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How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts?

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Presently are nntp-related threads in the Windows & (free) newserver
related newsgroups, along with separate software-related threads in the
Thunderbird & newsreader newsgroups, folks are discussing how the moderated
newsgroup process really works from both the user and nntp server
perspective.

My summary below (likely wrong) is my attempt at describing for those teams
how the moderation process works, particularly in this specific case for
the two (free) news servers hosted by Jesse & Ivo respectively, although
this is no slight on them as we're simply using their servers as common
testable examples of servers we are familiar with that we also trust.

Privacy is a key component of this question as privacy is pervasive
(e.g., privacy is why I wrote my own newsreader decades ago on Solaris).

One specific question we have is whether a user can "email" directly to a
moderated newsgroup (when privacy is involved), so let's call that Q1,
while another question we have is if they can, how are the headers
structured (since they're different from normal smtp email headers) which
we'll call Q2 and yet another question we have is how does the moderation
flow work from user to moderator when a newsreader speaking only nntp is
used, which is Q3. 

Summarized, with privacy in mind, may we ask the peering group:

Q1: Can users email a post to a moderated newsgroup with email privacy?
Q2: If using throwaway mail servers, what additional headers are required?
Q3: How does "typical" moderation work when the nntp header email is bogus?

Note that my attempt at answering some of those questions is below, 
but it is just a paste of a recent post so it's not all the answers above.

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.

This news server apparently does not carry the moderated tax newsgroup.
But notice that it uses the "clearing house" above, plus some others.
 Taskbar > Runbox > cmd 
 C:\> telnet news.blueworldhosting.com 119
      200 nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com InterNetNews NNRP server INN
      2.8.0 (20250329 snapshot) ready (posting ok)
 MODE READER
 LIST ACTIVE misc.taxes
      215 Newsgroups in form "group high low status"
      misc.taxes 0000060117 0000000001 y
      .
 LIST ACTIVE misc.taxes.moderated
      215 Newsgroups in form "group high low status"
      .
 LIST MODERATORS
      215 Newsgroup moderators in form "group-pattern:submission-template"
      aioe.*:%s-newsgroup@aioe.org
      fido7.*:%s@fido7.org
      ffm.*:%s@moderators.arcornews.de
      fj.*:%s@moderators.fj-news.org
      medlux.*:%s@news.medlux.ru
      nl.*:%s@nl.news-admin.org
      perl.*:news-moderator-%s@perl.org
      relcom.*:%s@moderators.relcom.ru
      si.*:%s@arnes.si
      ukr.*:%s@sita.kiev.ua
      *:%s@moderators.isc.org
      .
 QUIT

This news server apparently does carry the moderated tax related newsgroup.
And notice that it also uses the "clearing house" above, plus some others.
 Taskbar > Runbox > cmd
 C:\> telnet paganini.bofh.team 119
      200 paganini.bofh.team InterNetNews NNRP server INN 2.6.4 ready 
      (posting ok)
 MODE READER
 LIST ACTIVE misc.taxes
      215 Newsgroups in form "group high low status"
      misc.taxes 0000060041 0000059279 y
      .
 LIST ACTIVE misc.taxes.moderated
      215 Newsgroups in form "group high low status"
      misc.taxes.moderated 0000061574 0000002149 m
      .
 LIST MODERATORS
      215 Newsgroup moderators in form "group-pattern:submission-template"
      fido7.*:%s@fido7.ru
      ffm.*:%s@moderators.arcornews.de
      fj.*:%s@moderators.fj-news.org
      medlux.*:%s@news.medlux.ru
      nl.*:%s@nl.news-admin.org
      perl.*:news-moderator-%s@perl.org
      relcom.*:%s@moderators.relcom.ru
      si.*:%s@arnes.si
      ukr.*:%s@sita.kiev.ua
      *:%s@moderators.isc.org
      .
 QUIT

Note that sending the article to the first server failed, but sending it to 
the second server seems to have not failed, but it still needs acceptance.

I had no idea of this process as I've never set up a news server myself.
Frank might be able to impart some insight as he was an admin in the past.
-- 
Usenet allows old friends to discuss unique topics of mutual interest.

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Thread

How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts? Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-01-31 12:51 -0500
  Re: How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts? Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> - 2026-01-31 21:46 +0100
  Re: How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts? "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> - 2026-01-31 21:15 +0000
    Re: How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts? Thomas Hochstein <thh@thh.name> - 2026-02-01 15:22 +0100
      Re: How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts? Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-02-01 10:28 -0500
        Re: How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts? "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> - 2026-02-01 16:48 +0000
        Re: How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts? Thomas Hochstein <thh@thh.name> - 2026-02-01 22:44 +0100
        Re: How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts? Thomas Hochstein <thh@thh.name> - 2026-02-01 22:47 +0100
        Re: How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts? Julien ÉLIE <iulius@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid> - 2026-02-04 00:13 +0100
      Re: How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts? "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> - 2026-02-01 15:38 +0000
        Re: How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts? Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-02-01 12:22 -0500
          Re: How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts? "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> - 2026-02-01 17:57 +0000
  Re: How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts? Thomas Hochstein <thh@thh.name> - 2026-02-01 15:18 +0100
    Re: How does "moderation" work with privacy in user Usenet posts? Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-02-01 10:38 -0500

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