Following is a copy of something I posted to bit.admin and news.admin.
In order to avoid the sort of problems that are described here, I have
not crossposted it to this list as well, but am sending it separately.
 
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A group of people at Penn State (reachable via [log in to unmask]
or [log in to unmask]) has been discussing issues related to
the gating of Listserv lists into bit groups and as a result of some
potential problems with the current methods, is recommending the
following changes.
 
1. All bit groups should be unmoderated.
2. Each site that gates a Listserv group to Usenet should also gate the
   Usenet group back to Listserv.
3. Only one site per list should do the gateway.  In order to avoid
   confusion, Penn State volunteers to "register" the gateway site in
   a list that will be posted regularly.
4. We need some more formal guidelines for establishing a new
   Listserv/Usenet gateway.  Our proposed guidelines are posted
   separately.
 
*** Why should bit groups be unmoderated?
 
Since distribution of the bit groups is sparse, serious problems can
occur (and did occur on the list AIX-L) if the bit groups remain
moderated and a message is crossposted to a bit group and a Usenet
group.  When the crossposted message propagates to a site that does not
carry the bit groups and a user there does a followup, the local node
does not know that the bit group is moderated and therefore sends it
back through Usenet.
 
When the message finds its way to potentially many sites that do carry
the bit groups and therefore know that the group is moderated, any of
those sites running B News will forward the article to the moderator.
Since the "moderator" is not a human but is a Listserv mailing list, it
will in turn send all of the copies it receives out to its readership,
generally causing a mess.
 
To avoid this problem, we recommend that the bit groups be unmoderated
and that Usenet postings to these groups be fed back to Listserv by the
site that is gating Listserv to Usenet, that is, that each Listserv/
Usenet gateway be bi-directional.
 
 
*** What are the potential problems with this method?
 
The major potential problem would occur if more than one site gatewayed
a particular list.  If two sites did a bi-directional gateway for the
same list, then a posting that originated through Usenet would be fed
back to Listserv by both of the gateway sites, resulting in duplicates.
 
Therefore, Penn State volunteers to "register" who is gating what and
to make this information publicly available.  Our suggestion is that
any place who wanted to establish a gateway would first register with
us, in order to avoid problems of duplicates.
 
 
*** The information in this posting is a consensus opinion of the
    people in [log in to unmask] (also [log in to unmask]).
 
Specific problems and concerns can be addressed to this list or posted
to bit.admin.  The people in news-admin are:
 
    Felix Lee         [log in to unmask]          [log in to unmask]
    Dan Ehrlich       [log in to unmask]       [log in to unmask]
    Scott Dickson     [log in to unmask]        [log in to unmask]
    Bill Verity       [log in to unmask]        [log in to unmask]
    Linda Littleton   [log in to unmask]        [log in to unmask]
    Jim Duncan        [log in to unmask]         [log in to unmask]
 
 
We welcome feedback and suggestions concerning these proposals.  Please
either post them here or write to [log in to unmask] or
[log in to unmask]