RE: Suggestion

["Suresh Ramasubramanian" <mallet@xxxxxxx>]

Saurabh Garg [Sunday, March 04, 2001 12:02 AM]:

> Can a news server be deployed at linux-india.org so that the list members
> dont have to check their mails and put a separate account for this list. A
> news server would be highly customizable and efficient.

Several people prefer using mailing lists because of reasons like --

1. A list is easy to access when travelling (or when you have access from an
office network behind a firewall, a cybercafe etc)

2. some ISPs like Satyam and VSNL have been forced to router-block access to
other NNTP servers (they did that a couple of years ago when faced with a
UDP)

That said, it is still feasible, thanks to mail2news gateways.  Shane
Wegener runs a service like this at lists.cm.nu (I think) for the
comp.mail.sendmail newsgroup, using GNU/Mailman.

The basic process is that posts to the newsgroup are automatically remailed
to list subscribers, who can reply to the mail, which gets sent to the
newsgroup.  Of course, you have to be careful about hitting "reply-all" -
people hate getting cc'd on newsgroup posts.  Also, stuff like a killfile
doesn't work out too well (procmail helps, but still, not fetching the
article at all is what a killfile is meant for ...).

	-s