Re: Mailman's Approval Duties Denied Me.

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Bob,

> > Thanks for your analysis of that list's problems, and how they apply
> > to the other two nmh ones I admin too.  I'll carry out those
> > suggestions tomorrow.

I've now done those, and everything in
http://listhelper.nongnu.org/mailmanconf.html given by Karl, for all
three nmh-* lists, and cleared out any lists of automatically discarded,
etc., so I start from scratch.

I noticed address@hidden is subscribed to nmh-workers.  Is that
related to their helping with list moderation, or just coincidence with
them liking nmh?  :-)

> > `norm', a nice guy, is an octogenarian user of nmh, and one of its
> > original authors as MH back at Rand Corp.
>
> Cool!  I am sure Norm is a nice guy.  Hopefully nothing I said
> impinged upon anyone's character.

No, no, I was just saying that despite that, I'd not expect him to be
making announcements.

> Everyone makes mistakes.  I hate to admit how many mistakes I have
> made when dealing with email!

Yep, I've done the public reply when meaning private, and an approval on
Mailman elsewhere.  :-)

> > They're styled like `8nTdAEjdn2q'.
>
> Just curious...  From 'pwgen -s 11 1'?

~/bin/genpasswd that's effectively

    tr -dc "$c" </dev/urandom | head -c $n
    echo

where $c is $1 if given, e.g. `0-9', or defaults to those distinctive in
my handwriting.

> I'll send a note around to the listhelpers to make sure they are aware
> of the problem.

Thanks, though it shouldn't seem necessary given...

> > is that a mechanical device where their queue contents simply aren't
> > presented to helpers,
>
> It's that.

this.

> It happens to be in RCS because, well, it works

Yep, still using it here for lots of files.  :-)

> I don't see any funky characters that would prevent the grep from
> working.
>
>   address@hidden:/u/listhelper/www/moderate$ grep nmh- fsf-lists | od -Ax 
> -tx1z -v -c

Thanks, that has me (re-)learning od's `z'!  I'd have done

    ... | tr -d ' -~' | od -c

>   000000  6e  6d  68  2d  61  6e  6e  6f  75  6e  63  65  0a  6e  6d  68  
> >nmh-announce.nmh<
>            n   m   h   -   a   n   n   o   u   n   c   e  \n   n   m   h
>   000010  2d  63  6f  6d  6d  69  74  73  0a  6e  6d  68  2d  77  6f  72  
> >-commits.nmh-wor<
>            -   c   o   m   m   I   t   s  \n   n   m   h   -   w   o   r
>   000020  6b  65  72  73  0a                                              
> >kers.<
>            k   e   r   s  \n

The `i' of `commits' above is uppercase in the -c output, but lowercase,
0x69, in the -tx1z, and in the earlier grep.  Not that it matters since
we're talking nmh-announce.

>   Last updated 2018-02-23 04:14:21 UTC
>   bug-wget (1)
>   freetype-devel (1)
>   gnash-dev (2)
>   qemu-devel (1)
>   savannah-hackers (1)
>   summer-of-code (1)
>   debbugs-submit
>
> Where each of those names are links off to Mailman's moderator page.
> Here is the first one.
>
>   https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/admindb/bug-wget

Ah, OK, seems foolproof.  :-)  I suppose a listhelper could have their
own script that scans the output of that admindb URL and all the others,
bypassing fsf-lists.

> There is machinery working behind the curtain and you want to
> know what is behind that curtan.  That's fine.  I am like that too.

Thanks for a very detailed peek behind it.

> I'll send a note around to the listhelpers to make sure they are aware
> of the problem.  Other than that I don't know what to suggest.

Yep, that's fine.  I'm happy there's nothing more that can be done.

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.
https://plus.google.com/+RalphCorderoy