XPost: news.groups 
 From: rra@stanford.edu 
  
 In news.groups, DaveC  writes: 
  
 > Is there a list kept somewhere of all moderated USENET groups? It would 
 > be nice to know what groups are moderated before attempting to post 
 > (inadvertently) to one of them. 
  
 Your newsreader should tell you this, since it knows (the news server 
 tells it when it obtains the list of available newsgroups).  So one thing 
 to investigate would be getting a better news reader. 
  
 You can get a list of newsgroups at: 
  
      
  
 In the active file there, groups with a flag of "m" are moderated.  In the 
 newsgroups file, groups whose descriptions end with "(Moderated)" are 
 moderated.  However, note that many sites can and do use different rules 
 than that group list and may disagree with it. 
  
 > I know that one can read the FAQ for a NG prior to posting, but 
 > sometimes a subscription contains many NG's and checking a FAQ prior to 
 > cross-posting an article isn't feasible. 
  
 I usually just trim all newsgroups from the crosspost that I don't already 
 know something about.  It's rarely much of a loss.  But even apart from 
 that, if the newsgroups are carried by your local server, your news reader 
 should be able to warn you (it may have to go to a tiny bit of extra work, 
 but it's worth it). 
  
 -- 
 Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)              
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)