This directory contains tools written and used by moderators of Usenet newsgroups. In the past, most moderators were forced to write much of their posting software by hand. Sometimes existing moderators would share their sources when asked. Up until now there has not been a single archive where moderators could make what they had available for all to use. It is the intent of this archive to do just that. In this manner, moderators both new and existing can see how others with similar types of newsgroups are doing their job. A much wider set of support software is becoming available to the moderating community as we all bring our tools out of the closet. There is no reason new moderators need to develop their own software/support environment from scratch as has been the norm in the past. Moderation of newsgroups is trancending Usenet as many organizations begin using Usenet software for internal use. It is hoped that this archive will also be of use to those who are not Usenet moderators but are moderating newsgroups never the less. The contents of this archive have been generously made available in a "AS IS" condition. Many of the sources, scripts and yes, documents are not as pretty as the individual moderators may like but they work and are being used. The idea is that the archive is a snapshot of tools used. They are made available so that others can see how it is done and potentially get a copy as a starting point for their newsgroup's required modifications. If you would like to participate, either send your tools to mod-archive@sterling.com or email as to where they can pick them up at. The following is a listing of the current contents of the archive. ============================================================================ File Moderator Newsgroup(s) ============================================================================ Archive.{html,txt} Kent Landfield These files contain a list of the location of moderated Usenet newsgroup archives. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- amiga.moderate Carlos Amezaga comp.sys.amiga.announce Tools for gatewaying a newsgroup to email list for use on an Amiga. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- autoreply.shar David C Lawrence This is used to auto-reply to postings submitted. This script uses procmail to do the processing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- cancel.pl David C Lawrence Tool to send out cancels for arbitrary articles written in perl. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- cancel Brian Kantor Tool to send out cancels for arbitrary articles ------------------------------------------------------------------------- checkm.shar Scott Hazen Mueller comp.newprod comp.sys.sun.announce news.admin.technical rec.arts.sf.announce Forward crossposted articles to the next moderator in line for approval to post. The sending moderator grants subsequent moderators the permission to crosspost to the sender's newsgroup. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- checkmod.pl Thomas Koenig A subroutine written in perl to check if there are other moderated groups list on a newsgroup line. NNTP example as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- cik-moderate Arthur L Wilson comp.infosystems.kiosks Tools used for posting and archiving comp.infosystems.kiosks ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ckngrps.shar Kent Landfield comp.sources.misc Check the Newsgroups: line out in a submission to assure that you are not posting to another moderated group. We all need to play in our own little sandboxes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- csm-mod.tar Kent Landfield comp.sources.misc Lots of tools in general such as brik, cshar3.0, patch, post, postit, rkive shar3.49, and unipatch. There is also a copy of an inprogress draft rfc on moderating sources groups in general. Post is what was the granddady of the source groups posting software. Postit is what is used in comp.sources.misc. The file README.csm is just the extracted README from this distribution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- innmod.tar Mark Bixby innautorespond Send automatic e-mail responses to *.test postings. innmoda For newsgroup moderator to approve & post e-mail. innmodr For newsgroup moderator to reject e-mail. innzap Newsadmin tool to rmgroup alt.silly.group.names. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MHmod.0.15.tar George William Herbert sci.space.tech MH based posting system used in sci.space. Also a script to check if the supplied newsgroups header contains other moderated groups. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- mod.sources.txt Kent Landfield comp.sources.misc This is an in-progress FYI describing the moderation process for comp.sources.* newsgroups. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- modtool-2.0.tar Christian Scarborough comp.org.team-os2 modtool is a general purpose Perl program for moderating Usenet newsgroups from a UNIX shell. Modtool is a general purpose UNIX moderation tool written in Perl for (non-binaries) newsgroups and moderated mailing lists. Features include: posting, rejection, form rejection letters, forged article cancellation, automatic digest creation, support for cross-posting to multiple moderated groups, PGP Moose support (requires PGP Moose programs), auto-replying to submissions, and support for moderation of multiple groups. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- mod.procmail Sridhar Venkataraman rec.food.veg.cooking This script is an example of using Procmail to moderate a Usenet group. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- moderate.el Mark Towfiq soc.religion.bahai A lisp moderation tool for people using RMAIL and GNUS under Emacs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- multimod.shar Greg Woods soc.feminism, sci.research.physics, soc.religion.islam Divide up the load of moderating a group between a set of moderators. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- new-moderator.shar Gene Spafford This is the package sent to new moderators. This package is out of date but there is currently work in progress to bring it up to speed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- newsgroup.tar Paul A. Fishwick comp.simulation Tools used for moderation of comp.simulation ------------------------------------------------------------------------- nntpscan.tar Adam Richter comp.archives The perl scripts used to generate comp.archives repostings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- pgpmoose.shar Greg Rose Cancel forged moderated postings. Please see the Readme in the shar file for more information. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- pit.c Josh Hayes sci.bio.evolution Each article to be posted is fed to inews and also mailed to the members of a pre-configured mailing list at the same time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- post.shar Kenneth Herron This is post version 1.1. Post is a general-purpose posting agent; it serves the same basic function as inews but is designed for special needs where more control and less second-guessing is needed, such as moderating a newsgroup or posting under program control. Post's features include: * Post was written to comply with the provisions for a posting agent described in the current version of Henry Spencer's draft replacement for RFC 1036. It can generate fully-compliant Date:, Sender:, Message-ID:, Path:, etc. headers as necessary. * Input sources can be standard input, file names, or command pipes. Inputs may be posted as independent articles or concatenated. Multipart posts may be posted with one command, with special Subject:, References:, and See-Also: handling. * Input sources may or may not contain headers. Any headers may be added or removed via the command line; you may also specify headers to be printed to stdout after a successful post. * Post won't get in your way when you need to do something unusual, such as posting a rmgroup message for a group you don't carry. Requires perl. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- posting Thomas Krueger rec.audio.high-end Shell and awk posting script with some digest support. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- reject.shar Scott Hazen Mueller comp.newprod comp.sys.sun.announce news.admin.technical rec.arts.sf.announce Script for sending rejections. Send a form-letter rejection to the originator of an article. The rejection type code can be passed in from the command line, or chosen interactively. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- strip-n-post.pl Daniel P. Faigin soc.culture.jewish.parenting Article header stripper and poster written in perl. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- submit Dave Taylor comp.sys.sun.announce Usually invoked while reading email within the mailer as "|submit groupname" ------------------------------------------------------------------------- vm-moderate.el Martin Boyer comp.robotics.research From an email message in VM, this prepares Emacs buffers for posting and replies to the author. It can be configured to automatically recognize multiple moderated groups and allow or disallow crossposting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- zserver Dan Zerkler comp.sys.amiga.announce list processor and mail server to automate user submissions and information ------------------------------------------------------------------------- zorch.tar Scott Hazen Mueller comp.newprod comp.sys.sun.announce news.admin.technical rec.arts.sf.announce This is a collection of programs and scripts that I use to moderate several Usenet groups. The kit includes an auto-responder written in Bourne shell, an interactive submission script, a companion non-interactive version, a script or two to filter submissions based on certain criteria (Keywords, for one), another script to check the moderation status of a Newsgroups line, and various odds and ends.