bincancels in linux.kernel
Andrew,
You're bincancelling messages in linux.kernel, a newsgroup fed by a mail2news gateway. The gated list is [email protected] (Cc), a list to which sometimes binary patches are posted.
IMHO binaries are acceptable in linux.kernel. Could you consider stopping bincancels in linux.kernel or even linux.*? Thanks,
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Erik Hensema ([email protected])
Quoted 6 lines · Erik Hensema
Andrew,
You're bincancelling messages in linux.kernel, a newsgroup fed by a
mail2news gateway. The gated list is [email protected] (Cc), a
list to which sometimes binary patches are posted. IMHO binaries are acceptable in linux.kernel. Could you consider stopping bincancels in linux.kernel or even linux.*? Thanks,
Why bother? I thought use of Usenet was deprecated...
Jeff
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Why bother? I thought use of Usenet was deprecated...
groups.google.com is absolutely the most useful source of "how do I get this to work" information in the world. I sure hope that never goes away, it's how I find out if your drivers are working :)
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--- Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm
Followup to: <[email protected]> By author: Jeff Garzik <[email protected]> In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
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Quoted 2 lines · Erik Hensema
Andrew,
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You're bincancelling messages in linux.kernel, a newsgroup fed by a mail2news gateway. The gated list is [email protected] (Cc), a list to which sometimes binary patches are posted.
IMHO binaries are acceptable in linux.kernel. Could you consider stopping bincancels in linux.kernel or even linux.*? Thanks,Why bother? I thought use of Usenet was deprecated...
Well, the official gateway linux.dev.kernel was closed a long time ago because it was seen as the Sole Reason For Spam On Linux-Kernel. IIRC it didn't change the spam volumes significantly, and really just resulted in more gateways and more mail loops, but...
I also don't really think I have the energy to restart everything I once set up, although I guess you never know. For now, though, too many other things to do...
-hpa
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<[email protected]> at work, <[email protected]> in private! "Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot." http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt <[email protected]>
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"Erik" == Erik Hensema <[email protected]> writes:
Erik> Andrew,
Erik> You're bincancelling messages in linux.kernel,
am I? hmm, that isn't intentional; looks like someone started feeding me linux.* traffic without telling me. I've suspended bincancels there for now, until I can sort that out.
Erik> a newsgroup fed by a mail2news gateway.
I don't personally consider that the fact that a group is gatewayed from a mailing list to be significant when deciding how to apply Usenet policies to it.
Erik> The gated list is [email protected] (Cc), a list to Erik> which sometimes binary patches are posted. IMHO binaries are Erik> acceptable in linux.kernel.
well, I would have to disagree (even if you don't think that binaries coming via the mailing list would be a problem, there is still the question of binaries posted via news - and the recent levels of abuse in comp.binaries.*.d, rec.*, vmsnet.* etc. suggests that there are plenty of people who are happy to post binaries anywhere they can regardless of the real purpose of a group)
[copied to Marco in case he wishes to clarify matters]
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Andrew.
Quoted 3 lines · Andrew Gierth
I don't personally consider that the fact that a group is gatewayed from a mailing list to be significant when deciding how to apply Usenet policies to it.
Andrew, please note that I as a user of linux.kernel do actually consider it significant. LKML (the gated list) is not part of Usenet and the mere fact that at some point it is gated to a newsgroup and transported further via NNTP doesn't make it a part. It's merely a service to people (like me) who find a news interface more convenient and/or have trouble dealing with the large volume of messages via mail.
Furthermore (or "that aside", if you want ... ), although I guess I could conceivably be sympathetic to your cause of ridding Usenet from as much in-appropriate content as possible, linux kernel patches, including binary encoded ones, are not in fact in-appropriate content for linux.kernel, either the list or the newsgroup.
Even on the mailing-list plain text patches are preffered, but when the patch is large gzipping it is actually recommended:
You for example today cancelled a completely appropriate post from Art Haas
(http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0212.0/0302.html) and I will admit that actually annoys me quite a bit.
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Erik> The gated list is [email protected] (Cc), a list to Erik> which sometimes binary patches are posted. IMHO binaries are Erik> acceptable in linux.kernel.
well, I would have to disagree (even if you don't think that binaries coming via the mailing list would be a problem, there is still the question of binaries posted via news
Fortunately, linux-kernel (the list) has active filtering itself, so anything in-appropriate comming in through news will be filtered out in the same way as the ones comming in through mail. Of course that doesn't help us NNTP readers, but I guess we'll just have to deal with that. LKML is not strictly non-binary-only, so cancelling simply on the criterium of binary attachments is very inappropriate.
Might I therefore respectfully suggest you keep the bin-cancelling suspended?
Rene.
P.S. offline for a while, so will not be able to reply quickly.
Quoted 3 lines · Andrew Gierth
I don't personally consider that the fact that a group is gatewayed from a mailing list to be significant when deciding how to apply Usenet policies to it.
Agreed.
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[copied to Marco in case he wishes to clarify matters]
(I'm the linux.* gateway operator.)
I'm not sure if there is a consensus about binaries in linux.* groups which do not match *.binar*. OTOH last year I added linux.* to the default cleanfeed configuration linux.* in the list of groups where binaries are permitted and nobody ever complained.
If you want to be sure that the hierarchy is not hijacked by warez kiddies you can just cancel everything not posted from /\.bofh\.it$/.
The real problem with linux.* is that when I started maintaining it I only had the time to write the mail->news part, and never finished the mail->news side, which has to be authenticated to avoid spam. The plan is to have moderated groups where all articles are either directly gated from the mailing list or first checked by my robomoderation software, but I don't know when I'll find the time to implement this.
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ciao, Marco
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"Marco" == Marco d'Itri <[email protected]> writes:
[copied to Marco in case he wishes to clarify matters]
Marco> (I'm the linux.* gateway operator.)
Marco> I'm not sure if there is a consensus about binaries in linux.* Marco> groups which do not match *.binar*. OTOH last year I added Marco> linux.* to the default cleanfeed configuration linux.* in the Marco> list of groups where binaries are permitted and nobody ever Marco> complained.
did they notice, though?
(I'd suggest linux.binaries.*, if not for the fact that people would probably start posting distribution CDs and apps there.)
Marco> If you want to be sure that the hierarchy is not hijacked by Marco> warez kiddies you can just cancel everything not posted from Marco> /\.bofh\.it$/.
you could have put that in cleanfeed too :-)
Cancelling after-the-fact is always only going to be second best, and the only reason I do it at all is because the alternative is to do nothing and watch the problem get worse.
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Andrew.
Quoted 6 lines · Andrew Gierth
Marco> I'm not sure if there is a consensus about binaries in linux.* Marco> groups which do not match *.binar*. OTOH last year I added Marco> linux.* to the default cleanfeed configuration linux.* in the Marco> list of groups where binaries are permitted and nobody ever Marco> complained.
did they notice, though?
Who knows? But I suppose they will notice if this would ever become a problem.
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(I'd suggest linux.binaries.*, if not for the fact that people would probably start posting distribution CDs and apps there.)
Everything should be gated below linux.binaries.* then... The reason I think it's acceptable to not do this is that the traffic is low even when a few binaries are gated.
Someday[1] I plan to create a linux.binaries.patches group to distribute kernel patches, but as usual it will be moderated.
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Marco> If you want to be sure that the hierarchy is not hijacked by Marco> warez kiddies you can just cancel everything not posted from Marco> /\.bofh\.it$/.
you could have put that in cleanfeed too :-)
At the time I still hoped to be able to switch the groups to moderated soon.
[1] Or closer, if somebody will contribute a script able to detect new kernel patches in a kernel.org mirror...
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ciao, Marco
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well, I would have to disagree (even if you don't think that binaries coming via the mailing list would be a problem, there is still the question of binaries posted via news - and the recent levels of abuse in comp.binaries.*.d, rec.*, vmsnet.* etc. suggests that there are plenty of people who are happy to post binaries anywhere they can regardless of the real purpose of a group)
Andrew.
IMO, the person who makes the decision to cancel automatically takes the
responsibility for ensuring the cancellation doesn't suppress legitimate content. If you don't have the time and energy to do it right, then don't do it.
Spam is bad, but suppressing useful legitimate content because of
unsophisticated spam-checking algorithms is worse. Especially in this case where it's not difficult to develop a more sophisticated algorithm, for example, one that exempts posts that started on the mailing list.
DS
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"David" == David Schwartz <[email protected]> writes:
David> Spam is bad, but suppressing useful legitimate content
David> because of unsophisticated spam-checking algorithms
this is nothing to do with spam; that's not the only form of abuse that exists.
Perhaps you also missed the point from my first message that a) I don't intentionally receive the linux.* groups and therefore had not previously needed to consider whether they were getting binaries and b) that I stopped as soon as this was drawn to my attention. (I did already have in place exemptions for all the generally-known binaries hierarchies.)
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Andrew.
Quoted 7 lines · Andrew Gierth
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"David" == David Schwartz <[email protected]> writes:
David> Spam is bad, but suppressing useful legitimate content
David> because of unsophisticated spam-checking algorithmsthis is nothing to do with spam; that's not the only form of abuse that exists.
My arguments apply equal well to all forms of abuse.
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Perhaps you also missed the point from my first message that a) I don't intentionally receive the linux.* groups and therefore had not previously needed to consider whether they were getting binaries and b) that I stopped as soon as this was drawn to my attention. (I did already have in place exemptions for all the generally-known binaries hierarchies.)
No, I caught those points. However, you cut the comments I was responding to
Quoted 6 lines · and then pretended that I was responding to your actions. You said:
well, I would have to disagree (even if you don't think that binaries coming via the mailing list would be a problem, there is still the question of binaries posted via news - and the recent levels of abuse in comp.binaries.*.d, rec.*, vmsnet.* etc. suggests that there are plenty of people who are happy to post binaries anywhere they can regardless of the real purpose of a group)
And *that* is what I was responding to.
DS