Re: The first comment is...

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

In message <35C9FD72.2B912BFA@appliedtheory.com>, blizzard@appliedtheory.com writes:
><?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?>
><!DOCTYPE LINUX_INFO SYSTEM "linux-info.dtd">
><LINUX_INFO>
><SUMMARY>
><URL uri="http://www.fcw.com:80/pubs/fcw/1998/0803/fcw-agnasa-8-3-1998.html">N
>ASA PC cluster on IT crime trail</URL>
></SUMMARY>
><SUBMITTED_BY>
><PERSON email="blizzard@appliedtheory.com" homepage="http://odin.appliedtheory
>.com">Christopher Blizzard</PERSON>
></SUBMITTED_BY>
><AUTHOR>
><ORG uri="http://www.fcw.com/">Federal Computer Week</ORG>
><PERSON email="heather@fcw.com">Heather Harreld</PERSON>
></AUTHOR>
><DESCRIPTION>
>This is an article about using <URL uri="http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/beowulf/"
>>Beowulf</URL> system to process data in fighting crime.
>
><QUOTE>NASA engineers adapted the powerful, Unix-like operating system
>known as Linux to work in a massively parallel and distributed
>computing environment using commercial off-the-shelf hardware. The
>idea is to allow the multiple PCs to operate in concert as a single
>system.</QUOTE>
></DESCRIPTION>
><REFERENCE>
><URL uri="http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/beowulf/">The Beowulf Home Page</URL>
></REFERENCE>
><REFERENCE>
>Some other reference
></REFERENCE>
><REFERENCE>
><URL uri="http://www.redhat.com/">RedHat Software's</URL> <URL uri="http://www
>.redhat.com/extreme/">Extreme Linux</URL>
></REFERENCE>
></LINUX_INFO>

Ah-ha. I hadn't realized that you had already started an initial set
of fields for the news-piece format. 

Some more that come to mind, given the distributed nature of the system
we're developing, are

* approved_by (for the moderator who approves this piece of news into the LNN)

* comments (in case the moderator has any comments to add (do we want this?))

* Timestamp of submission, and timestamp of approval

We will need some sort of authentication mechanism for approval and
submission, but I'm going to deal with that after I've gotten some sleep.

I'll try to think of some more. For now I'm reading about nntp and looking
at various news servers (particularly innd) to try to figure out which one
might be most appropriate for us. I think perhaps the most difficult part
of the initial setup for LNN will be configuring an innd to be secure and
small-footprinted, and then convincing everybody that they want to run it
on their machines. News servers are not known for their security. Hmm.

Somebody should start thinking about how the categories should be divided
up, as well. Presumably we'll have a hierarchical system, so there will be
categories, subcategories, maybe even subsubcategories, etc.

Thanks,
--Roger