nyuuzyou/wikis huggingface dataset:
Minutes/2023-05-19

Present: TM, RL
* (Web)STUMP
** RL has identified the cause of the sed error in Salahuddin's output; this is a bug in STUMP that he has now fixed. RL has informed Salahuddin.
** RL communicated to Salahuddin how to disable strict PGP checking and suggested resubmitting the affected article with a new Date: header. So far no response from Salahuddin.
** RL noted that there seems to be duplicate copies of the (Web)STUMP documentation in different formats (HTML, Markdown, Texinfo). RL to ask JE which is the master version. RL has offered to start cleaning up the contents of the documentation once the master version is identified.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-05-26

Present: TM, RL
* Infrastructure
** E-mail received from Google regarding a suspicious login attempt to a Google account tied to one of the Board's e-mail addresses. JE sent an e-mail explaining that he had created the Google account in question with a view to using it to operate a YouTube channel on behalf of the board. (See Minutes/2021-11-05.) The Google account can no longer be used due to loss of the phone number tied to the two-factor authentication, but since the account was never used, JE recommends simply letting the account lapse.
* (Web)STUMP
** RL been tidying up the (Web)STUMP documentation but has not yet committed anything pending confirmation from JE on which format (Markdown, Texinfo, or HTML) is the master version
* Misc
** E-mail received from Julien Élie of the fr.* hierarchy giving details of their "spring cleaning". Julien mentions that this includes plans to "unmoderate 2 moderated newsgroups which were empty and also without any active moderator". RL to send a reply asking for further details on how they plan to implement this.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-06-02

Present: TM, RL
* Website
** E-mail from Bill Horne reporting some broken links to landfield.com on our wiki. RL volunteered to fix the broken links and to reply to Bill Horne.
* Administration
** E-mail from Salahuddin, moderator of , confirming that he's applied RL's patch to STUMP fixing the PGP issue. Salahuddin also reports that he's published a blog post that provides instructions on how to get started with Usenet. TM to reply to Salahuddin and also follow up to the thread where the posting problem was first raised.
* Misc
** Ongoing correspondence with Julien Élie of the fr.* hierarchy on their approach to dealing with dead moderated groups: Julien's decision to "unmoderate" these groups (via control message, not by robomoderation) was made after an analysis of path headers in recent posts to fr.*; the most frequently used hosts have been verified to correctly honour control articles for fr.*. The meeting noted that this information might inform the Board's future approach to dealing with dead moderated groups.
** E-mail from Liam Proven, via JE, notifying us of a brief mention of the Board in Liam's latest article in The Register: "Why you might want an email client in the era of webmail". TM to follow up with Liam.
** Reminder: No Board meeting next week due to TM's absence.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-06-16

Present: TM, RL
* Administration
** Bill Horne of , who has found a new moderator, indicates that the moderator address should stay the same. RL to advise him that, per Moderated Newsgroups#How does a group change moderators?, simply informing the ISC of the change in moderator is sufficient. However, TM thought it would help for the Board to also publicize the change in moderators on Usenet, as it has historically done. RL to ask Bill if he'd like us to do this.
* Infrastructure
* (Web)STUMP
** Documentation updates:
*** RL has been updating the (Web)STUMP documentation. In the absence of a response from JE, RL is assuming that the Markdown version of the documentation, which was apparently generated by JE from the HTML version, was intended to be the new master copy.
*** We have received suggestions concerning the documentation from Paul Schleck. RL has acted upon these by starting an FAQ.
*** In surveying the existing documentation, RL found a design rationale document by Igor Chudov, which may be of little interest to users. It was agreed to keep this but to prefacing it with a note that it's retained for historical reasons and/or for the use of (Web)STUMP developers.
** RL suggested it would be useful to mark issues in the bug tracker as targetting a specific release. Savannah has support for such extra field; RL to determine which of these we should use.
** RL noted that the "Download" links on the Savannah project pages for STUMP and WebSTUMP currently point nowhere. It was agreed to upload tarballs of the latest release to Savannah's hosting, but there was some confusion as to how to handle tarball signing. (That is, should we use a dedicated signing key, or our individual keys?)e TM to ask on the GNU maintainers mailing list about GPG signing best practices.
* Publicity
** No response yet from Liam Proven to TM's latest message. TM to ping him.
** RL asked about web gateways to Usenet that we might document on our wiki or direct enquirers to.
*** RL noted that electrondepot.com seems to be a Usenet gateway, with full read/write access, for a small subset of newsgroups. There's no indication of who is running it and why, though its Terms of Reference clearly disclose that it is a Usenet gateway.
*** RL noted Narkive, a one-man operation that archives Usenet posts. RL seems to remember it once having a posting ability for registered users.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-06-23

Present: TM, RL
* Administration
** RL looked into the ISC archive for and turned up nothing. TM suggested simply using "comp.dcom.telecom" as the archive name, if we do end up posting about the moderator change. RL to ask Bill Horne if he'd like us to do this as a courtesy.
** RL asked about the current state of anti-spam cancelbots – is anyone still running them? TM suggested to ask about this on and to discuss the result at the next meeting.
* Infrastructure
** RL has fixed the Big-8's webmail (again).
** RL has fixed a number of dead links on the Big-8 wiki reported by Marco Moock.
* (Web)STUMP
** For the STUMP project, RL has added an additional field for release target, and also a corresponding custom search form. RL will do the same for WebSTUMP.
** RL has made some more minor updates to the documentation, applied to a separate branch. TM to review when available.
** TM has not yet asked about GPG best signing practices but will do so soon.
* Publicity
** TM has pinged Liam Proven, who has responded that he is working on an angle for a possible story, and mentioned that he got a few upvotes on a story posted to Hacker News.
** Apropos of this, TM has noted a spate of very recent Hacker News posts about Usenet:
*** Usenet thrived in a time where most of us trusted each other…
*** Ask HN: Is it time to resurrect a Usenet clone?
*** Why did Usenet fail?
*** Ask HN: Discussions on Usenet?
*** Usenet over NNCP
** Re Web–Usenet gateways, RL has learned of some Web BBSes with direct(?) gateways to Usenet, via a GPL'd PHP frontend that is under active maintenance. RL to look into compiling these gateways onto a wiki page, perhaps sorted by protocol/network (mail, Web, FidoNet).
** RL has been corresponding on Mastodon with Katherine Cox-Buday (@katco@mstdn.social) on popularizing Usenet, for example, by exposing WebSockets interfaces. RL to ask about the possibility of a meeting with the Board.
** GNU 40th Anniversary event
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-06-30

Present: TM, RL
* Administration
** RL has asked Bill Horne if he was successful in communicating the moderator change for to the ISC, and asked if he wants us to make an ISC-archived announcement of the change. No response yet.
** Status of cancelbots
*** RL: No update yet
* Infrastructure
* (Web)STUMP
** RL has assigned STUMP bugs to planned releases
** TM has written to the GNU documentation folks about an apparent contradiction in their instructions for providing signing keys. No response yet.
* Publicity
** Usenet gateway wiki documentation
*** RL: No update yet
** Katherine Cox-Buday meeting proposal
*** RL: No update yet
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-07-14

Present: TM, RL
* Administration
** change announcement
*** Still no response from Bill Horne; PS wrote to us to draw our attention to an article from the new moderator Dan Ritter, , indicating that Bill has suffered a stroke. Agreed that RL would send Bill best wishes on behalf of the Board, and would also forward to the new moderator our offer to publicize the change in moderator.
** Cancelbots
*** No further progress by RL.
** RFD on Go programming language group
*** This appears to have stalled. TM to post a reply next week reminding the proponent about the next steps.
* Infrastructure
** RL reported that the Board's website went down for an unknown reason last night; he noticed the problem after a few hours and restarted the web server. TM to upgrade MediaWiki next next week.
* (Web)STUMP
** GPG signing best practices on Savannah
*** No further progress by TM.
* Publicity
** Usenet gateway wiki documentation
*** RL has started work on Web-to-News Gateways and will link to it from the list of news service providers once it is in a better state.
** Katherine Cox-Buday meeting proposal
*** No further progress by RL.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-07-21

Present: TM, RL
* Administration
** moderator change announcement
*** RL has sent best wishes on behalf of the Board to Bill Horne but has not yet contacted the new moderator with our offer to publicize the change in moderatorship
** RFD on Go programming language group
*** TM has posted a reply to the RFD reminding the proponent about possible next steps
* Infrastructure
* TM: Web server VPS has been upgraded to a current LTS release. This was necessary in order to upgrade MediaWiki.
* TM: MediaWiki has been upgraded to a current LTS release. Some extensions and skins still need upgrades.
* Publicity
** RL: Usenet gateway wiki documentation has been updated and linked
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-07-28

Present: TM, RL
* Administration
** received a group creation RFD; while having the correct structure, TM rejected it because it contained extraneous and incorrect information. TM wrote to the proponent to explain what needs to be removed or corrected, and to encourage resubmission.
* Infrastructure
** TM upgraded the Web server's OS to the latest current LTS release. Again, this was necessary in order to upgrade MediaWiki, which was on an LTS release slated to go out of support in September. TM also upgraded MediaWiki to the latest LTS release, and upgraded all extensions and skins.
** RL reported that the webmail system is now broken, which is probably a consequence of the new OS not providing the correct version of PHP. RL to fix the problem either by installing an older version of PHP (and updating the webmail's configuration to use it) or by upgrading the webmail system to one that works with the newer version of PHP.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-08-11

Present: TM, RL
* Administration
** RL has posted to to ask about cancels, cancelbots, and other technical anti-spam measures currently in use
** No further communication from proponent of the RFD for comp.lang.go; TM to ping the proponent in a few days
* Infrastructure
** E-mail from Paul Schleck noting that has finally been added to Panix's news server
* Publicity
** E-mail from Paul Schleck with a sample .newsrc file (containing active groups) that we could distribute on our wiki. TM to post this.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-08-18

Present: TM, RL
* Administration
** RL received many replies to his post on cancels, cancelbots, and other technical anti-spam measures currently in use. RL to summarize the relevant information in the Board's wiki.
** TM has not yet pinged the proponent of the RFD for comp.lang.go but will do so soon.
* Infrastructure
** TM was to post Paul Schleck's sample .newsrc file on our Getting Started with Usenet tutorial but discovered that the existing instructions in the tutorial or not correct, possibly due to changes in the UI for Thunderbird over the last three years. TM to revise the tutorial so that it is applicable to the latest major release of Thunderbird (115.x) and then add mention of the .newsrc file. (TM has already updated the tutorial page by converting it from HTML to MediaWiki markdown.)
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-08-25

Present: TM, RL
* Administration
** TM has pinged the proponent of the RFD for comp.lang.go.
* Infrastructure
** Starting on 21 August, has been experiencing a flood of hundreds of binary articles with randomized Subject and From lines. STUMP's blocking mechanism is ineffective for this, so TM added a rule to .procmailrc that sends the submissions to /dev/null. The articles appear to originate from Newsgroup Ninja. An abuse report sent to the e-mail address in the article headers bounced. TM sent another abuse report to the provider's support address but has not received a reply.
* Wiki
** RL has added an article on NoCeM and a category :Category:Usenet infrastructure.
** TM finished bringing JE's Getting Started with Usenet tutorial up to date and expanded it with a section on using Paul Schleck's sample .netrc file of active newsgroups.
* Any other business
** Agreed to cancel the next two meetings due to holidays
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-09-15

* Administration
** RFD for comp.lang.go
*** RL has been corresponding with the proponent and is now awaiting final confirmation on the RFD before voting. TM to remind the proponent that we are awaiting confirmation.
** 
*** Russ Allbery forwarded a message from someone volunteering to take over moderatorship. TM to respond.
** and 
*** The Board received an inquiry on the status of these defunct moderated groups. The Board had previously sought replacement moderators in April and May of 2022 but did not receive any volunteers. The meeting agreed that the Board itself would take over moderatorship of the groups. RL to add the groups to our (Web)STUMP installation.
* Infrastructure
** The Board's mail server's Let's Encrypt certificate has failed to renew. RL to rectify this.
* (Web)STUMP
** TM: No update yet on GPG signing best practices on Savannah. Agreed to defer.
* Publicity
** RL: No update yet on Katherine Cox-Buday meeting proposal. RL to pursue this when he has time.
** Agreed to drop the tentative plans to participate in the GNU 40th Anniversary event, owing to lack of (remaining) time.
** The Board's work has been covered in articles in The Register and TechSpot ("USENET, the OG social network, rises again like a text-only phoenix" by Liam Proven and "Usenet is still alive, and the Big-8 Board is managing things again" by Alfonso Maruccia). TM has already publicized these on the Board's Facebook and Twitter accounts. TM to publicize these on the Board's home page.
** LibrePlanet 2024
*** The conference has now issued a call for sessions with a deadline of 25 October 2023. RL and TM to think of ideas for a presentation.
* Misc
** Open Collective payment processing fees will increase on 1 October 2023: card processing fees will increase from 6% to 8%, and bank transfer fees will increase from 8% to 10%.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-09-22

* Administration
** RFD for comp.lang.go
*** Proponent has confirmed final wording of the RFD and RL has posted the LCC. TM to publicize the LCC in the usual channels. Board to vote on the RFD at its meeting on 29 September. RL to inform JE about the vote.
** Moderator volunteer for 
*** Volunteer has confirmed that they have the technical and procedural knowledge to moderate the group, and has agreed to RL's suggestion that the Board issue an MVI that proposes them as moderator. RL to ask the volunteer how they want to be identified in the MVI.
** and : RL to get Kathy Morgan's explicit permission for the Board to take over moderation of these groups. RL to then proceed with adding them to the Board's (Web)STUMP instance and announcing the change in moderatorship.
* Infrastructure
** Mail server SSL certificate: RL has not yet looked into this but will do so
** Board meeting invitations to JE were bouncing due to an expired domain name. JE seems to have updated his big-8.org e-mail forwarder so TM has updated the invitation to use that address rather than JE's actual address.
** RL has fixed various links on the wiki and made some updates to News service providers.
* (Web)STUMP
** TM: No update yet on GPG signing best practices on Savannah
* Publicity
** LibrePlanet 2024: No progress yet but the Board will continue to consider ideas for a session proposal
* Misc
** TM unsure if he can make the meetings on 20 and 27 October. TM will inform RL at least the day before if he's unable to attend.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-09-29

* Administration
** RFD for comp.lang.go
*** RL posted a revised LCC (without the clause in the charter proposing to convert the group to a moderated one in the future) at the request of the proponent. The voting period will begin on 2023-09-30. RL and TM have been following the discussions in . RL has been keeping JE in the loop and will send all Board members an e-mail reminder when it is time to begin voting. Voting will end once all Board members have voted (or explicitly abstained) or the voting period ends, whichever comes first.
** Moderator volunteer for 
*** RL has discovered that the previous moderator, Stephen Graham, died in 2019. The prospective moderator has identified themselves to the Board. RL has posted the MVI, and TM will publicize this on the web. The meeting agreed to let the discussion run for at least one week, with a view to making a decision on moderatorship at the next Board meeting.
** and : RL has obtained Kathy Morgan's explicit permission for the Board to take over moderation of these groups. RL is in the process of adding them to the Board's (Web)STUMP instance, after which the Board will announce the change in moderatorship.
* Infrastructure
** Mail server SSL certificate: RL has not yet looked into this but will do so
** RL has fixed various broken links on the wiki.
* (Web)STUMP
** TM: No update yet on GPG signing best practices on Savannah
* Publicity
** LibrePlanet 2024: No progress yet but the Board will continue to consider ideas for a session proposal, for which the deadline is 25 October.
* Misc
** Query from JK regarding a possible post to . The Board discussed this and TM will respond.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-10-06

* Administration
** RFD for comp.lang.go
*** Voting by e-mail underway; voting ends tomorrow. RL to post the result and inform the ISC at the conclusion of voting.
** Moderator volunteer for 
*** The Board has been monitoring the discussion in and communicating with the prospective moderator, Bixby, on technical and procedural issues. RL to ask Bixby when he'd be ready to take over moderation.
** and : RL still in the process of adding these groups to the Board's (Web)STUMP instance, after which the Board will announce the change in moderatorship.
* Infrastructure
** Mail server SSL certificate: RL has not yet looked into this but will do so.
* (Web)STUMP
** TM: No update yet on GPG signing best practices on Savannah
* Publicity
** LibrePlanet 2024: No progress yet but the Board will continue to consider ideas for a session proposal, for which the deadline is 25 October.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-10-13

* Administration
** RFD for comp.lang.go
*** Result: Group will be created. RL has posted the result on Usenet and the Board's website, and has notified the ISC. ISC have created the group and RL has confirmed that it is now appearing on many news servers (but not, as expected, Google Groups). The group is already seeing some activity.
** Moderator volunteer for 
*** Discussion continuing in . The Board has offered Bixby help with technical matters and asked him to let us know when he's ready to begin moderating so that we can inform the ISC.
** and : RL still in the process of adding these groups to the Board's (Web)STUMP instance, after which the Board will announce the change in moderatorship.
* Infrastructure
** Mail server SSL certificate: RL has determined that this is a wider problem with the server scripts that stems from TM's OS upgrade back in July 2023. RL will back up the mailboxes and attempt to manually upgrade the mail server software. Failing this, the Board will consider reinstalling and reconfiguring the server, or replacing it.
* (Web)STUMP
** TM: No update yet on GPG signing best practices on Savannah
* Publicity
** LibrePlanet 2024: No progress yet but the Board will continue to consider ideas for a session proposal, for which the deadline is 25 October.
* Misc
** TM will be travelling on 20 October and will give RL a day's notice if he can't attend the next meeting.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-10-20

* Administration
** Moderator volunteer for 
*** The prospective moderator, Bixby, has indicated to the Board that he will be writing his own moderation software.
** and : No further updates.
* Infrastructure
** Mail server SSL certificate: No further updates.
* (Web)STUMP
** TM: No update yet on GPG signing best practices on Savannah
* Publicity
** LibrePlanet 2024: No progress yet but the Board will continue to consider ideas for a session proposal, for which the deadline is 25 October.
** The Board is mentioned in "USENET: All the news that’s fit", an article by Mark Pesce published in Cosmos Magazine on 23 September 2023.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-10-27

* Administration
** and : No further updates.
* Infrastructure
** Mail server. RL fixed SSL certificate, but did not yet upgrade mail-in-a-box. TM to add SpamAssassin whitelist rules.
* (Web)STUMP
** TM: No update yet on GPG signing best practices on Savannah
* Publicity
** LibrePlanet 2024: Deadline for session proposals extended to 17 November.
* Misc
** PS has sent updates to the sample .newsrc file. RL to update our wiki accordingly.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-11-03

* Administration
** and 
*** RL has produced working procmail recipes for and will do the same for .
*** RL has suggested obtaining the latest version of the FAQs that were periodically posted to these groups so that we can continue to post them ourselves. Agreed that RL would check with Kathy Morgan what the latest versions are.
** 
*** Agreed that TM would prepare a final MVI for posting this month.
* Infrastructure
** Mail server
*** TM has added SpamAssassin whitelist rules for our most frequent correspondents, including the STUMP instances.
*** RL to upgrade the mail server software.
* (Web)STUMP
** TM: No update yet on GPG signing best practices on Savannah
* Publicity
* Misc
** RL has updated the .newsrc file in our wiki with the latest changes from PS.
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023
Minutes/2023-11-10

* Administration
** Moderator volunteer for 
*** The new moderator, Bixby, reports that he is almost done writing his own moderation software and has already updated the group's submission address with the ISC.
** and 
*** RL has received the latest FAQs from Kathy Morgan. These need to be updated.
** 
*** A user reported to TM that a post submitted via Google Groups didn't show up after several days. TM to investigate.
** 
*** TM still to prepare a final MVI for posting this month.
* Infrastructure
** Mail server
*** Work still in progress by RL.
* (Web)STUMP
** TM: No update yet on GPG signing best practices on Savannah
* Publicity
* Misc
Category:Meeting minutes for 2023