Thread: ALERT This mailing list may be voted into a newsgroup
ALERT There is a person by the name of Mike Cox who's trying to turn this mailing list into a Big-8 newsgroup. Many of you know that this and most of the other postresql mailing lists are already gated to Google Groups and a small number of private news servers. If Mike Cox succeeds, this list will be available as a newsgroup on a great many more ISPs and NSPs, which could be a good or a bad thing. For one, e-mail addresses on this list will probably receive an increased volume of spam. This person Mike wrote his own charter for this mailing list, without asking for help from any of the list subscribers. He went ahead and submitted the proposal to the Usenet big-wigs without consulting the mailing list first. The discussion is occurring in the news.groups Usenet group by a bunch of Usenet techies. Please get involved in the discussion and express your views. By all means, vote, when the time comes. If you have no access to Usenet, you could follow the discussion via Google Groups. Here are links to some of the threads-- http://shorl.com/jevukofrolelo http://shorl.com/hunofetaprona http://shorl.com/boranobrimise Andy Proposal is below: REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD) unmoderated group comp.databases.postgresql.general This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a worldwide unmoderated Usenet newsgroup comp.databases.postgresql.general. This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural details are below. RATIONALE: comp.databases.postgresql.general comp.databases.postgresql.general exists in groups.google.com. It has never gone through the big eight process of RFD and CFV, therefore is considered "bogus" and many news servers will not carry comp.databases.postgresql.general. comp.databases.postgresql.general is already very active, with many people posting and reading through groups.google.com. Having it be an official big eight group will enable people to follow it through their usenet servers. CHARTER: comp.databases.postgresql.general The comp.databases.postgresql.general unmoderated newsgroup will provide a general discussion location for users of the open-source PostgreSQL RDBMS. Postgresql is the most advanced open source relational database management system with thousands of users. It has won many awards and is distributed with almost every Linux and BSD distribution. PostgreSQL may be freely downloaded from http://www.postgresql.org. END CHARTER. PROCEDURE: This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase of the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroups should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion warrants it. Please do not attempt to vote until this happens. All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups. This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal." Please refer to these documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any questions about the process. DISTRIBUTION: This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups A pointer will be posted to the following group: comp.databases.postgresql.general on Google Groups Proponent: Mike Cox mikecoxlinux@yahoo.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com
(All as I understand it. If Marc or someone else who's involved wants to correct and clarify it'd be appreciated.) This mailing list is already gatewayed to comp.databases.postgresql.general (that's where the spammers harvest your email address if you post to the list). This is nothing new. It has been that way for a while, with minimal problems on the mailing list side, with the exception of spammers harvesting email addresses. That's partly because it's primarily a one-way gateway - mailing list to newsgroup. Posts to the newsgroup are only propagated to the mailing list if the posting email address is a subscriber to the mailing list. But comp.databases.postgresql.general was never correctly created - it's a bogus newsgroup. As it's bogus, many newsservers won't carry it by default, though they'll often add it if users request it. The discussion in news.groups is about "doing the paperwork" for the already existing groups. There's interest in the newsgroups and providers are being asked to carry them. Formalising their creation will make that easier, as many newsservers will start carrying them automagically. There may be significant pressure to change the gateway to a two-way gateway, sending all usenet posts to the mailing list, as part of the "doing the paperwork" process. That may cause problems. On the other hand without the full two-way gateway there's a risk of the forum splitting into two parts, with mailing-list subscribers not seeing posts from usenet participants, fragmenting threads and making both the mailing list and the newsgroup less useful for all participants. Cheers, Steve On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 08:42:40AM -0800, Andy M wrote: > ALERT > > There is a person by the name of Mike Cox who's trying > to turn this mailing list into a Big-8 newsgroup. Many > of you know that this and most of the other postresql > mailing lists are already gated to Google Groups and a > small number of private news servers. If Mike Cox > succeeds, this list will be available as a newsgroup > on a great many more ISPs and NSPs, which could be a > good or a bad thing. For one, e-mail addresses on this > list will probably receive an increased volume of > spam. > > This person Mike wrote his own charter for this > mailing list, without asking for help from any of the > list subscribers. He went ahead and submitted the > proposal to the Usenet big-wigs without consulting the > mailing list first. The discussion is occurring in the > news.groups Usenet group by a bunch of Usenet techies. > Please get involved in the discussion and express your > views. By all means, vote, when the time comes. > > If you have no access to Usenet, you could follow the > discussion via Google Groups. Here are links to some > of the threads-- > > http://shorl.com/jevukofrolelo > http://shorl.com/hunofetaprona > http://shorl.com/boranobrimise > > Andy
On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, Steve Atkins wrote: > There may be significant pressure to change the gateway to a two-way > gateway, sending all usenet posts to the mailing list, as part of the > "doing the paperwork" process. That may cause problems. On the other > hand without the full two-way gateway there's a risk of the forum > splitting into two parts, with mailing-list subscribers not seeing posts > from usenet participants, fragmenting threads and making both the > mailing list and the newsgroup less useful for all participants. Actually, this is already done ... anyone not already subscribed is generally what you see on the lists as 'old postings', since they are stuck in the moderators queue until I get a chance to go through an approve them (or reject spam) ... I try and do it every evening, but there are periods where things are so busy that its delayed a few days ... but, they do eventually get through ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 08:42:40 -0800 (PST), ullcar@yahoo.com (Andy M) wrote: >ALERT > >There is a person by the name of Mike Cox who's trying >to turn this mailing list into a Big-8 newsgroup. Many >of you know that this and most of the other postresql >mailing lists are already gated to Google Groups and a >small number of private news servers. "private news servers" like Earthlink and Altopia? This "mailing list" is already a newsgroup on many servers. The toothpaste is out of the tube. You can't put it back in.
At 08:29 AM 11/6/2004, edward ohare wrote: >On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 08:42:40 -0800 (PST), ullcar@yahoo.com (Andy M) >wrote: > > >ALERT > > > >There is a person by the name of Mike Cox who's trying > >to turn this mailing list into a Big-8 newsgroup. Many > >of you know that this and most of the other postresql > >mailing lists are already gated to Google Groups and a > >small number of private news servers. > > >"private news servers" like Earthlink and Altopia? He's confused. :) >This "mailing list" is already a newsgroup on many servers. The >toothpaste is out of the tube. You can't put it back in. It can be fixed.