[Python-Dev] Re: c.l.p.a -- what needs to be done ? (original) (raw)

M.-A. Lemburg mal@lemburg.com
Sat, 26 Aug 2000 10:31:05 +0200

Markus Fleck wrote:

M.-A. Lemburg: > I've had a look at the c.l.p.a postings and the only special > header they include is the "Approved: fleck@informatik.uni-bonn.de" > header. Basically, that's all it takes to post to a "moderated" newsgroup. (Talking about a case of "security by obscurity" here... :-/) Actually, the string following the "Approved: " may even be random...

Wow, so much for spam protection.

In principle, I do have the time again to do daily moderation of incoming postings for c.l.py.a. Unfortunately, I currently lack the infrastructure (i.e. the moderation program), which went down together with the old starship. I was basically waiting for a version of Mailman that could be used to post to moderated newsgroups. (I should probably have been more vocal about that, or even should have started hacking Mailman myself... I did start to write something that would grab new announcements daily from Parnassus and post them to c.l.py.a, and I may even come to finish this in September, but that doesn't substitute for a "real" moderation tool for user-supplied postings. Also, it would probably be a lot easier for Parnassus postings to be built directly from the Parnassus database, instead from its [generated] HTML pages - the Parnassus author intended to supply such functionality, but I didn't hear from him yet, either.)

So what's needed now? Primarily, a Mailman installation that can post to moderated newsgroups (and maybe also do the mail2list gatewaying for c.l.py.a), and a mail alias that forwards mail for python-announce@python.org to that Mailman address. Some "daily digest" generator for Parnassus announcements would be nice to have, too, but that can only come once the other two things work. Anyway, thanks for bringing this up again - it puts c.l.py.a at the top of my to-do list again (where it should be, of course ;-).

Barry has just installed a Mailman patch that allows gatewaying to a moderated newsgroup.

He's also looking for volunteers to do the moderation. I guess you should apply by sending Barry a private mail (see the announcement on c.l.p.a ;-).

-- Marc-Andre Lemburg

Business: http://www.lemburg.com/ Python Pages: http://www.lemburg.com/python/