Discussion:
[ADMIN] Welcome to news.admin.net-abuse.policy
(too old to reply)
Kathy Morgan
2009-09-13 21:07:46 UTC
Permalink
news.admin.net-abuse.policy (NANAP) is re-opening under new management
but the same policies. At least, that's the intention--it's possible
that glitches or bugs we haven't yet discovered will crop up, but if
they do we'll squash them as quickly as possible. Subject tags will
continue to be required, and a proper subject tag should result in
automatic approval.

NANAP is a newsgroup for discussion of policy regarding abuse of
shared networks, or 'net-abuse'. It is a robo-moderated forum,
controlled by a moderation 'bot that automatically
approves anything that it thinks is an on-topic post.

HOW TO POST
===========

(This section assumes that you already know how to post to Usenet
newsgroups in general.)

As NANAP is a robomoderated forum, all messages must pass through the
moderation bot before they hit the network. Things that must be true for
the message to be approved:

o The message must have a subject tag, or some text inside a pair
of square brackets at the beginning of the subject line. This can
be anything, but should be something that indicates what the post
is going to be about in general. Sample valid subject lines:

[ADMIN] Welcome to news.admin.net-abuse.policy!
Re: [ADMIN] Is this group still on?
[email] About that new spam bill...
[AIM] AOL to start selling usernames to spammers!
[usenet] Posting binaries to comp.binaries.*

Sample Invalid:

(ADMIN) Welcome to news.admin.net-abuse.policy!
{ADMIN} Is this group still on?

For reference, the perl to look at this is:

my $tag = $subject =~ m%^\s*(?:Re:\s*)?\[(.*)\].*%;

o The message must not be a binary, or formatted in HTML. It should
be formatted in standard, ASCII-formatted text (or whatever Usenet
turns into over the years).

o The message must have less than 70% quoted text.

o The message must not be clearly off-topic or abusive. This is
accomplished through basic pattern matching on the headers or body
of the message, and is only implemented when there is a problem.

If all of these criteria are passed, then the message is approved and an
approval notice is sent back to the poster. If the post is not approved,
then a rejection notice is sent back to the poster. Note that these
notices will not arrive if the return address is faked; as such, use of
spamblocked addresses is discouraged.

WHAT TO POST
============

Anything regarding actual abuse of a shared public network such as the
Internet, Usenet, IRC, AIM, or other similar networks is on-topic in
NANAP. This includes spam of all sorts, mailbombings, system security,
legal workings as regards to abuse, blocklisting, and anything that would
be on-topic anywhere in the news.admin.net-abuse.* hierarchy,

What is not on-topic is discussion of abuse *on* the net, except in as
much as it relates to abuse *of* the net, such as flamewars and off-topic
posts. Specifically, ongoing personal fights and flamewars from other
groups will not be allowed in NANAP.

ORIGINAL CHARTER
================

The following charter was set down in 1996, when the group was created.
Remarkably, it is still essentially correct.

News.admin.net-abuse.policy is a moderated forum for discussion of
policy and site-management issues related to net abuse. Possible
topics include Acceptable Use Policies, what actions should be taken
against abusers, discussion of third-party cancel messages, possible
actions against abusive sites such as rogue site declarations,
discussion of what is and is not net abuse, and so forth.

News.admin.net-abuse.policy is a moderated forum. The robomoderator
of the group will disallow any and all crossposted messages, message
spews, binary messages, and any possible attacks on the group as
required.

News.admin.net-abuse.policy is moderated by a robot moderator, hosted on
robomod.net. The robot will automatically approve and post
messages that:

o Are not crossposted.
o Contain only text formatted for <78 columns, excepting quoted
material.
o Cannot be determined to directly violate the charter of the group
by the robot moderator alone (for which the criterion will be
published.)

Messages not approved by the robot moderator will be sent back to the
sender. Changes to the robot moderator can
only be enacted by a majority vote of the then-current operators;
similarly, operators can be added or removed by a majority vote of the
then-current operators.

The news.admin.net-abuse.* hierarchy is for discussion of abuse of
Usenet and/or the Internet; it is not for discussion of abuse of groups
or individuals on such networks, such as flames, personal attacks, or
off-topic messages.

Binaries are specifically prohibited from all groups in the
news.admin.* hierarchy, except as examples of other abuse. All
messages removed by unauthorized cancels in the hierarchy will be
automatically reposted by Dave the Resurrector or a similar program,
at the discretion of the group moderator or, for the unmoderated
groups, the operator of the resurrector program. Spams, gateway
spews, and other attacks on the system itself will be removed as
appropriate, following standard Usenet guidelines.

There have been some changes to the effective charter of the group through
the years.

CURRENT MODERATION INFORMATION
==============================

NANAP is hosted on Robomod.net, courtesy of Brian Edmonds.

Kathy Morgan is currently the moderator of NANAP.

Moderator: ***@spamcop.net (Kathy Morgan)
Admin Contact Address: news-admin-net-abuse-policy-***@robomod.net
Article Submission Address: news-admin-net-abuse-policy-***@robomod.net

Archives are available through groups.google.com. Tim has also written a
public web interface to the group, available at:

http://news.killfile.org/
Kathy Morgan
2009-09-13 21:55:11 UTC
Permalink
Correction:

The article submission address for emailed postings is:

news-admin-net-abuse-***@robomod.net

Once the moderation relays have been updated with the new submission
address, normal posting should work. That may take a day or two, so
if posting doesn't work, you can send your post as email to the
corrected submission address above.
--
Kathy, new moderator
Kathy Morgan
2009-09-14 01:03:59 UTC
Permalink
Post by Kathy Morgan
Once the moderation relays have been updated with the new submission
address, normal posting should work. That may take a day or two, so
if posting doesn't work, you can send your post as email to the
corrected submission address above.
If this appears in the group, it will mean that at least one of the
moderation relays has been updated and normal posting should work.
--
Kathy, nanap moderator
Peter J Ross
2009-09-16 13:18:07 UTC
Permalink
In news.admin.net-abuse.policy on Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:07:46 -0400,
Kathy Morgan <***@aptalaska.net> wrote:

<...>
Post by Kathy Morgan
o The message must have a subject tag, or some text inside a pair
of square brackets at the beginning of the subject line.
Am I right in thinking that the tag no longer needs to be at the
start of the line?

<...>
Post by Kathy Morgan
my $tag = $subject =~ m%^\s*(?:Re:\s*)?\[(.*)\].*%;
If I'm right in what I think above, this is out of date.

<...>
Post by Kathy Morgan
Kathy Morgan is currently the moderator of NANAP.
Hurrah!

Now let's see if this post gets through...
--
PJR :-)
news.admin.announce (a low-volume, moderated Usenet group)
Read and post announcements of interest to news administrators.
See <http://www.robomod.net/news.admin.announce/info.html>.
Kathy Morgan
2009-09-17 07:34:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter J Ross
In news.admin.net-abuse.policy on Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:07:46 -0400,
<...>
Post by Kathy Morgan
o The message must have a subject tag, or some text inside a pair
of square brackets at the beginning of the subject line.
Am I right in thinking that the tag no longer needs to be at the
start of the line?
I believe that's correct, but I haven't actually tested it and don't
plan to advertise it, since I would prefer tags at the beginning of the
line.
Post by Peter J Ross
Post by Kathy Morgan
my $tag = $subject =~ m%^\s*(?:Re:\s*)?\[(.*)\].*%;
If I'm right in what I think above, this is out of date.
I may just delete that paragraph from future "welcome" postings, since I
don't actually know what code is being used to check for the tag.
--
Kathy
Frank Slootweg
2009-10-09 18:11:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by Kathy Morgan
news.admin.net-abuse.policy (NANAP) is re-opening under new management
but the same policies.
First of all, thank you for taking up the management of this group!
As I mentioned before in the old nanap, (IMO) the "Approved:" header
should not be changed without *first* *announcing* the change (in an
article which of course still has the old "Approved:" header).

The reason is that people (like me) filter on the "Approved:" header,
in order to filter out bogus articles from rogue servers.

I did not spot the new nanap until today, when I scanned Hamster's
Killfile-Log and spotted killed articles by reputable posters (Yes PJR,
for some reason that *includes* you! :-).

So I was 'lucky', but others might not, which might adversely effect
readership.

HTH.
Kathy Morgan
2009-10-10 06:58:36 UTC
Permalink
Post by Frank Slootweg
As I mentioned before in the old nanap, (IMO) the "Approved:" header
should not be changed without *first* *announcing* the change (in an
article which of course still has the old "Approved:" header).
The reason is that people (like me) filter on the "Approved:" header,
in order to filter out bogus articles from rogue servers.
Oh! I'm sure I must have read it when you mentioned it before, but I
completely forgot it. Unfortunately, it probably is too late to do
anything about it, but I'll check and see if I can make it happen.
--
Kathy
Tim Skirvin
2009-10-15 23:16:44 UTC
Permalink
Post by Frank Slootweg
As I mentioned before in the old nanap, (IMO) the "Approved:" header
should not be changed without *first* *announcing* the change (in an
article which of course still has the old "Approved:" header).
While putting the old moderation system back in place for long
enough to get that old 'Approved' header in place is burdensome, I can say
that the group was definitely handed over to Kathy, and that she's the
legitimate moderator.

- Tim Skirvin (***@killfile.org)
Ex-Moderator, much of news.admin.net-abuse.*
--
http://wiki.killfile.org/projects/usenet/nana/ news.admin.net-abuse.*
Peter J Ross
2009-10-23 05:39:34 UTC
Permalink
In news.admin.net-abuse.policy on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:16:44 -0400, Tim
Post by Tim Skirvin
Post by Frank Slootweg
As I mentioned before in the old nanap, (IMO) the "Approved:" header
should not be changed without *first* *announcing* the change (in an
article which of course still has the old "Approved:" header).
While putting the old moderation system back in place for long
enough to get that old 'Approved' header in place is burdensome, I can say
that the group was definitely handed over to Kathy, and that she's the
legitimate moderator.
Yes, Kathy is the legitimate moderator, whether the handover was
well-handled or not.

When even Tim Skirvin and I agree completely about something, there
probably isn't much room for controversy.

It would certainly be wrong (and technically abusive) for an
ex-moderator to add an obsolete Approved: line at this stage.

Btw, Kathy is absent on vacation until Sunday 25th October, but the
automated system seems to be working well in her absence.
--
PJR :-)
news.admin.announce (a low-volume, moderated Usenet group)
Read and post announcements of interest to news administrators.
See <http://www.robomod.net/news.admin.announce/info.html>.
Frank Slootweg
2009-10-09 19:48:26 UTC
Permalink
Kathy Morgan <***@aptalaska.net> wrote:
[...]
Post by Kathy Morgan
If all of these criteria are passed, then the message is approved and an
approval notice is sent back to the poster. If the post is not approved,
then a rejection notice is sent back to the poster. Note that these
notices will not arrive if the return address is faked; as such, use of
spamblocked addresses is discouraged.
Is this - approval/rejection notices - working for anybody?

My earlier article got posted, but I did not get an approval notice,
and my "Reply-To:" header - which was in the submitted/mailed copy - is
not present in the posted copy.
Kathy Morgan
2009-10-10 15:43:25 UTC
Permalink
Post by Frank Slootweg
[...]
Post by Kathy Morgan
If all of these criteria are passed, then the message is approved and an
approval notice is sent back to the poster. If the post is not approved,
then a rejection notice is sent back to the poster. Note that these
notices will not arrive if the return address is faked; as such, use of
spamblocked addresses is discouraged.
Is this - approval/rejection notices - working for anybody?
No, it doesn't seem to be, at least not entirely. My response to your
other post was approved but I didn't get any notice. My original
response to this message had too little new text and was held for review
by the moderation software, and I did get a notice about that. I
rejected the article and received a notice that the message had been
rejected, so it appears that approved articles do not get a notice but
rejected articles do get one.

I personally prefer not to receive notices telling me that an article
has been approved, so unless I hear a great outcry calling for a change,
I'll leave well enough alone and just change the text of the "Welcome"
announcement.
Post by Frank Slootweg
My earlier article got posted, but I did not get an approval notice,
and my "Reply-To:" header - which was in the submitted/mailed copy - is
not present in the posted copy.
I'll check with Brian Edmonds, who is hosting the group on Robomod, on
that. Removing the "Reply-To:" header is seriously broken behavior that
needs to be addressed.
--
Kathy, Moderator of nanap
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