DESCRIPTION

       When  an unapproved article is posted locally to a moderated newsgroup,
       it is not passed off to  innd(8)  for  normal  handling;  instead  it's
       instead  sent  via e-mail to the submission address for that newsgroup.
       The  file  <pathetc  in  inn.conf>/moderators  lists   the   submission
       addresses  for  moderated  newsgroups.   This file is used by nnrpd(8),
       inews(1), and any other program  that  uses  the  GetModeratorAddress()
       routine (see libinn(3)).

       The  moderators file is a list of associations between uwildmat(3) pat-
       terns matching newsgroups and the submission address  for  those  news-
       groups.   Blank lines and lines starting with a number sign (``#'') are
       ignored.  All other lines should consist of two fields separated  by  a
       colon.

       The  first  field  specifies  the group or groups to match using uwild-
       mat(3).  The first matching line is used,  so  more  specific  patterns
       should occur earlier than general patterns.

       The  second field, the submission address, may have at most one %s any-
       where in it; if present, this will be replaced by the name of the news-
       group  with periods replaced by dashes.  If there is a literal ``%'' in
       the submission address, it must be written as ``%%'' (even if not  fol-
       lowed by an ``s'').

       Here is a sample file:

              example.important:announce-request@example.com
              example.*:%s@smtp.example.com
              gnu.*:%s@prep.ai.mit.edu
              *:%s@moderators.isc.org

       Using  the  above file, postings to the moderated newsgroup in the left
       column will be sent to the address shown in the right column:

              example.important    announce-request@example.com
              example.x.announce   example-x-announce@smtp.example.com
              gnu.emacs.sources    gnu-emacs-sources@prep.ai.mit.edu
              comp.sources.unix    comp-sources-unix@moderators.isc.org

       Periods are converted to dashes for historical reasons,  from  back  in
       the  days  when  periods in the local part of addresses were not always
       handled correctly.  It's probably no longer necessary, but so much  now
       depends on it that it can't be easily changed.

       It's  intended that the sample moderators file included in the INN dis-
       tribution always be sufficient  for  all  world-wide  newsgroups.   The
       hosts  behind  moderators.isc.org have graciously volunteered to handle
       forwarding tasks for all world-wide newsgroups so that individual sites
       don't  have  to  keep  track  of the submission addresses for moderated
       groups.  The forwarding database used by moderators.isc.org is  coordi-
       nated  by moderators-request@isc.org; if you know of a world-wide news-


                                                                 MODERATORS(5)