[Pan-users] Re: gmane & pan = black hole

[Duncan]

"Danny Milosavljevic" <address@hidden>
posted address@hidden,
excerpted below, on  Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:25:43 +0200:

> I've been trying to use gmane with pan, but posting a message to gmane.test 
> will
> 1) not result in error, but
> 2) not show up in the group, ever
> 
> Any clue what could be wrong / how to find out (perfectly possible
> that I just misconfigured something... but I do get the auth mail once
> and once I replied to it, and post something again, it will not
> reappear - which makes me think I am "authorized", yes?)
> 
> I don't really understand how gmane works... does it post to the
> mailing list on my behalf but using its mail account? Or how?
> *confused*
> 
> Then again, maybe this is solely a gmane problem and I'm being
> seriously off-topic here :)

A number of us use gmane (I read your message and am posting this reply
with it), and it's a news server, so using it (with PAN) is certainly
topical. =8^)

I'm not quite sure how gmane.test works, as I've never used it and I can't
see it being linked to a mailing list like most of the groups on the
server are, but I've been subscribed to gmane.discuss (which isn't list
related to my knowledge) at times, and I had no trouble posting there.

The process of posting to most groups/lists on the server, however, will
normally require two steps of authentication, the one thru gmane, replying
to the auth mail, which you mentioned, and a second, mailing-list-specific
step.  

Most lists (groups on gmane) will only take posts from subscribers,
so you'll have to subscribe to the list in ordered to post thru gmane. The
gmane website has the details for each group/list, what the listserv
address is and all that.  Most listservs have a "vacation" mode, which
will subscribe you and let you post, without actually mailing you the
messages from the group.  That's what you'll want to use if you read and
post thru gmane, since it will let your gmane posts thru without sending
your mail the messages you are reading on gmane anyway.  An alternative
would be the "digest" mode, which will collect the messages and send them
as a single mail once a day or once a week (depending on list traffic and
mailserv settings).  That option would keep your mail traffic lower, but
give you an archive of posts in the form of the digests, for reference or
if gmane fails for you at some point (gmane's admin will sometimes
blacklist whole IP blocks for abuse... if someone on your ISP and in your
IP block is abusing them... you may be cut off from the nntp interface
access for awhile, tho you'll still be able to use and post thru the web
interface, but that's not as convenient and can be harder to track threads
and what you've already read, in which case the digest can be very useful).

As for how it works... most groups on gmane are listed as "moderated",
which means the news server forwards any posts to the group to a
"moderator" whose email address will be on file, and who then decides
whether the post should be approved for posting to the group or not. This
is a standard arrangement used on news servers other than gmane as well,
for various "moderated" groups. In the case of gmane, this "moderator" is
simply the address of the listserv, so once you've replied to the gmane
authorizor, gmane simply forwards your posts to the listserv, which then
posts them or not based on its configuration.  Normally, that will mean
that you have to have registered with the listserv so it knows you you are
too, or it will simply drop the message.  (There are a few "open" lists
that take posts from unsubscribed people as well, which won't require
registering with the listserv, but these are rare now days as they tend to
be fairly quickly overwhelmed with spam.)

Of course, there are a few "read-only" groups on gmane as well.  These
are normally announce lists and the like that correspond to read-only
lists, with only a single authorized poster or group.  These will drop any
post attempts, but PAN should error out if you attempt to post to them
anyway.

As I said, I'm not sure about gmane.test, but your attempts to post to
other groups/lists were likely failing as you hadn't subscribed using your
posting address to the list in question.  I can verify that gmane works
for this group/list, as I'm using it, so once you are setup for it, you
should be able to post at least here, and can therefore (hopefully) use it
to send your reply to this, testing in the process.  =8^)



-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman