Drat. I goofed in the newsgroup header line (which is entered manually).
Correcting the newsgroup header line (which I type in manually) from: Newsgroups: alt.comp.software.thunderbird,news.software.readers,alt.comp.os.windows11 Subject: Can we send an email DIRECTLY to Usenet ng moderators using
Windows Thunderbird/Betterbird?
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2026 15:20:04 -0500
Message-ID: <10lgfdk$1urc$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com>
To:
Newsgroups: alt.comp.software.thunderbird,news.software.readers,alt.comp.os.windows-11
Full post repeated below for continuity.
Q: Can we send an email DIRECTLY to Usenet ng moderators using TB/BB?
A: ?
Drat. I goofed in the newsgroup header line (which is entered manually).
Correcting the newsgroup header line (which I type in manually) from:
Carlos E.R. wrote:
Q: Can we send an email DIRECTLY to Usenet ng moderators using TB/BB?
A: ?
Certainly. But you have to use an email account.
If you are asking whether TB will send the NNTP post that has to be
moderated, automatically to an email address, instead of to an Usenet
group, I do not know.
Hi Carlos,
I guess I'm confused 'cuz I've never done it, and, of course, I care about privacy so the email it's sent from must be a throwaway email but even so
how do we insert the required NNTP-required HEADERS into that email?
$ sendmail misc-taxes-moderated@moderators.isc.org < article.txt
My question is in what format do we add the HEADERS into that email?
Do we just prepend the headers as part of the body of the email?
ÿ From: (mandatory Usenet header?)
ÿ Newsgroups: (mandatory Usenet header?)
ÿ Subject: (mandatory Usenet header?)
ÿ Date: (mandatory Usenet header?)
ÿ Message-ID: (optional perhaps?)
ÿ Organization: (optional)
ÿ Content-Type: (if needed)
ÿ ...and then a blank line, followed by the article text...
ÿ This is the body of my Usenet post.
ÿ -- ÿ Test sig.
Q: Are those headers to be in the 'body' of the message to the mods?
A: ?
I can not answer those questions. I had no idea that sending to an
Usenet moderated group involved sending emails.
I would suggest google for documentation.
...
On 2026/1/30 11:46:8, Carlos E.R. wrote:
[]
I can not answer those questions. I had no idea that sending to an
Usenet moderated group involved sending emails.
If you think about it, it has to; however, some news clients make that process transparent, i. e. you just go through the normal posting steps
as you see it, and the client does the necessary. I don't know if TB is
one such - I am not currently subscribed to any moderated 'groups.
I think in some cases there's a sort of central clearinghouse for such
posts, so the address details are common across many 'groups (the
central clearinghouse then forwards the messages to the relevant
moderator based on the 'group name); I'm not sure if 'groups _can_ opt
out of that system, or if they have to become mailing lists or some
other construct.
Probably the newsgroup "charter", but I've no idea if there's a central repository of those. It's usually included in a post not long after a 'group's creation, but of course that may have disappeared before the server's retention period (or yours). Some 'groups repost their charter (sometimes with revisions, sometimes not) at intervals, such as
I would suggest google for documentation.
...
annually. Not sure if those include moderator details, though.
Carlos E.R. wrote:
Like you, I have never subscribed to a moderated group, so I have never
thought about it, in decades. I simply thought that the news protocol
would know about it and handle it "somehow".
Thanks for discussing this topic which it seems most of us haven't thought much about as we rarely post to moderated newsgroups, and, for the most part, when we did, it just worked. So we didn't think much about 'how'.
I think, based on my tests, that the normal process is that the news server admin decides which moderated groups he wants to peer and then he figures out how each moderated group wants to be notified, where, it seems, as John Gilliver noted, "in some cases there's a sort of central clearinghouse".
I think that address might be <name-of-ng>-moderated@moderators.isc.org
based on these tests with distinctly different results in that regard.
On 2026/1/30 23:29:13, Arlen wrote:
. . .
I think that address might be <name-of-ng>-moderated@moderators.isc.org >>based on these tests with distinctly different results in that regard.
When setting up Turnpike, some decades ago, I got the impression that
the default for moderated 'groups _was_ some common address; the above
rings a faint bell.
If the _client_ does it - which would seem a more efficient way, after
all why involve the newsserver if that can be avoided - then the list of >newsgroups must contain a flag for the ones that are moderated, so that
the client knows to treat posts to it differently. (Posts _in_ it - i.
e. from other posters, that have already been passed by the moderator[s]
- can be treated the same as those in any other 'group.)
As such, moderated 'groups must have some flag in the news client.
I have a feeling there was such an indication in Turnpike. I've just
looked at the properties of this 'group in Thunderbird, and I can't
_see_ a "moderated" indication that isn't ticked, but maybe it only
appears at all on moderated ones?
ISTR there was also some mechanism for entering a different moderator
from the default (@moderators.isc.org) one for 'groups that had a
moderator whose address wasn't part of that organisation. (That -
isc.org - is probably what I was [mis?]remembering as a central
organisation - not really a clearinghouse.)
Since privacy is everything on the Internet, I think now that the standard >process each newsreader uses likely maintains the privacy change all along.
This is the flow I'm belatedly beginning to understand better:
user > nntp server > smtp server > moderator > acceptance > posting
If that's the correct typical flow, and given the fact that it's publicly >accepted to obfuscate identity on Usenet, since email is required in that >flow, what smtp and nntp server does the moderator's process utilize?
Adam H. Kerman wrote:
While I had looked for alt.test.moderated, Marco suggests
misc.test.moderated since alt.test.moderated doesn't seem to exist.
Most moderated groups do not require a real or working email address.
Usenet has a long tradition of allowing obfuscated or nonfunctional
addresses because of spam concerns.
Typical bogus examples:
nobody@example.invalid
user@nowhere.net
name@remove-this.example.com
In olden days, every News server had to maintain a list of submission addresses in a moderators file. It was recognized that these addresses
ofIf the _client_ does it - which would seem a more efficient way, after
all why involve the newsserver if that can be avoided - then the list
tnewsgroups must contain a flag for the ones that are moderated, so tha
s]the client knows to treat posts to it differently. (Posts _in_ it - i.
e. from other posters, that have already been passed by the moderator[
- can be treated the same as those in any other 'group.)
You are speaking of treating a submission address like the submission
address of a moderated mailing list. It can certainly be done by an
email client.
It's impossible for the newsreader to submit it because the newsreader
isn't an email client.
newsreader and email client, like Thunderbird or alpine, then it's not
using the newsreader to submit the proto article.
Also, the Message-ID string on the References header could be lost asy
it's used for a different purpose in email. Note that the use of
References in lieu of In-Reply-To that makes threading possible was a misunderstanding of the differences between the two headers in the earl
days of Usenet when Mail message format was adapted for News.
I don't agree with your notion of submitting directly to the submission
address in the newsreader. I see drawbacks but no advantages.
Also note that the shared format was because interserver communicationn
with long distance telephone charges via modems was hideously expensive
and it allowed shared messages to be sent as a single News article, the
a local mailing list allowed it to be delivered to mailboxes.
On 2026/1/31 18:2:38, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
[]
In olden days, every News server had to maintain a list of submission
addresses in a moderators file. It was recognized that these addresses
OK, so the default is that news clients (for the users using them) send
posts to moderated 'groups to the normal server rather than direct to
the moderator(s). I did not know that. (Also see below.)
[]
If the _client_ does it - which would seem a more efficient way, after
all why involve the newsserver if that can be avoided - then the list of >>> newsgroups must contain a flag for the ones that are moderated, so that
the client knows to treat posts to it differently. (Posts _in_ it - i.
e. from other posters, that have already been passed by the moderator[s] >>> - can be treated the same as those in any other 'group.)
You are speaking of treating a submission address like the submission
address of a moderated mailing list. It can certainly be done by an
email client.
It's impossible for the newsreader to submit it because the newsreader
isn't an email client.
Good point, which I hadn't thought of. (I've always used combined
software - either one that does both like Turnpike or Thunderbird, or [I think - long ago!] a suite that combined them, like modified KA9Q.)
On 2026-02-01 15:21, J. P. Gilliver wrote:[...]
On 2026/1/31 18:2:38, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
It's impossible for the newsreader to submit it because the newsreader
isn't an email client.
Good point, which I hadn't thought of. (I've always used combined
software - either one that does both like Turnpike or Thunderbird, or [I think - long ago!] a suite that combined them, like modified KA9Q.)
In Linux (and Unix), any program can submit an email. It is part of the system.
Of course, in many home systems this method is not configured and will fail.
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2026-02-01 15:21, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
On 2026/1/31 18:2:38, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
[...]
It's impossible for the newsreader to submit it because the newsreader >>>>isn't an email client.
Good point, which I hadn't thought of. (I've always used combined >>>software - either one that does both like Turnpike or Thunderbird, or [I >>>think - long ago!] a suite that combined them, like modified KA9Q.)
In Linux (and Unix), any program can submit an email. It is part of the >>system.
I don't know about Linux, but for 'Unix' it depends on how you define
'Unix'. AFAIR, before Berkeley Unix' sendmail, Unix only had 'mail[x]'
which could only send/receive e-mail to/from the same local system.
(Yes, there was UUCP-based e-mail, but that predates Internet mail.)
. . .
We received excellent detailed actionable answers from the peering
newsgroup (who, after all, are the ones who disseminated moderated
messages).
Approved: moderator@example.org
This header tells Usenet servers that the article is authorized for
the moderated group. The moderator's system posts from a trusted
host or authenticated account, so servers accept the Approved
article.
You can't easily spoof that approval header (nor should you!), so this one >header cannot be injected by the home-grown newsreader (and shouldn't be).
. . .
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2026-02-01 15:21, J. P. Gilliver wrote:[...]
On 2026/1/31 18:2:38, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
It's impossible for the newsreader to submit it because the newsreader >>>> isn't an email client.
Good point, which I hadn't thought of. (I've always used combined
software - either one that does both like Turnpike or Thunderbird, or [I >>> think - long ago!] a suite that combined them, like modified KA9Q.)
In Linux (and Unix), any program can submit an email. It is part of the
system.
I don't know about Linux, but for 'Unix' it depends on how you define 'Unix'. AFAIR, before Berkeley Unix' sendmail, Unix only had 'mail[x]'
which could only send/receive e-mail to/from the same local system.
(Yes, there was UUCP-based e-mail, but that predates Internet mail.)
OTOH, in the very early 70s, we already used 'e-mail' before that term
was even known and probably not even invented! :-) The world-wide intra-company system was called COMSYS, short for Communication System.
In comparison, while Wikipedia doesn't give a year for UUCP-based
e-mail, it probably came only it the late 70s and SMTP came only in
1983, a decade after 'us'. [1] [2]
Of course, in many home systems this method is not configured and will fail.
On this mixed Windows/Cygwin system I use ssmtp(8), a send-only
sendmail emulator, to send e-mail (mostly administrative e-mail from shell-scripts).
[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email#History>
[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP#History>
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