[plug] plug mailing list vs Forum

[Bernd Felsche]

On Friday 25 June 2004 15:42, James Devenish wrote:

> We would run our own NNTP server and it would not be part of
> USENET per se. However, I presume we would need some sort of
> access control (otherwise, there could be robots that scan for
> public news services to harvest addresses or send spam). I don't
> know enough about open source daemons' access controls to propose
> how to limit the read/post privileges to plug at plug subscribers.

RTFM :-)

leafnode2, which is arguably the simplest news server, provides for
authentication. And the authentication is within leafnode; so it's
not necessary to create hundreds of "accounts" on a Linux machine.

The shortcoming is that the authentication isn't really "secure";
but then; we're not guarding the Crown Jewels; are we Bough?

> The greater flaw with the NNTP idea (although I would like to read
> plug with my newsreader sometimes) is that it would not impose
> forum-like 'categories'. Obviously, forum Categories would be

Newsgroups.

> useful for people looking to use the archives as their first point
> of inquiry. The only way to really achieve this would be through
> groups, yet I cannot imagine how the Mailman gating mechanisms
> could cope with that. Also, categorisation could backfire: people

This has all been done before; mail2news gateways have been around
(almost) as long as Usenet. Multiple newsgroups map to multiple
mailing lists; and there is always the "catch-all" in both cases.
And for the masochist; the possibility of an "everything" mailing
list.

-- 
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