Managing groups added from within gnus

[Philipp Haselwarter]

Hi,

I'm having some trouble with gnus blocking when some servers aren't
avalable. I just tried to start gnus ("Gnus v5.13") at my uni's library
where port 119 (nntp) is blocked. gnus just sat there for ages and
blocked, as it obviously couldn't connect to news.gmane.org.
I tried `gnus-unplugged' but that wasn't any different.

Eventually I had to C-g out, resulting in gnus not connecting at all
(imaps connection would have been possible but gnus just aborted all
together).

So I was wondering, how do I disable servers/groups that I'm subscribed
to but that I have not configured in my .gnus.el but through the group
buffer (`gnus-group-browse-foreign-server')?

This kind of group has been buggering me for a while now: Their whole
configuration and existence seems to come from the (for me) mysterious
.newsrc.eld.
When I add a new subscription on one gnus instance I have to manually
add it on every other instance.

Isn't there a more sane way to manage those groups?
I somewhat see the interest of keeping lusers from editing the
.newsrc.eld by hand, but why isn't it possible to separate the whole
subscription aspect from the groups' state properties (marks, ticks
etc)?
The whole handling of those groups is too obscure to me, I don't even
know what variable I'd have to reset to take them out (when a
secondary-select-method is making me trouble I can simple get it out of
the way by removing it from the list).

Suggestions on how to deal with those groups highly appreciated,
cheers,

-- 
Philipp Haselwarter