Posting to Newsgroups?

[Big D]

Hi All,

Does anyone know how to post a message to a newsgroup by using a form
instead of going directly to a news group reader?

I have been asked to code a form that will email off the contents to an
email address and the client would like a copy of the message posted to a
newsgroup as well?

Can it be done?

TIA

Big Dave

 

[Eric Bohlman]

Hi All,

Does anyone know how to post a message to a newsgroup by using a form
instead of going directly to a news group reader?

I have been asked to code a form that will email off the contents to an
email address and the client would like a copy of the message posted to a
newsgroup as well?

Can it be done?

Yes, using the NNTP protocol. I know Perl has a couple of modules for
dealing with NNTP, and I'm sure other languages have them as well.

I'd be *very* wary of doing this with public newsgroups unless the form is
available only to people who are already familiar with Usenet. No problem
if you're talking about a privately-hosted newsgroup.

 

[Edward Alfert]

Hi All,

Does anyone know how to post a message to a newsgroup by using a form
instead of going directly to a news group reader?

I have been asked to code a form that will email off the contents to an
email address and the client would like a copy of the message posted to a
newsgroup as well?

Can it be done?

TIA

Big Dave

Coincidentally, I have been researching this same topic.

I have found 3 programs so far:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mail2nntp/
http://freshmeat.net/projects/mail2news-easy/
http://www.ossp.org/pkg/tool/lmtp2nntp/

I have also found programs that go the opposite direction. Send new usenet
posts to an email address. Some are even fancier and only email posts that
match a regex expression.

 

[Richard]

Hi All,

Does anyone know how to post a message to a newsgroup by using a form
instead of going directly to a news group reader?

I have been asked to code a form that will email off the contents to an
email address and the client would like a copy of the message posted to a
newsgroup as well?

Can it be done?

Big Dave

It can be done. However, it would probably be better to post the message to
a privately controlled bulletin board.
Usenet doesn't like html based stuff posted to text only groups.
Also there is a privacy issue.
In usenet, it is likely that your account could be terminated for posting
personal information.
So that if the form included names, addresses and phone numbers, this is a
blatant no no unless you do it with your own personal information.
Posting to a bulletin board would mean more control over what is allowed to
be posted and how it is to be posted.
Plus the fact that many servers drop content after so many days to save
space.
A bulletin board could retain the message indefinitely.

 

[Toby A Inkster]

Does anyone know how to post a message to a newsgroup by using a form
instead of going directly to a news group reader?

Look into a program called "inews". It's part of a great big NNTP server
suite called "INN", but you can install inews by itself.

With a tiny amount of configuration (telling it which server to use, etc)
inews becomes a very easy to use NNTP uploader for use in scripts, CGI,
etc.