Re: Mail posting in newsgroups in Gnus

[Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@panix.com>]

The internet standard for email message delivery is to try for 240 hours 
or 10 days whichever comes first then return delivery error report to 
the sender if delivery has failed in those 240 hours or 10 days.  It was 
designed that way since the internet's original purpose was to survive a 
nuclear attack.

On Fri, 13 May 2016, Bob Proulx wrote:

> Date: Fri, 13 May 2016 20:55:18
> From: Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com>
> To: N. Raghavendra <raghu@hri.res.in>
> Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Mail posting in newsgroups in Gnus
> 
> N. Raghavendra wrote:
>> I read the mailing lists I am subscribed to as newsgroups through Gmane.
>
> Many people do.  All good and okay.
>
>> Lately, I've been having problems with posting through Gmane --- posts
>> don't reach the mailing list for several hours, first postings to a list
>> don't trigger an auto-authorization message from Gmane, etc.
>
> I just want to say here that mail isn't instant messenger or IRC.  It
> is a store and forward protocol.  We are so used to mail being
> delivered very quickly, almost immediately, that when it isn't
> immediate we think something is wrong.  But most of the time
> everything is working as designed.  The mail will queue and then retry
> and send later.  Plus often the delay is in the lists.gnu.org mail
> queue and there isn't anything we can do about that.
>
> Also no gnu.org mailing list should send automatic responses.  Because
> anyone can mail anything with any return address to a mailing list.
> Spammers use that to create "backscatter spam" where either the
> message is bounced back to the target vicitim or the target victim is
> hit with endless autoreplies from everywhere in a denial of service
> attack.  Having autoreplies enabled previously has landed
> lists.gnu.org onto the DNSBLs as a bad citizen previously.  Therefore
> autoreplies are not allowed.
>
> Also one need not be subscribed in order to post.  GNU mailing lists
> are mostly either for bug reports or for getting help such as this
> list.  Forcing people to subscribe in order to post a bug report is
> too restrictive.  Therefore like most free libre community mailing
> lists our lists are open to non-subscribers.  However this means that
> we hold all new posters for moderation.  This applies to both
> subscribers and non-subscribers alike.  Otherwise there would be too
> much spam.
>
> These requirements mean that there is a delay upon initial contact.
> But hopefully the subscribers here are happy with the hopefully very
> low level of spam to the mailing lists due to these actions.
>
> Your address is both whitelisted and subscribed.  Therefore you have
> both posted and have subscribed.  There will be no moderation of your
> messages unless you change your address.
>
>> So, I am wondering if it is possible to post articles and followups in
>> Gmane newsgroups by email.
>
> Yes.  It is just email.  However the technicalities you ask about with
> gnus are beyond me as I do not know very much about it.
>
>> For example, if I am in the summary buffer of the
>> gmane.emacs.orgmode group, and hit `a', I'd like Gnus to start
>> composing a mail message to emacs-orgmode@gnu.org.  Similarly, if I
>> am in the summary buffer of that group and hit "F", I'd like Gnus to
>> start composing a *mail* reply to the selected article, with
>> emacs-orgmode@gnu.org as the "To" address.  Is there a way to do
>> this?
>
> I do not know the answer to your question and leave this to others to
> answer.
>
>> I was reading about group parameters in the manual.  Will setting
>> to-address and to-list parameters of the gmane.emacs.orgmode group to
>> emacs-orgmode@gnu.org do what I've described above?  Unfortunately, I
>> can't test it without spamming the mailing list with test messages.
>
> In theory this is just email, simply needs the In-Reply-To: and
> References: set correctly, and that is all.  However I don't know
> about the details of the interface you are asking about.  Actually
> getting that working might be difficult.  What you are asking about is
> normal if one subscribes to the mailing list and replies to the
> messages using mail (or gnus) normally.
>
>> PS: My apologies if you get multiple copies of this message.  I tried
>> sending it through Gmane earlier.
>
> Both came through.
>
> Bob
>
>

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