pointer to a member of a member

[Jerry Coffin]

In the absence of anyone willing to moderate comp.std.c++, perhaps the
group could be made unmoderated until a suitable moderator is found?

I assume only Fergus could perform that switch, since he was the most
recent moderator. Has anyone asked him to do that?

Having been involved (peripherally) in one such switch before, let me be
the first to say that although this initially sounds like a good idea,
it's really not at all.

Moderated newsgroups and unmoderated newsgroups work enough differently
that you can't really change one to the other -- rather, you have to
dismantle the one complete (and make sure it's gone off all servers),
then create a new one of the other type, and wait for it to propagate to
all servers.

 

[James Kanze]

In the absence of anyone willing to moderate comp.std.c++,
perhaps the group could be made unmoderated until a suitable
moderator is found?

I don't think that the problem is just a moderator. Fergus
isn't the only moderator, and (like comp.lang.c++.moderated)
they've added moderators in the past. If I understand Fergus'
post, they've lost the hosting account (machine).

Note that hosting a moderated group is not a trivial
undertaking; you can't do it just because you happen to have a
spare machine. You need very good, reliable network
connectivity. And I'm not sure that Google is in the business
of hosting Usenet groups (as opposed to Google groups).

(Note that the situation with comp.lang.c++.moderated isn't all
that different. David Vandevoorde set it up when he was a
student at RPI, and he's also moved on with a job, wife and
kids. At least to date, however, RPI hasn't removed the account
it runs under.)

I assume only Fergus could perform that switch, since he was
the most recent moderator. Has anyone asked him to do that?

From what I understand: once a moderator, always a moderator.
At least officially---not all moderators are necessarily active
at any given time. (When was the last time Robert Martin
moderated a posting to comp.lang.c++.moderated?) In the case of
comp.std.c++, there is, in fact, a group of
moderators---originally three, but others have been added since
then. It should be possible to find a relatively recent list,
and contact them about "adding" someone else. Provided one can
find a good candidate, who also has the time to do it. And
provided one can find a reliable hosting site.

 

[vandevoorde]

Note that hosting a moderated group is not a trivial
undertaking; you can't do it just because you happen to have a
spare machine.  You need very good, reliable network
connectivity.  And I'm not sure that Google is in the business
of hosting Usenet groups (as opposed to Google groups).

(Note that the situation with comp.lang.c++.moderated isn't all
that different.  DavidVandevoordeset it up when he was a
student at RPI, and he's also moved on with a job, wife and
kids.  At least to date, however, RPI hasn't removed the account
it runs under.)

Right. When I graduated from RPI, I was told that clc++m could
continue to use the CS facilities to host our homegrown moderation set
up. At the time, CS department head was my advisor (and friend), and
the lab director was also a friend. People have moved on since then,
but RPI CS has remained very friendly to us (even though the original
machine has been replaced once or twice since then).

If RPI CS were to decide it cannot host us anymore, I do have an
alternative hosting plan. However, that would require us to rewrite
at least part of the scripts that handle our setup. Even assuming RPI
continues to provide us with a machine, we'll likely have to face that
problem sooner or later, since our scripts rely on not-so-modern mail
and usenet tools. (We also owe much to John Potter who has been
fixing the scripts as bugs were detected and as the environment has
changed over the years.)

Daveed