[Pan-users] Re: Testing can post to newsgroup

[Duncan]

Maurice Batey <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Sat, 03
Jan 2009 18:44:32 +0000:

> Having just discovered the newsgroup I've unsubscribed from the
> mailing-list, and just wanted to check I can post here...

You can.  Welcome to the newsgroup version!  =;^)

There is one annoyance, the encrypted mail addresses, which is a per-list/
group gmane option to help control spam to the list.  If I need a mail 
address and the group is encrypted, I ask people to post it in name at 
domain format so the encryptor doesn't mess with it.

Two other things to be aware of:

1) Due to the list/group interface, gmane doesn't always handle cross-
posts as a normal newsserver would.  In particular, because crossposts 
normally come in via mail as separate messages to the separate lists/
groups, if there's not enough information in the message itself to note 
the crosspost (what constitutes enough info I don't know, maybe only 
posts that originate with gmane?), gmane will post the first one to come 
in using its normal message-id, then have to change message-ids to avoid 
duplicates when the message comes in for other lists, because it doesn't 
know it's a cross-post in that case.  Of course, this is only an issue 
for crossposts, but it's something to be aware of when dealing with 
crossposts, if you notice strange behavior with them.

2) I've been using gmane for some time.  Twice during that time, 
apparently some idiot with a similar IP address (likely the same subnet 
of some size, I don't know how big) attacked gmane, either DoSing them or 
spamming them.  Anyway, the subnet including my IP address was 
temporarily blocked from gmane news access as a result.  If this happens, 
you won't see an error.  You'll just not get any updates for awhile.  Or 
at least that's the way it worked here.

If you're lucky that'll never happen to you, but if it does, once you 
realize it, there's several things you can do.  First, you can still use 
the gmane web interface -- it's only the news interface that gets 
blocked.  Of course the web interface lacks the convenient auto-tracking 
of what you've read and what you haven't so it's terribly hard to keep up 
with conversations, but it'll do in a pinch.  Second, you can post (using 
the web interface) a request to gmane.discuss, saying you're blocked and 
could they investigate and narrow the block or whatever.  I had to do 
that the first time.  The second resolved itself faster, tho I'm not sure 
whether that was gmane, or that I got a different IP address on a 
different not-blocked subnet, or what.  Third, you can of course then go 
change your mail subscription back to normal, so it sends you the 
messages and you reply via mail.  IIRC I did that for one or two of my 
higher volume lists the first time it happened.  As I said the second 
resolved itself fast enough (~3 days to a week, IIRC) that I didn't get 
around to worrying about it.

But for the most part it's trouble-free, and anyway, the few problems 
there are have been less hassle than tracking the list by mail would have 
been. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman