups are owned by their moderators. If the moderators
want their groups to be dead, dead they must remain. Changing the
moderation address is a last resort, not to be done unless emails to the
moderators bounce.

As a former and perhaps present moderator yourself, you ought to know
this stuff.

Yes, Peter. I assumed (yes, I know the danger) that the decision had
already been made to change the moderator, so the newsgroup was owned by
the new moderator.

You know better now. Leninist usurpation seems to be the plan.

Where the participants might come from ... a much more important and difficult question.

It's hard to envisage a new moderated newsgroup that wouldn't be even
more useless than soc.men.moderated, isn't it?


--
PJR :-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2021-12-23, Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:

On Wed, 22 Dec 2021 04:32:40 +0100, Thomas Hochstein wrote:

de.* has de.alt.test.moderated for that purpose.

Posts are forwarded to a maling list anyone can subscribe to (or can
subscribe his moderation software to), and anyone may approve postings
to that group; it still has a pro forma moderator.

Hi Thomas,

Thanks! That's awesome. I'll look into adding de.alt.test.moderated to the STUMP documentation. It's great that such a group alreadty exists and we don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Wow! It's so awesome and great that you and your gang will get bored
soon and stop filling up news.groups with your ignorant, infantile
rubbish!


--
PJR :-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Peter J Ross <pjr@example.invalid> wrote:

On 2021-12-23, Steve Bonine <spb@pobox.com> wrote:

Peter J Ross wrote:

On 2021-12-20, Steve Bonine <spb@pobox.com> wrote:

Jason Evans wrote:

<snip>

This is not a formal RFC. It's just an idea that's been floating >>>>>around. and I want to get more feedback before I go through the work >>>>>of creating an RFC, etc. I've talked with a few more seasoned Usenet >>>>>pros in the past few weeks about this and they seemed to be happy >>>>>with the idea. My question for you folks is, do you think this would >>>>>be useful? Would it be likely that this could be a tool to get some >>>>>derelict moderated groups back to a functioning state and new groups >>>>>created?

Just change the moderation address for the newsgroup they will >>>>moderate. Given that the group is dead, no one will be impacted. If >>>>the submitted article appears in the target newsgroup, the moderation >>>>setup is working. If it doesn't, it's not. Having a test group does >>>>not change that or help with troubleshooting.

Moderated newsgroups are owned by their moderators. If the moderators >>>want their groups to be dead, dead they must remain. Changing the >>>moderation address is a last resort, not to be done unless emails to the >>>moderators bounce.

As a former and perhaps present moderator yourself, you ought to know >>>this stuff.

Yes, Peter. I assumed (yes, I know the danger) that the decision had >>already been made to change the moderator, so the newsgroup was owned by >>the new moderator.

You know better now. Leninist usurpation seems to be the plan.

Where the participants might come from ... a much more important and >>difficult question.

It's hard to envisage a new moderated newsgroup that wouldn't be even
more useless than soc.men.moderated, isn't it?

I cannot resist that straight line.

rec.ponds.moderated!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 2021-12-29, Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

Peter J Ross <pjr@example.invalid> wrote:

On 2021-12-23, Steve Bonine <spb@pobox.com> wrote:

Where the participants might come from ... a much more important and >>>difficult question.

It's hard to envisage a new moderated newsgroup that wouldn't be even
more useless than soc.men.moderated, isn't it?

I cannot resist that straight line.

rec.ponds.moderated!

I'm tempted to mention news.groups.proposals, but I don't want anybody
to die of laughter, so I won't mention news.groups.proposals.



--
PJR :-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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