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What
Are Electronic Mailing Lists? |
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Electronic Mailing Lists are controlled by a software package called
a Mailing List Manager (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 [email protected] 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.
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What
is Netnews? |
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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. |
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What
is Netnews? |
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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.
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What
Are Moderated and Unmoderated Newsgroups?
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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.
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Why
Have a Gateway?
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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.
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What
Are LOCAL and GLOBAL Gateways?
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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.
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Are
There Special Concerns With LOCAL/GLOBAL Gateways?
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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-IDs for
duplicates), but it is the people who get the items in their
mailboxes who would see two copies of the article.
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How
Do I Register a Gateway? |
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In
order to avoid problems caused by multiple gateways, a list of
gatewayed newsgroups is maintained by NewsAdmin.Com([email protected]).
This list is posted monthly to bit.admin, and copies are available
from http://www.newsadmin.com.
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
NewsAdmin.Com at [email protected].
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How
Do I Setup a Gateway? |
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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).
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What
Are the Guidelines For Establishing a Mail-News Gateway? |
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It
is the responsibility of the person requesting the gateway to do the
following:
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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 administrator'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.
- 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.
- 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).
- 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)
- Write to [email protected]
to say that all of the criteria have been met. Indicate the gateway site (if you wish some site besides
newsadmin.com to be the gateway), mailing list name, mailing list
host node, list owner(s), and a short (45 character maximum)
description of the list. NewsAdmin
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 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 [email protected]
to explain the situation.
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Who
Can Answer Questions About Gateways? |
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Questions
about Listserv/Netnews gateways can be posted to bit.admin or sent
to [email protected].
(This
article is based on documentation provided by Jim McIntosh, who
through American University, previously facilitated administrative
duties and gateway support for the bit.* and other Usenet
hierarchies.)
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