About recent rmgroup for de.alt.*

[Julien ÉLIE]

Hi all,

7 rmgroup articles were sent in January for de.alt.*, signed with a PGP key.
Are they legitimate removals? Should a specific PGP key and a rule for
de.alt* be added in control.ctl?

I guess the next checkgroups for de.* (signed with the de.* PGP key) will
take into account these removals, if legitimate.
Yet, it might be useful to integrate a de.alt.* key in order to process
changes sooner.

2022-01-09 22:20:02 [28266] <rmgroup-de.alt.comp.sap-r3-***@thangorodrim.ancalagon.de> archived as de.alt.comp.sap-r3
2022-01-14 19:10:02 [3343] <rmgroup-de.alt.games.schach-***@thangorodrim.ancalagon.de> archived as de.alt.games.schach
2022-01-14 19:10:02 [3343] <rmgroup-de.alt.fan.fruehstyxradio-***@thangorodrim.ancalagon.de> archived as de.alt.fan.fruehstyxradio
2022-01-14 19:10:02 [3343] <rmgroup-de.alt.comm.webzwonull-***@thangorodrim.ancalagon.de> archived as de.alt.comm.webzwonull

2022-01-22 02:10:01 [14484] <rmgroup-de.alt.paranormal-***@thangorodrim.ancalagon.de> archived as de.alt.paranormal
2022-01-22 02:10:01 [14484] <rmgroup-de.alt.music.jazz-***@thangorodrim.ancalagon.de> archived as de.alt.music.jazz
2022-01-29 21:40:01 [10330] <rmgroup-de.alt.soc.punk-***@thangorodrim.ancalagon.de> archived as de.alt.soc.punk

[Russ Allbery]

Post by Julien ÉLIE
7 rmgroup articles were sent in January for de.alt.*, signed with a PGP
key. Are they legitimate removals? Should a specific PGP key and a
rule for de.alt* be added in control.ctl?

The rmgroup messages were sent by ***@thh.name, it looks like. The
current entry for de.alt.* is:

## DE.ALT (German language alternative hierarchy)
# *PGP* See comment at top of file.
newgroup:*:de.alt.*:doit
rmgroup:***@dana.de:de.alt.*:verify-de.admin.news.announce

so the rmgroups would be honored if they were sent from the normal de.*
control address and signed with the normal key.

Post by Julien ÉLIE
I guess the next checkgroups for de.* (signed with the de.* PGP key) will
take into account these removals, if legitimate.

This did indeed happen on the first of the month.

[Thomas Hochstein]

I think this was to prevent malicious deletions of groups, disrupting
discussions; the malicios creation of groups was apparently not considered
to be as harmful.

Post by Russ Allbery
so the rmgroups would be honored if they were sent from the normal de.*
control address and signed with the normal key.

The denizens of de.alt.admin (the group were proposals for de.alt.* are
discussed) of old would have frowned at this, as de.admin.news.announce
should have no powers in de.alt.*. :)

So I keep to the custom of sending control messages for de.alt.* signed
with my personal key.

-thh

[Gérald Niel]

Le Samedi 05 février 2022 à 22:05 UTC, Thomas Hochstein écrivait sur
news.admin.hierarchies :

[snip]

-thh

Off topic here, but just to thank you for this :

<https://home.gegeweb.org/rfc8315.html>

@Julien E., a fr.alt.* could be an idea, no ?

[Julien ÉLIE]

Bonjour Gérald,

Post by Gérald Niel
@Julien E., a fr.alt.* could be an idea, no ?

I suggested it last year on fufe (fr.usenet.forums.evolution) when we
spoke of the good ideas from other hierarchies, but it did not take
support for reasons I do not recall.
This fr.alt.* would have laxed rules of creations and removals, without
any approval from a Board. The name of the newsgroup should just be
appropriate (no offense, no weird stuff). And maybe an upper number for
the creation of newsgroups in the row (it is useless to create
newsgroups which remain empty or for only 1 person... a rule might be
that there is no more creation when such a thing happens). If the theme
of the group is already in fr.*, it cannot also be created in fr.alt.*.

I think it could be something worth trying for fr.*; maybe the usual
trollers will at least cease to complain...
And they could even have their own fr.alt.admin.announce newsgroup for
fr.alt.* :-)

[yamo']

Hi,

Post by Julien ÉLIE
I think it could be something worth trying for fr.*; maybe the usual
trollers will at least cease to complain...
And they could even have their own fr.alt.admin.announce newsgroup for
fr.alt.* :-)

Will the Control message be signed by Control?
For de.alt, I've seen errors in Inn Report. But I don't have users for
de.*.
I didn't really understood how it is really working in de.alt.* or in a
probably fr.alt.*
There is still some servers which don't have accepted the new key for
fr, so will the fr.alt will be really created? ...

[Julien ÉLIE]

Bonsoir Stéphane,

Post by yamo'

Post by Julien ÉLIE
I think it could be something worth trying for fr.*; maybe the usual
trollers will at least cease to complain...
And they could even have their own fr.alt.admin.announce newsgroup for
fr.alt.* :-)

Will the Control message be signed by Control?

I can, I don't mind doing that.

Or I could also create a second key for fr.alt.* (this way, news servers
wanting fr.alt.* could just trust that second key, and other more
conservative ones could keep the fr.* hierarchy in the "stone age" they
like).

Post by yamo'
There is still some servers which don't have accepted the new key for
fr, so will the fr.alt will be really created? ...

No, as you can guess...
Anyway, these servers also won't create any other newsgroups in fr.*.

[LaLibreParole]

Post by Julien ÉLIE
Bonsoir Stéphane,

Post by yamo'

Post by Julien ÉLIE
I think it could be something worth trying for fr.*; maybe the usual
trollers will at least cease to complain...
And they could even have their own fr.alt.admin.announce newsgroup for
fr.alt.* :-)

Will the Control message be signed by Control?

I can, I don't mind doing that.
Or I could also create a second key for fr.alt.* (this way, news servers
wanting fr.alt.* could just trust that second key, and other more
conservative ones could keep the fr.* hierarchy in the "stone age" they
like).

nah version:
Maybe you could also delete fr.usenet.forums.evolution since it seems
that the discussions are done here (news.admin.hierarchie) and that the
consensus obtained on the appropriate French forum is nowadays
without interest for fufa.

Version fufe:
Peut-être pourriez vous aussi supprimer fr.usenet.forums.evolution
puisqu'il semble que les discussions se fasse ici et que les consensus
obtenues sur le forum francophone idoine soit de nos jours sans intérêt
pour fufa.

[Thomas Hochstein]

Post by Julien ÉLIE
7 rmgroup articles were sent in January for de.alt.*, signed with a PGP key.
Are they legitimate removals? Should a specific PGP key and a rule for
de.alt* be added in control.ctl?

Control messages in de.alt.* are customarily sent by the proponents of the
respective proposals, signed by a personal key. The original assumption
was, I think, that admins will decide individually if they honor those
messages, like alt.*, but that was before my time. :)

In practice control messages for de.alt.* are watched by the moderation of
de.admin.news.announce which is sending checkgroups for de.* including
de.alt.* If there was no significant or well-founded protest against the
proposal (that's all de.alt.* has for rules - perhaps something like rough
consensus), the checkgroups message is adjusted accordingly, so newsgroups
will be created or removed as long as the checkgroup messages are honored.

For all other parts of de.* (i.e. de.!alt.*), there is a formal discussion
and voting system that had been modelled after the Big 8: a Request for
Discussion (RfD) has to be posted to the moderated group
de.admin.news.announce, followed by other RfDs or a Call for Votes. The
results are then implemented by the moderation of de.admin.news.announce
with new-/rmgroups signed with the hierarchy key.

Post by Julien ÉLIE
I guess the next checkgroups for de.* (signed with the de.* PGP key) will
take into account these removals, if legitimate.

The last checkgroups, sent on 2022-02-01, has done that

Post by Julien ÉLIE
Yet, it might be useful to integrate a de.alt.* key in order to process
changes sooner.

There is no such thing as a key for de.alt.* :)

-thh

[Julien ÉLIE]

Hi Thomas,

Post by Thomas Hochstein
Control messages in de.alt.* are customarily sent by the proponents of the
respective proposals, signed by a personal key. The original assumption
was, I think, that admins will decide individually if they honor those
messages, like alt.*, but that was before my time. :)

Thanks for the explanation!
So, there's nothing to change in the control.ctl entry if I understand
well. If an admin decides to honour those messages, he just has to
change the corresponding entry to match your e-mail address and PGP key.

[Martin Burmester]

Hi,

Post by Julien ÉLIE
Hi Thomas,

Post by Thomas Hochstein
Control messages in de.alt.* are customarily sent by the proponents of the
respective proposals, signed by a personal key. The original assumption
was, I think, that admins will decide individually if they honor those
messages, like alt.*, but that was before my time. :)

Thanks for the explanation!
So, there's nothing to change in the control.ctl entry if I understand
well.  If an admin decides to honour those messages, he just has to
change the corresponding entry to match your e-mail address and PGP key.

It should however be noted, that the official recommended settings for
de.alt.* [1, 2] differ from the default control.ctl file. I am not sure
if that has historical reasons.

Cheers,
Martin

[1] <http://dana.de/tech-info.html#control>
[2] <public-checkgroups-2022-***@dana.de>

[Russ Allbery]

Post by Martin Burmester
It should however be noted, that the official recommended settings for
de.alt.* [1, 2] differ from the default control.ctl file. I am not sure
if that has historical reasons.

As a matter of policy the default control.ctl file does not allow rmgroups
from * except for defunct hierarchies. There's too much potential for
abuse and sabotage. (I think that's reflected everywhere; let me know if
I missed something.)

I have a whole bunch of major updates I want to do to that file, including
better documentation of things like that, but alas haven't found the
time....

[Thomas Hochstein]

Post by Julien ÉLIE
So, there's nothing to change in the control.ctl entry if I understand
well.

Yes, that is correct.

Post by Julien ÉLIE
If an admin decides to honour those messages, he just has to
change the corresponding entry to match your e-mail address and PGP key.

They shouldn't, as it's more or less coincidence [1] that I'm sending
those control messages; everyone could do the same, after following
procedure.

-thh

[1] A bit less as there are not so many people left that are interested in
creating or removing groups, but I think that's much the same in the Big 8
or fr.* or anywhere else.