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Re: [Pan-users] Newbie Question - Posting to Large number of groups
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From: |
Duncan |
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Subject: |
Re: [Pan-users] Newbie Question - Posting to Large number of groups |
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Date: |
Sun, 5 May 2013 07:22:14 +0000 (UTC) |
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User-agent: |
Pan/0.140 (Chocolate Salty Balls; GIT b00f96e /usr/src/portage/src/egit-src/pan2) |
Captain Nemo posted on Sat, 04 May 2013 09:42:11 -0700 as excerpted:
> I get the warning below when I select multiple groups to post to. I
> have set follow-up and reply-to groups but my post does not seem to go.
> Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong.
> Thx
>
> posting to a large number of groups Warning: Posting to a large number
> of groups
> <html>
> <head>
> <style><!--
> .hmmessage P {
First, as a newbie you can be forgiven for not knowing about it already,
but...
Please turn off HTML (use plain text) at least when posting to the pan
list. There's a reason pan doesn't post HTML itself, and if you feel
you /must/ use it elsewhere, at /least/ consider that many users read the
list with pan and that HTML isn't wanted on this list. (I and others
often make the statement that if a poster believes the content is so
boring it needs HTML to dress it up, it's not worth reading, period.
Leave it to the spammers and malware/spyware folks.)
Thanks in advance. =:^)
As to your question, that warning is part of pan's GNKSA, Good Netkeeping
Seal of Approval, compliance. There's a link to GNKSA from the pan
website ( http://pan.rebelbase.com ) if you like.
In keeping with GNKSA, pan does allow cross-posts, as long as they aren't
excessive. Taking a look at the code[1], the GNKSA-point-3 (cross-
posting) restrictions appear to be:
* Refuse the post if cross-posting to >= 10 groups.
The error string is "Error: Posting to a very large number of groups."
* Warn if cross-posting to > 5 groups.
"Warning: posting to a large number of groups."
* Warn if posting to > 2 groups if the followup-to header is unset.
"Warning: Crossposting without setting Followup-To header."
If you're cross-posting to >= 10 groups... I don't believe I'm alone in
considering you a net-abuser, probably a spammer. =:^(
If you're cross-posting to 5-9 groups you'll get a warning but pan should
allow the post thru if you insist. Same if you're cross-posting to 3-9
groups but without the followup-to header set appropriately.
If you're cross-posting but to under 10 groups, and you don't get an
"Error:" popup but rather a "Warning:" popup, then pan should be letting
it thru. However, many news providers have anti-spam cross-posting
policies of their own, and it may be that they appear to take the post
but then bit-bucket it, so it never appears, if you violate their
policies. (FWIW, a five-group limit seems quite common.)
Meanwhile, being free-as-in-freedom software, pan's source code is of
course available and if you don't like its limits you can in fact patch
in your own and build your own binaries from the patched sources. It
took me only a few minutes to find the relevant code here, and it should
take you less, given the strings above to grep for. However, if
anything, I'd suggest the existing hard-coded limits are too generous,
and a couple years ago the community reexamined pan's commitment to 100%
GNKSA compliance (in the context of number of connections) and seemed to
come to the consensus that if we got sloppy in one area of compliance it
would break the policy and make it easy to get sloppy in other areas as
well, something everybody seemed to agree wasn't worth the risk. So it's
extremely unlikely that you'll get such patches upstream -- you'll be
maintaining and applying them yourself.
(Of course it's also possible, tho unlikely, that your distribution is
patching pan to change those limits as well. If you're getting that
posting error with <10 groups, it's probably due to something like that.
But more likely, you're just getting the warning from pan, and if the
message posts but doesn't appear, it's your news provider's stricter
policies you're violating.)
---
[1] I don't claim to be a coder, but I can often read it and even make
small changes if it's not too convoluted. And I've seen people that
/are/ coders remark on how clean pan's code is, so...
--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman