🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1994Feb18.020404.13892@news.yale.edu>, una@doliolum.biology.yale.edu (Una Smith) writes:
>What about sci.answers and SCIFAQ-L?  At present, sci.answers is a
>subscriber, via NETNEWS@AUVM, with the NOMAIL option set, so no mail
>goes from the list to the newsgroup.

In this case the subscribers to the mailing list know what they are
getting -- a redistribution of a newsgroup with no opportunity to
respond. In the opposite case the Usenet users have no way of knowing
that the gateway is uni-directional.

>Aren't there a few mailing lists that are set PRIVATE, so only
>subscribers' articles are distributed?  Articles sent to these
>lists via Usenet newsgroups may be refused if the original sender
>is not a subscriber, thus to be seen on the mailing list side, the
>sender must subscribe to the mailing list, even though posting to
>a newsgroup.  Such subscribers may have the NOMAIL option set for
>themselves, to avoid getting mail from the list in addition to
>reading the newsgroup.

That is true, and that would be acceptable since the people who post are
sent e-mail by the listserv saying why their post was rejected. The list
owner's address is included so they have a human they can write to if
they do not understand things.

>>My primary concern with unidirectional gateways is that no one on the
>>Usenet side expects them.
>
>No one expects them on the mailing list end either.  This is all a
>kludge, but then I know of some mighty snarled groups of mailing
>lists that redistribute mail from one to the other in ways that very
>few participants ever realize.  And there are some newsgroup
>re-direction messes too, unfortunately.

True -- but we don't have to make things worse, do we?  Most of these
mazes were set up in the early days of the net, when the points of
connection were few, frequently changed and unstable.

Jim McIntosh (jim@american.edu)
The American University
Washington, DC USA 20016-8019