Gmane up again

Gmane up again

[Emanuel Berg]

Great news, everyone!

Gmane is up again, including the auth mail
which one needs after changing e-mail or
posting to a previously unposted-to newsgroup
(or after coming back to computer life after
a half-year vacation down the Amazon.)

So now there is no real reason to use old
gnu.emacs.help (which breaks threads when one
replies to posts), because now, again, one can
use NNTP with Gmane and have the same old
Usenet experience, only without causing trouble
to the mailing list, the web archives, and
perhaps other places/people as well.

Gmane is actually in some ways better than old
Usenet, so not only is there no real reason to
stick with gnu.emacs.help, there are several
reasons to use Gmane instead. So now you just
have to do it!

Check out gmane.discuss for more on this.

Thanks as always for great engineering and
a great piece of paleo-software for the real
techno-technos!

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Gmane up again

[Amin Bandali]

Kudos and many thanks to Lars for fixing the autoauthorizer, and for
keeping gmane up and running all these years!

-amin

Re: Gmane up again

[Van L]

I've posted two followups to
gmane.emacs.help but have no idea
the message was accepted.

The left most margin has RA.
I guess R=Read. A=?

© 2019 Van L
  gpg using EEF2 37E9 3840 0D5D 9183  251E 9830 384E 9683 B835
  "What is connectivity?" -John Sculley

Re: Gmane up again

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Van L <van@scratch.space> writes:

> I've posted two followups to
> gmane.emacs.help but have no idea
> the message was accepted.
>
> The left most margin has RA.
> I guess R=Read. A=?

A=Answered (actually replied), as specified by `gnus-replied-mark'.
Unfortunately all that means is that, as far as Gnus knows, you've sent
a reply. It can't know if the reply was silently dropped.

Do you have to explicitly ask for authorization, or is it supposed to
ask for authorization on first post?

Re: Gmane up again

[Van L]

>> The left most margin has RA.
>> I guess R=Read. A=?
> 
> A=Answered (actually replied), as specified by `gnus-replied-mark'.
> Unfortunately all that means is that, as far as Gnus knows, you've sent
> a reply. It can't know if the reply was silently dropped.

Thank you for the insight.

> Do you have to explicitly ask for authorization, or is it supposed to
> ask for authorization on first post?

I saw in gmane.discuss something about
authorization but don't know what to do.

Re: Gmane up again

[Van L]

> Do you have to explicitly ask for authorization, or is it supposed to
> ask for authorization on first post?

The autoauthorizer requires an email-reply as follows

 -- quote
  
  You have sent a message to be posted on the
  gmane.emacs.help newsgroup.
  
  Before the message is posted on the newsgroup, you have
  to confirm that you exist.  Just reply to this message, and
  the message will be posted.
  
  
  You have to respond within one week.
  
  -- 
  Your friendly autoauthorizer at Gmane.org
  http://gmane.org/
  
 -- quote ends

I was expecting the prompt, like this, in news (not email).

Re: Gmane up again

[Emanuel Berg]

Van L wrote:

> I saw in gmane.discuss something about
> authorization but don't know what to do.

You just post a message to any Gmane newsgroup,
e.g. gmane.test.

Then you'll get a reply thru mail which you
will reply to. Then you get an additional mail
which says everything is OK, and then your
message appear in gmane.test.

You do this only once, but once for
every newsgroup.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Gmane up again

[Skip Montanaro]

> You just post a message to any Gmane newsgroup,
> e.g. gmane.test.

How do I get a list of available newsgroups? When I search for
"gmane", "emacs", "python", all I get is a picture of some laborers
digging up a street between trolley tracks.

Skip

Re: Gmane up again

[Robert Pluim]

Skip Montanaro <skip.montanaro@gmail.com> writes:

>> You just post a message to any Gmane newsgroup,
>> e.g. gmane.test.
>
> How do I get a list of available newsgroups? When I search for
> "gmane", "emacs", "python", all I get is a picture of some laborers
> digging up a street between trolley tracks.
>
> Skip

<http://gmane.org> has a search function, which might work. Otherwise
inside Gnus (you are using Gnus, right?) you can enter the server
buffer using '^', then hit 'RET' on the gmane server, and it will pull
the list of all the groups for you. You can subscribe from the
resulting buffer. (the only candidate I saw is
"gmane.emacs.python-mode").

Robert

Re: Gmane up again

[Emanuel Berg]

Skip Montanaro wrote:

>> You just post a message to any Gmane
>> newsgroup, e.g. gmane.test.
>
> How do I get a list of available newsgroups?
> When I search for "gmane", "emacs", "python",
> all I get is a picture of some laborers
> digging up a street between trolley tracks.

In the Gnus group buffer, do
`gnus-group-enter-server-mode', or just
`gnus-enter-server-buffer' non-interactively,
then go to

    nntp: news.gmane.org       (opened)

and hit RET for `gnus-server-read-server'.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Gmane up again

[Emanuel Berg]

Robert Pluim wrote:

> (the only candidate I saw is
> "gmane.emacs.python-mode").

Hits on news.gmane.org:

    gmane: 14703
    emacs:   317
    python:  493

With "count-regexp-hits", e.g.

    (count-regexp-hits "gmane" (point-min) (point-max))

from

    http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/emacs-init/count.el

SKILLS!

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Gmane up again

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Van L <van@scratch.space> writes:

>> Do you have to explicitly ask for authorization, or is it supposed to
>> ask for authorization on first post?
>
> The autoauthorizer requires an email-reply as follows
>
>  -- quote
>   
>   You have sent a message to be posted on the
>   gmane.emacs.help newsgroup.
>   
>   Before the message is posted on the newsgroup, you have
>   to confirm that you exist.  Just reply to this message, and
>   the message will be posted.
>   
>   
>   You have to respond within one week.
>   
>   -- 
>   Your friendly autoauthorizer at Gmane.org
>   http://gmane.org/
>   
>  -- quote ends
>
> I was expecting the prompt, like this, in news (not email).

I see. No, I think it could only come through email (gmane can't post
this to the public group, after all).

Re: Gmane up again

[Skip Montanaro]

> <http://gmane.org> has a search function, which might work. Otherwise
> inside Gnus (you are using Gnus, right?) you can enter the server
> buffer using '^', then hit 'RET' on the gmane server, and it will pull
> the list of all the groups for you. You can subscribe from the
> resulting buffer. (the only candidate I saw is
> "gmane.emacs.python-mode").

Thanks. I'm actually not a Gnus user (I know, strange as that may
seem). I was just trying the web interface. I will give Gnus a whirl.

Skip

Re: Gmane up again

[Emanuel Berg]

BTW, since I started using gmane.emacs.help
again, and not gnu.emacs.help, I have only kept
one of my two eyes at what's going on there,
but it seems like there is no gateway business
going on anymore?

For example, has anyone seen the message with
the subject "printing to Canon's imageCLASS
D480 from emacs on Window 10" which just turned
up in the newsgroup? Did you mailing list guys
get that?

The only thing I can think of, if the gateway
is indeed operational, is that Gnus deletes the
messages locally for me, as they
are duplicates in a manner of speaking.

I recall something like that or some option to
that end, but it is vague. And it seems
unlikely because the Gmane newsgroup is from
news.gmane.org, and gnu.emacs.help is from
nntp.aioe.org. Earlier, I think I saw
duplicates of the traffic all the time? And if
I didn't, how could I have participated in
discussions using gnu.emacs.help?

Perhaps there is no real need to save the
newsgroup since the Usenet ship is really
sinking and has been for ages, but one can't
help but feel sorry for the guys who post their
problems there, and likely would get help, if
only they did so on the mailing list or
Gmane newsgroup instead.

Also, I still don't know what program the
supposed gateway is, where it is located, who
operates it, and so on. Obviously it would be
totally up to them if they felt the effort
still worthwhile.

Another option could be to contact the Usenet
guys (here, nntp.aioe.org) and ask them to
remove gnu.emacs.help, which perhaps would
reduce confusion and have most of the guys
asking there instead come here.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Gmane up again

[Bob Proulx]

Emanuel Berg wrote:
> For example, has anyone seen the message with
> the subject "printing to Canon's imageCLASS
> D480 from emacs on Window 10" which just turned
> up in the newsgroup? Did you mailing list guys
> get that?
> 
> The only thing I can think of, if the gateway
> is indeed operational, is that Gnus deletes the
> messages locally for me, as they
> are duplicates in a manner of speaking.

Indeed I do not see any messages from the newsgroup relays here in
help-gnu-emacs mailing list with the last being January 4th.  This
correlates (correlation is not causation) with the IP address subnet
migration from the previous ISP to the new one.

I have no visibility into the newsgroup side of things.  Likewise I do
not know who to contact on the newsgroup side of things if it were to
get fixed.  If others were interested in the newsgroup gateway then
they would probably need to file a ticket with gnu sysadmin to look
into the problem.

Bob

Re: Gmane up again

[Emanuel Berg]

Bob Proulx wrote:

> Indeed I do not see any messages from the
> newsgroup relays here in help-gnu-emacs
> mailing list with the last being January 4th.
> This correlates (correlation is not
> causation) with the IP address subnet
> migration from the previous ISP to the
> new one.

Yeah, that should be that.

The traffic here on
help-gnu-emacs/gmane.emacs.help don't end up
there (gnu.emacs.help) either, so that means
the remaining traffic there is *Usenet only* -
that means, the group will die very soon.

I don't mind that except I feel at this point
we are ignoring the guys who try to reach the
Emacs community with their issues.
But I suppose they will learn fast enough.

> I have no visibility into the newsgroup side
> of things. Likewise I do not know who to
> contact on the newsgroup side of things if it
> were to get fixed.

I can drop the people at nntp.aioe.org a mail
and ask how it looks from their side.
I actually have no idea whatsoever how they,
and other Usenet providers (?), go about their
business. For example, if they add/remove
groups manually or if there is some
self-learning algorithm that does that...

> If others were interested in the newsgroup
> gateway then they would probably need to file
> a ticket with gnu sysadmin to look into
> the problem.

Which one?

https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/know.your.sysadmin.html

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Gmane up again

[Emanuel Berg]

Working for the removal of gnu.emacs.help is
perhaps not a good idea. Because that group is
mirrored on Google Groups! Which also has
a very-rudimentary-but-still interface for
replying to and posting posts.

Optimally, gmane.emacs.help would be the group
on display there, but perhaps that won't happen
for manpower, technical and/or legal reasons.

So to have the gateway operational would be the
best, I guess.

The material on GG is probably favored to some
degree by Google's search algorithms, and we
will sure look bad if people come to what is
the present state of gnu.emacs.help and think
that is representative of our small but
thriving community.

BTW this post has arrived on gnu.emacs.help:

    Poster: Nuno Silva

    Did something happen to the mailing list
    gateway? Posts now show up in
    gmane.emacs.help xor in gnu.emacs.help
    instead of appearing in both places.

Yes, sure looks like it!

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573