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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!usenet
From: usenet@ucbvax.ARPA (USENET News Administration)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: proposed new structure for `fa' groups
Message-ID: <10542@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 5-Oct-85 01:05:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.10542
Posted: Sat Oct  5 01:05:35 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Oct-85 15:17:37 EDT
References: <10523@ucbvax.ARPA> <824@vortex.UUCP>
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 47

Lauren, what are you talking about?

There are currently three major netnews dissemination mechanisms in
place today. They are

	net
	fa
	mod

The `net' groups are in no way controlled or censored; anything that is
posted in one of those groups goes everywhere on the USENET.

The `fa' groups were established as a ONE WAY gateway of the ARPANET
mailing lists into the USENET. It was expected that USENET users could
get a posting to one of the mailing lists by using the return address
on the article (e.g. ucbvax!info-vax). Unfortunately, this precludes
the possibility of automatic reply to the actual author of the article.
Anything posted in these newsgroups by anyone (other than the material
posted by the gateway) is seen only on USENET, it does NOT go back to
the ARPANET. This mechanism is obsoleted by `mod' newsgroups.

The `mod' groups are moderated; that is, the content of any given article
must be passed on by a `moderator' before it goes out to the newsgroup.
This mechanism has been in use on the ARPANET for quite some time now,
and while the USENET community has not as yet come to grips with the
issue of censorship & trust in the same way that the ARPANET community
has, it is in place and working. It fits the model of an ARPANET mailing
list perfectly: submissions to the list are mailed to the moderator
(and the mechanism for this is automatic; the address is taken from the
`moderators' file), and the article has the correct address of the author
in it (rather than a relay address pointing back at the whole mailing list).
As I said earlier, this mechanism obsoletes the `fa' system.

I completely and utterly fail to see the substance of your objections.
DDN sites can continue to take the mailing lists as they always have.
If they also receive netnews, well, so much the better; they can get
those mailing lists via netnews that the USENET community chooses to
have gatewayed, if they so choose. Or not. USENET submissions to the
mailing lists will continue to come in as mail to the central
distribution point, as they always have. What we are changing is the
mechanism on the USENET side (to a more flexible one), and the names,
to more accurately represent the content of those groups.

	keeper of the network news for ucbvax,
		and guardian of the gateway,

	Erik E. Fair	ucbvax!fair	fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU