DOKK / manpages / debian 11 / inn / moderators.5.en
MODERATORS(5) File Formats Manual MODERATORS(5)

moderators - mail addresses for moderated Usenet newsgroups

The GetModeratorAddress(3) routine reads the file /etc/news/moderators to determine how to reach the moderator of a newsgroup. This is used by inews(1) when an unapproved local posting is made to a moderated newsgroup.

The file is read until a match is found. 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 is a wildmat(3)-style pattern. If it matches the name of the newsgroup, then the second field is taken to be a format string for sprintf(3). This string should have at most one %s parameter, which will be given the name of the newsgroup with periods transliterated to dashes.

Here is a sample file:

foo.important:announce-request@foo.com
foo.*:%s@mailer.foo.com
gnu.*:%s@prep.ai.mit.edu
*:%s@uunet.uu.net
Using the above file, postings to the moderated newsgroup in the left column will be sent to the address shown in the right column: 
foo.important	announce-request@foo.com
foo.x.announce	foo-x-announce@mailer.foo.com
gnu.emacs.sources	gnu-emacs-sources@prep.ai.mit.edu
comp.sources.unix	comp-sources-unix@uunet.uu.net

Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. This is revision 1.15, dated 1996/09/06.

inews(1), inn.conf(5), libinn(3), wildmat(3).