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There are people who will hear about your group who do not have access to network news distributions or software. You may want to set up a mailing list that allows your group to be a resource for those who have email access but no NetNews access. Here are a couple of approaches you will want to consider.
Rich Salz has written a package named “newsgate” that is in wide spread use for bidirectionally gatewaying articles posted to a newsgroup into email. Rich has turned over the maintenance for newsgate to the Internet Software Consortium. You can retrieve a copy of the sources to newsgate at ftp://ftp.isc.org/isc/inn/contrib/newsgate.tar.Z.
His kit provides two programs for “linking” RFC 822 Mail messages and RFC 1036 Network News articles. Each half of the conversion is handled by a different program, mail2news or news2mail. A few utility programs are also included.
With these programs and the right set of mail aliases, news sys and active file entries, it is possible to build any set of moderated, unmoderated, one-way, or bi-directional gateways between any set of news and mail groups and lists that you may need to support your group.
Installation instructions (sample /usr/lib/news/newsfeeds and /etc/aliases entries are provided in the documentation for newsgate.
NOTE: Even though the documentation tells you to use inews, you should use rnews instead and please be careful not to produce loops!
Another method of gatewaying is via LISTSERV gateways. It is relatively easy to arrange a two-way gateway between a BITNET list and a moderated group. (For example, the group <html><a href=“news:comp.compilers”>comp.compilers</a></html> and the list COMPIL-L@AMERICAN.EDU carry the same content.) It works automatically; the gateway there picks up messages from the group as they arrive and sends them to the list. It also forwards submissions to the moderator. The moderator can do any necessary list maintenance, such as deleting the addresses of people who forget to unsubscribe before their accounts expired, via email.
If you are interested in finding out more about establishing a LISTSERV gateway send a message to listserv@auvm.american.edu with a body of
send netgate policy
and an informational file will be returned via email. Questions about Listserv/NetNews gateways can be posted to <html><a href=“news:bit.admin”>bit.admin</a></html> or sent to news-admin@auvm.american.edu or NEWS-ADM@AUVM.BITNET.
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<small> <em>NetNews Moderator's Handbook</em> © <a href=copyright.html>Copyright <strong>The Landfield Group</strong>, 1996-2001</a> <br>All rights reserved </small>
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