[OT] Posting to perl.beginners via google groups

S

sisyphus

Hi,
No problems posting to comp.lang.perl.modules and comp.lang.perl.misc,
but whenever I post to perl.beginners (which, I believe, is
moderated), the post simply fails to show up. I get the customary
"your post was successful" message ... and that's the end of it.

Is there something I can do to fix this ?
I'm posting via google groups (google.groups.com.au).

Cheers,
Rob
 
R

RedGrittyBrick

sisyphus said:
Hi,
No problems posting to comp.lang.perl.modules and comp.lang.perl.misc,

Those are Internet newsgroups. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsgroup

but whenever I post to perl.beginners

That isn't a newsgroup it is only a Google-group AFAIK.

(which, I believe, is moderated),

Which menas things don't show up until the moderator looks at them and
OK's them.

the post simply fails to show up.

Maybe the moderator is slower than you expect or rejected your posting
for some reason?

I get the customary
"your post was successful" message ... and that's the end of it.

Isn't that what you would expect? Presumably it means it is waiting for
the moderator to review it and either accept or reject it.

Is there something I can do to fix this ?
Yes


I'm posting via google groups (google.groups.com.au).

I recommend you read http://improve-usenet.org/
 
J

John W. Krahn

sisyphus said:
Hi,
No problems posting to comp.lang.perl.modules and comp.lang.perl.misc,
but whenever I post to perl.beginners (which, I believe, is
moderated), the post simply fails to show up. I get the customary
"your post was successful" message ... and that's the end of it.

Is there something I can do to fix this ?
I'm posting via google groups (google.groups.com.au).

If you want to subscribe to the Perl Beginners *mailing* *list* go to:

http://lists.cpan.org/search.cgi?cat=Beginners


John
 
S

sisyphus

RedGrittyBrick wrote:

Yes, I have this vague idea that the moderator might simply be
refusing to allow anything through that originates from google groups.
(That would be quite ironic if perl.beginners is a *google* group.)
Which is still relevant becausehttp://learn.perl.org/says

"You can now read the beginners lists ... with your newsreader ... from
the news server nntp.perl.org. You can also browse it on the web"

That statement is quite correct - it doesn't make any claims that one
can actually *post*.

I think I'll subscribe (as John suggested), using my gmail account. I
hardly ever check that inbox - nor do I care what gets sent to it. But
"subscription" should allow me to post (from that account) to the
beginners group on the rare occasions that I have something to offer.

I'll also keep an eye out for Sinan's post - which I don't see as yet.
It would be nice to know the grounds upon which the moderator rejects
my posts.

Thanks guys.

Cheers,
Rob
 
P

Peter J. Holzer

Yes, I have this vague idea that the moderator might simply be
refusing to allow anything through that originates from google groups.
(That would be quite ironic if perl.beginners is a *google* group.)

The moderator might not even get messages posted through google groups.
For a moderated group, the newsserver where you post (Google Groups in
this case) needs to be set up to send all postings by email to the
moderator's address. The address is of course different for each
moderated group, although many hierarchies have a common pattern. If
Google Groups wasn't careful, they may send the submissions to
(e-mail address removed) or something like that ...

hp
 
E

Eric Pozharski

The moderator might not even get messages posted through google groups.
For a moderated group, the newsserver where you post (Google Groups in
this case) needs to be set up to send all postings by email to the
moderator's address. The address is of course different for each
moderated group, although many hierarchies have a common pattern. If
Google Groups wasn't careful, they may send the submissions to
(e-mail address removed) or something like that ...

Google Groups isn't newsserver

{59874:50} [0:0]$ host -a groups.google.com
groups.google.com CNAME groups.l.google.com
groups.l.google.com A 74.125.39.138
groups.l.google.com A 74.125.39.100
groups.l.google.com A 74.125.39.101
groups.l.google.com A 74.125.39.102
groups.l.google.com A 74.125.39.113
groups.l.google.com A 74.125.39.139
groups.l.google.com MX 5 gmr-smtp-in.l.google.com
groups.l.google.com MX 10 alt1.gmr-smtp-in.l.google.com
groups.l.google.com MX 10 alt2.gmr-smtp-in.l.google.com
{59982:52} [0:130]$ time telnet groups.google.com nntp
Trying 74.125.39.113...
Trying 74.125.39.139...
Trying 74.125.39.138...
^C

real 8m25.432s
user 0m0.004s
sys 0m0.004s
 
P

Peter J. Holzer

On 2009-04-22, Peter J. Holzer <[email protected]> wrote:

[postings to a moderated group via google groups vanish]
Google Groups isn't newsserver

Of course it is. You can read and write usenet messages there and it
exchanges these messages with other news servers. So it is a
newsserver.

It doesn't offer a (public) NNTP interface, but that is irrelevant for
this problem.

hp
 
E

Eric Pozharski

On 2009-04-22, Peter J. Holzer <[email protected]> wrote:

[postings to a moderated group via google groups vanish]
Google Groups isn't newsserver

Of course it is. You can read and write usenet messages there and it
exchanges these messages with other news servers. So it is a
newsserver.

There's no NNTP capable software on this host --

As we already have seen, that "newsserver" doesn't listen on the
standard port. And it doesn't listen on the other port too:

{7342:10} [0:0]$ time telnet groups.google.com 433
Trying 74.125.39.101...
Trying 74.125.39.102...
Trying 74.125.39.113...
^C

real 6m22.382s
user 0m0.004s
sys 0m0.008s
{7758:11} [0:130]$

According to RFC3977, newsserver MUST send a greeting (section 3.1.).
Greetings are described in section 5.1.1.

{5732:7} [0:0]$ telnet groups.google.com www
Trying 209.85.137.100...
Connected to groups.l.google.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
Connection closed by foreign host.
{6114:8} [0:1]$

There's no greeting either.

Furthermore <http://www.disenter.com/>,
<http://ecalame.tripod.com/free.html>, <http://www.freeusenetnews.com/>
(3 leading lists of
<http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Usenet/Public_News_Servers/>) don't list
groups.google.com as a newsserver.

"Usenet Improvement Project" was already mentioned.

I fail to see, how groups.google.com constitutes a "newsserver".
It doesn't offer a (public) NNTP interface, but that is irrelevant for
this problem.

I should admit that groups.google.com definetely provides functionality
(to some extent) of "newsreader". But then, OP shouldn't wait
newsserver capabilities from newsreader, should him?
 
P

Peter J. Holzer

On 2009-04-22, Peter J. Holzer <[email protected]> wrote:

[postings to a moderated group via google groups vanish]
The moderator might not even get messages posted through google groups.
For a moderated group, the newsserver where you post (Google Groups in
this case) needs to be set up to send all postings by email to the
moderator's address. The address is of course different for each
moderated group, although many hierarchies have a common pattern. If
Google Groups wasn't careful, they may send the submissions to
(e-mail address removed) or something like that ...

Google Groups isn't newsserver

Of course it is. You can read and write usenet messages there and it
exchanges these messages with other news servers. So it is a
newsserver.

There's no NNTP capable software on this host --

You are confusing "Usenet" and "NNTP". NNTP is only one of many
protocols to exchange Usenet messages. By far the most common these
days, but not the only one. So newsservers without NNTP capable software
are entirely possible. (But google almost certainly does have NNTP
capable software on the cluster of hosts known as "Google Groups" - they
exchange News with other news servers and it would be crazy to use
anything other than NNTP for that. They just don't offer an NNTP
interface for NUAs - you have to use their web interface).
According to RFC3977, newsserver MUST send a greeting (section 3.1.).
Greetings are described in section 5.1.1.

{5732:7} [0:0]$ telnet groups.google.com www

How do you get the crazy idea that RFC3977 has anything to say about
what should happen on the HTTP port? Ok, don't answer this question, it
was purely rhetorical.

hp
 
N

Nathan Keel

Peter said:
[postings to a moderated group via google groups vanish]

The moderator might not even get messages posted through google
groups. For a moderated group, the newsserver where you post
(Google Groups in this case) needs to be set up to send all
postings by email to the moderator's address. The address is of
course different for each moderated group, although many
hierarchies have a common pattern. If Google Groups wasn't
careful, they may send the submissions to
(e-mail address removed) or something like that ...

Google Groups isn't newsserver

Of course it is. You can read and write usenet messages there and it
exchanges these messages with other news servers. So it is a
newsserver.

There's no NNTP capable software on this host --

You are confusing "Usenet" and "NNTP". NNTP is only one of many
protocols to exchange Usenet messages. By far the most common these
days, but not the only one. So newsservers without NNTP capable
software are entirely possible. (But google almost certainly does have
NNTP capable software on the cluster of hosts known as "Google Groups"
- they exchange News with other news servers and it would be crazy to
use anything other than NNTP for that. They just don't offer an NNTP
interface for NUAs - you have to use their web interface).
According to RFC3977, newsserver MUST send a greeting (section 3.1.).
Greetings are described in section 5.1.1.

{5732:7} [0:0]$ telnet groups.google.com www

How do you get the crazy idea that RFC3977 has anything to say about
what should happen on the HTTP port? Ok, don't answer this question,
it was purely rhetorical.

hp

Good grief, you people will argue about anything (admittedly, so will I,
sometimes). I was looking at hardware/tool tips about people's
experience the other day online and every place that people said their
experiences, all turned into fighting about who was right or wrong,
even if it was just one person's experience or opinion vs. another.
You'd think they were working for the company who they were defending
the product for about people's negative experiences. Lame.
 
N

Nathan Keel

Sherm said:
You must be new here! Welcome to usenet. :)

sherm--

Not new at all. While I took a break away from usenet for a while, I
recall the names of people that are involved in this as professional
Perl coders and it's still a little disappointing to see wasteful
contributions. I think people build a name and some respect here and
then they start getting too confortable and feel it's acceptable for
them to bitch and whine and moan and argue and debate about pointless,
off topic things. Not that I'm helping to contribute anything more
useful by replying, but it really gets old. I'm starting to remember
why usenet is dying and why I stopped bothering.
 
N

Nathan Keel

Keith said:
If I had a nickel for every time someone inaccurately stated the
above, I'd be richer than Warren Buffett.

--keith

You mean for the reason for the dying/slow down of usenet, or the fact
that you don't think it's dying or has slowed down (quite
significantly)? If you think usenet is just as popular as ever (even
trying to claim it's just a matter of less spam or noise now and that's
why it seems slower) would be inaccurate, or you're new to usenet.

Back 10 years ago, this Perl group received about 200-300 posts per day
(legitimate posts, not spam or noise, but actual Perl related topics
and posts). Even 5 years ago about the same. What do we see now?
Maybe 20-30 posts a day. Each year I've became less and less. Look at
the group history and the historical stats to see.

Granted, the Perl group is still one of the more busy one's, others that
are busy are ruby, and a few others, but most that were getting
hundreds of legitimate/relevant posts per day, are now getting a few
dozen at most, where other groups like Linux related one's, Apache,
PHP, webmaster groups, etc. are getting maybe 10 posts a day at most,
where a few years ago they were getting hundreds per day. Some groups
that got dozens to hundreds per day some years ago literally don't get
any (and they weren't just dropped and not removed by the ISP) Do
those stats not play any role in the scenario? If not, why not?

Then consider that less new people to the Internet are using usenet, a
lot of Internet providers are dropping usenet altogether and a few that
still offer them have effectively abandoned NNTP in favor of pushing
their clients through flaky, often downed third party news servers,
isn't helping. If I had a nickel for every time someone inaccurately
claimed usenet wasn't dying... Anyway, I'd say "Let's take a bet and
post here again in 10 years", but I'm betting usenet is potentially
completely gone by then, and maybe sooner.
 
N

Nathan Keel

Keith said:
[snip]
where other groups like Linux related one's, Apache,
PHP, webmaster groups, etc. are getting maybe 10 posts a day at most,
where a few years ago they were getting hundreds per day.


Well, perhaps, perhaps no. I looked at comp.os.linux.misc in two
different ways: through my own newsreader, and through a Google groups
search.

As for your raw numbers, I'd have to question your claim that they get
maybe 10 posts a day. Yesterday, 29 Apr 2009, my newsreader counted
at
least 35 legitimate posts to comp.os.linux.misc.

I show 13 new posts today in that group, which I frequent. If you don't
believe what I say, I can't exactly discuss or debate the issue. If
you frequented it before several years ago and do now, you'd see a
marked difference. The same with this group (comp.lang.perl.misc) and
the same with groups like alt.www.webmaster. There's really no
questioning the matter. I don't claim to know where it's going for
sure, but with Internet providers dropping usenet altogether and most
that still provide it outsourcing it, I really don't see it getting
more popular. To me, the significant and steady drop over the years is
pretty clear, but there's always people that will disagree no matter
what. Not that it matters, I can take or leave it, but I see it as
dying.
 
J

Jürgen Exner

Nathan Keel said:
To me, the significant and steady drop over the years is
pretty clear, but there's always people that will disagree no matter
what. Not that it matters, I can take or leave it, but I see it as
dying.

Maybe the September that never ended will come to an end after all.
I would actually appreciate if AOLers and Googlers would move to a
different medium and leave Usenet for people who actually care.

jue
 
N

Nathan Keel

Jürgen Exner said:
Maybe the September that never ended will come to an end after all.
I would actually appreciate if AOLers and Googlers would move to a
different medium and leave Usenet for people who actually care.

jue

That's a valid point. I suppose that if usenet is left to the people
that care, and maybe this less traffic issue is just meaning that
old/long time users are the one's that really stick around and not a
lot of new people, that it doesn't mean it's worse off. However, I see
a lot of old timers going away over time as well, so it just seems to
be less and less overall, for the people we'd like to see stay as well.
Either way, most google group users indeed don't seem to be helping
(regardless of increased activity or not).
 

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