Re: Moderator Vacancy Investigation: comp.os.plan9

Tristan Miller <tmiller@big-8.org> wrote:

On 2024-10-30 20:16, Marco Moock wrote:

Technically that means it will be deleted and a new one without
moderation will be created.

Not necessarily -- it seems that RFC 5537 Sec 5.2.1
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5537.html#section-5.2.1> describes a
mechanism for a change of moderation status:

The newgroup control message requests that the specified group be
created or, if already existing, that its moderation status or
description be changed.

There is a standard for control message syntax that the hierarchy
administrator must follow because that's a network issue. But hierarchy
administrators don't run Usenet; News administrators do.

checkgroups is the hierarchy administrator's official statement of the
set of newsgroups -- with moderation flag set or unset -- of groups he
recognizes.

No News administrator can be forced to process a control message. No
News administrator is ever forced to recognize the exact same set of
newsgroups recognized by the hierarchy administrator. And if the News
administrator won't change the moderation flag by processing a
subsequent newgroup or checkgroups, there's nothing to be done about it.

We've had this discussion for decade upon decade upon decade. Moderation
in place or unmoderation in place cannot be expected to work on every
News site within some reasonable period of time after the newgroup
message is sent.

For that reason, don't screw with the moderation flag.