September 6, 2005
New Newsgroups Quick FAQ
- How will people access the newsgroups?
- Via NNTP to news.mozilla.org, as now. (The secnews.netscape.com alias will not be supported for the new server.)
- So is news.mozilla.org still the domain name?
- Yes.
- Do people need to use "snews" (NNTP over SSL), or will plain "news" access (NNTP) work?
- Plain news:// access has always been supported, and will continue to be. There are some user support groups available only via snews:// on secnews.netscape.com; their users will be encouraged to move to the new hierarchy also.
- If non-SSL access is the default method, will SSL access still be supported?
- Currently, SSL access is not planned, as no-one has given a good reason to have it. IMO, it's only useful if it's the only access method - and that's not true in this case.
- Will people need to subscribe to the GigaNews paid service?
- Of course not :-) The groups will remain free to use.
- Will the newsgroups be propagated to Usenet at large? Will the newsgroups be accessible through Google Groups?
- We are current not sure - discussions are ongoing. These two questions are connected, in that propagation means that we can't really do deletions, and that may affect developer participation. Watch this space.
- Will there be a way to access content on the old newsgroups? If so, for how long?
- Yes, via the old server (presumably addressed as secnews.netscape.com, and perhaps with a name like oldnews.mozilla.org) for as long as AOL maintains it, via any other servers which mirror the content for as long as they have it, and via Google Groups, presumably indefinitely.
- Can people still use mailing lists as an alternative to read or post to the newsgroups? If so, how?
- Yes, in the normal way. Mailing list subscriptions will be automatically moved over where there's a clear migration path from an old to a new group, as indicated on the list.
- What about spam filtering? What measures have GigaNews and/or the MF put into place?
- GigaNews claim that spam is not a problem because they have the clout (10%+ of posts) to threaten a UDP on servers which propagate spam. I intend to take them at their word for the moment, and see what happens.
- Who do we contact in the event of problems with the newsgroups or mailing lists?
- File a bug in bugzilla.mozilla.org, in the Server Operations component of the mozilla.org product.
Posted by gerv at September 6, 2005 10:05 AM
If the newsgroups are not propogated to Google Groups, will there be another way to view them thrhough http, link to threads in mozillazine articles, etc?
If it ended up that they were not available through Google Groups, we would make sure that they were available over HTTP some way or other. We realise this ability is very important to people.
New mailing lists will be @lists.mozilla.org e.g. mozilla.dev.quality becomes mozilla-dev-quality@lists.mozilla.org
It would look better if you could omit the first "mozilla": eg mozilla.dev.quality -> dev-quality@lists.mozilla.org
nit:
news.mozilla.org is a hostname, not a domain name.
when will it be ready? don't see any mozilla.support.* on it
Questions three and four seem contradictory. If some groups are secure news only, how are they to be accessed if SSL is not supported? Or am I confusing two separate things?
one question seems to be missing to me:
when will the transition take place?
Grey Hodge: He's talking about the already existing groups.