Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!ut-sally!husc6!bu-cs!m2c!ulowell!page
From: page@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu (Bob Page)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.misc,news.stargate,news.sysadmin,news.admin
Subject: Re: the USENET problems
Message-ID: <1508@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu>
Date: Mon, 13-Jul-87 14:32:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: ulowell.1508
Posted: Mon Jul 13 14:32:13 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Jul-87 06:40:22 EDT
References: <266@brandx.rutgers.edu> <15982@gatech.gatech.edu>
Reply-To: page@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu (Bob Page)
Organization: University of Lowell
Lines: 35
Xref: mnetor news.groups:1238 news.misc:761 news.stargate:254 news.sysadmin:307 news.admin:699

jesup@mizar.UUCP (Randell Jesup) wrote:
>		Mail to which Moderator?
>			(1) page@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu (shortest path)
>			(2) jesup@ge-crd.arpa
>			(3) anyman@anyunix.uucp

This may cause more trouble than it solves ... it means users get to
pick.  As much as possible, the software should do the work.  Most
sites don't even have a moderator's list; they just forward it to
some backbone site that sends it to the moderator.  If we go back to
the old way of "everyone maintains their own moderators file" we'll
probably (as a net) get worse performance, since many, many admins
don't update their moderators files.

A modification of the 'checkgroups' message could be cooked up to
sync moderators, but many UUCP sites don't run auto-routing mailers;
they'd require full bang path routing from here to there.

However, your proposal is worth considering from the point of multiple
moderators.  For example, news.lists is sent to two moderators,
usenet@gatech.edu and rick@seismo.css.gov ... it would mean some
coordinating work had to be done by the moderators, but would reduce
delays in reposting the message, and would provide multiple mail paths
to the moderators, increasing reliability of delivery.

The best part about this: it can be done NOW, with no changes to the
software.  The user doesn't have to learn anything new, either.  It's
an interim solution, but it would help.

Now it just means a group moderator has to agree to 'share' the duties.
I don't know if you'd get many, but that's a different problem.

..Bob
-- 
Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept.   page@ulowell.{uucp,edu,csnet}