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Paying for the moderation software for RPM
Drew Lawson wrote:
Um, just so you know, moderated Usenet groups are entirely based on an "email type scheme." New posts are diverted to the standard moderation email address for the group. These and some other constraints have pretty much forced us to go with a web-based program for moderation. That requires a "front end" to the program which can deal with most of the spam and other stuff that a moderated group is subject to, I will note, since you are on the threshold of paying for this again, that your selected software also has a strong tendency toward false positives with no helpful messages. I have yet to get a post through to the moderation queue. (Unless this one happens to work. I keep trying... Nope. Have to hotwire it yet again.) What you say is true, but just because the messages arrive via email does not preclude the use of a web-front end for management purposes. Thinking out loud here.... If I were to design a multi-user moderation system from scratch, I would probably start with a Linux box running postfix (for receiving email), Spamassassin (for scanning messages for spam), Squirrelmail with the Bounce Addon (a webbased email client), and INN or Dnews (usenet server software). While I'm at it, I would install Mailman too. Note that all of this is free (except the computer itself to run everything). (1) Start by setting up a regular user account (called "pondmod") for the receiving of the incoming email posts for review. Give every person on the moderation team the password to this account (note 1). (2) Create 4 additional email folders for the pondmod account: Spam, Ham, MaybeSpam, & Approved (3) create a .procmailrc script on the pondmod account which would: (a) move messages marked as spam (by spamassassin) to the MaybeSpam folder so a moderator can review them for false positives (note 2). (b) check the incoming message against a "blacklist" (containing both email addy and sender's ip addresses). If it matches, move the message to /dev/null. (c) check the incoming message against a "whitelist" (containing both email addy and sender's ip addresses). If it matches, "bounce" the message to INN for posting to the group. (4) set a crontab to run every 5 minutes where INN (or Dnews) will look in the ~pondmod/Maildir/.Approved/cur folder. For each message it finds there, add the appropriate "Approved:" tag and post to the rpm group (removing the message from the folder when it's done). (5) Do the same thing as step 4 for the messages in the Ham folder, but do NOT remove the message (yet). Instead, run "sa-learn --ham" (part of spamassassin) on the Ham folder and "sa-learn --spam" on the Spam folder. Remove the messages in both folders at the completion of this step. Note that doing this helps improve SpamAssassin's efficiency in correctly identifying spam. When one of the moderators wants to review the messages, they simply logon to the Squirrelmail webpage and look at the messages in the Inbox. To approve a message, they simply move the message to the Approved folder. If a message is in the Inbox and is spam (but not marked as spam), the moderator manually moves it to the Spam folder. The moderator then needs to look in the "MaybeSpam" folder. Move any messages which indeed are spam to the Spam folder; move any messages which are not spam (should be approved) to the Ham folder. Done this way, the task of moderating a newsgroup is no different than simply checking one's email on gmail or hotmail. Note 1: You could give every person on the moderation team their own account if you wanted to. But if you do this, you'll need to create a .procmailrc in their home directories pointing at pondmod's Maildir. You'll also have to play with the permissions of the directory to make sure they can read/write the files in that directory. Note 2: The reason for moving messages Spamassassin thinks are spam to the MaybeSpam folder, rather than just nuking them a (a) risk of false positives - 1 false positive is worse than 1000 false negatives. Said another way, you don't want to nuke legit messages. (b) as already mentioned, running sa-learn helps SpamAssassin do a better job of identifying spam in the future, resulting in lower false positive and negatives. Note 3: probably the hardest task in all of this is getting an existing usenet server to accept your server's message uploads. You'll need to find another Usenet server admin willing to accept your connections. On the other hand, you don't need to worry about getting a download feed from them at all. -- + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Chris Barnes AOL IM: CNBarnes Yahoo IM: chrisnbarnes "Usenet really is all about standing around and hitting the ground with clubs, on a spot where many years earlier a dead horse lay." |
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