Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Path: watmath!watserv2.uwaterloo.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!gatech!emory!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!destroyer!cs.ubc.ca!utcsri!newsflash.concordia.ca!nstn.ns.ca!news.ucs.mun.ca!csd.unb.ca!jaf
From: jaf@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Tony Fitzgerald)
Subject: comp.lang.apl/APL-L gateway (was Re: apl-l UseNet batch ...)
Message-ID: <1993Feb1.152619.5577@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca>
Organization: University of New Brunswick
References: <1993-01-31.001034.15842@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca> <1993Jan31.131802.927@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca> <qmdbms.728509911@gsusgi1.gsu.edu>
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1993 15:26:19 GMT
Lines: 73

A comment to the reader:  In this note I explain a little of the history
of a feed of comp.lang.apl to APL-L and ask about the "Netiquette" of
making the gateway bi-directional.  If you are not interested in the 
rest of the article, please read the portion starting "3. Procedural"
below.

In article <qmdbms.728509911@gsusgi1.gsu.edu> qmdbms@gsusgi2.gsu.edu (Brian Schott) writes:
>
>I rather appreciated the "mistake". It afforded an opportunity for you to
>be identified and for you to explain some of the process involved in
>sending information to LISTSERV.

There is some history involved which I suspect would not interest most
readers of this forum. I became involved when we first put up a UNIX
system and began receiving a proper UseNet news feed.  Before that we
had received selected newsgroups to a jury rigged system to make news
available under MVS in a manner that was marginally better than nothing.

We had been feeding the comp.lang.apl group into a LISTSERV distribution
from the MVS system and it was very simple to continue the feed to
LISTSERV from UNIX.

>                                  I receive the feed to LISTSERV as well
>as following this newsgroup. It is not clear to me why some messages
>appear on the LISTSERV feed that do not appear here on Usenet.  Could you
>explain that. I read the LISTSERV feed primarily because it seems to catch
>messages that fall through the Usenet cracks. 

The reason you see articles on LISTSERV and not UseNet news is that our
gateway is uni-directional.  Articles received on comp.lang.apl are fed,
once a day, into a perl script which creates the batch article which is
mailed to LISTSERV on our VM machine.  Articles posted to APL-L are
re-distributed in the normal manner by LISTSERV to all subscribers of the
list, however, those articles are not injected into the news group.

The reason that the gateway is uni-directional is threefold:

1. Historical.  The original MVS news feed was uni-directional to LISTSERV
   so there was no urgent need to set up a bi-directional gateway.

2. Ignorance.  I didn't know how to do it.  Prior to our institution of a
   UNIX service about two and a half years ago, I had never even logged
   into a UNIX system.  I was an MVS and JES2 systems programmer.  I asked
   for responsibility for the new UNIX service because I wanted a bit of
   a change ;-)   I know how to do it now and as I posted before, the
   scripts are almost ready, just some additional logic to detect articles
   coming from the gateway so they do not get injected back to news.

3. Procedural.  Any time I have seen discussions of LISTSERV/News gateways
   there is a stress on the need for proper coordination.  Two separate
   gateways operating in parallel can create feed-back loops with unpleasant
   results.  I don't know that our original feed of comp.lang.apl to APL-L
   was ever done in consultation with anyone.  I also don't know whether
   anyone "owns" this list in the UseNet sense of the word, i.e. from whom
   should I seek permission before starting a back feed of APL-L into
   comp.lang.apl.  There's not a lot of additional traffic, other than the
   daily batch, there might be half a dozen postings in a month.  It seems
   that unless a news group is moderated the usual precedent is anything
   goes, however, the newsgroups in which I've seen an automatic gateway
   created to inject articles usually generate some negative comments about
   the gateway.

   I suppose that posting this note is as close as I can come to seeking
   approval to make the gate bi-directional.  If you have strong feelings
   on the matter, you might contact me privately via email.

>Thank you again, for the fine work transferring messages.

You're welcome.  I'll try to keep the glitches to a minimum.
-- 
J. Anthony Fitzgerald    jaf@UNB.ca	(506) 453-4573
Computing Services  UofNB  Box 4400	(506) 453-3590  (FAX)
Fredericton, NB,  CANADA,  E3B 5A3
