Minutes/2024-11-15

Present: RL, TM, MM

Administration
- rec.arts.comics.reviews and rec.arts.comics.info
  - No response from Tim Skirvin. It was agreed that TM would revise the RFD to reflect what is known about rec.arts.comics.info and pass it on to RL for comment. Following RL's approval, TM will post it.
- comp.sys.wearables
  - RL e-mailed Greg Pfeil today offering to (temporarily) host a STUMP installation for the group, pending setup of his own moderation system.
- comp.protocols.dns.bind
  - Last contact from Dan Mahoney on 2024-10-26. Agreed to defer consideration a while longer.
- rec.radio.broadcasting
  - Last contact from Jay Henning on 2024-10-31. Agreed to wait one further week.
- comp.os.plan9
  - No further activity on the MVI since 2024-11-03. Agreed that TM would respond to Anthony to ask about his plans.
- comp.lang.asm.x86
  - No further activity on the MVI since 2024-11-01, and last contact with Terje Mathisen on 2024-10-18. Agreed that RL would write to Terje Mathisen and encourage him to get in touch with the other volunteers.
- news.groups.proposals
  - E-mail from Jonathan Kamens indicating that he will be shutting down the moderation infrastructure for news.groups.proposals and proposing that we take it over.
  - RL responded affirmatively to the proposal and has set up a STUMP instance on our server, which he is in the process of testing.
  - There are various associated e-mail addresses on the ngp.big-8.org subdomain, one of which autoresponds with the group's signing key.
  - Agreed that RL would retire the autoresponder address, since the key is available on our wiki at Signing key for news.groups.proposals.
  - Agreed that RL would replace the other addresses with addresses on big-8.org and to update the group documentation at news.groups.proposals accordingly.
  - Agreed that RL would change the DNS records for the ngp.big-8.org subdomain so that they no longer point to Jonathan's mail server.
  - Agreed that RL would inform the ISC of the new submission address.
  - The group's signing key uses the e-mail address ngp-approval-key@ngp.big-8.org. Agreed to leave this as-is for now, as this is just an identifier. We can later consider adding a new identity with a new address, and/or upgrading to a GPGv2 key.
Infrastructure
- Jitsi Meet: Apparently the free instance now requires authentication to create rooms, which may explain the "waiting for moderator" message when MM or RL try to join our meeting room without TM. TM suggested that MM and RL try authenticating to Jitsi (via a third-party service such as Google, Facebook, or GitHub) before joining the meeting room to see if this lets them in. This can be tested at any time.
- E-mail from Todd McComb that Jonathan Kamens will also be shutting down his moderation relay, and asking whether we know of anyone who could host a replacement. MM responded in a personal capacity that he could run such a relay on his own infrastructure.
- Status of cron jobs for offsite backups: No further progress by RL.
- Status of remote monitoring: No further progress by MM.
- Status of fail2ban: MM has now set this up on our web/mail server.
Software/funding
- TM: No update yet on GPG signing best practices on Savannah
- Thunderbird 128 contact deferred given Julien's comments on INN.
- TM still to respond to Julien.
- OTF IFF/NGI0/Sovereign Tech Fund: no further updates
Misc
- Paul Schleck proposals: no further progress.
- TM is offering a funded doctoral position involving research on Usenet archives
- Our TUGboat article has been published, and seems to be open access already:
  Rayner Lucas, Tristan Miller, and Marco Moock. Usenet and the future of comp.text.tex. TUGboat: The Communications of the TeX Users Group, 45(3):298–301, November 2024. ISSN 0896-3207. DOI: 10.47397/tb/45-3/tb141lucas-usenet.
- RL might not make the 22 or 29 November meetings due to a conflicting appointment.
- TM gave apologies for the 29 November meeting.