NOTES for MHmod, mh-based usenet moderators package  version 0.15

WHAT THIS PACKAGE IS

	This is the software I use to moderate sci.space.tech and .science,
along with the MH mail package.  It includes three short shell scripts,
one support awk script, a sample .maildelivery file and something I have
at the end of my .login file to automate some of the mail sorting process.

	The software works thusly:  I use the mh "slocal" program to sort
incoming mail.  The file ".maildelivery" in your home directory tells it
what to do with it, which in the case of incoming moderator mail is put
it in a seperate mailbox file.  Sometimes mail gets past that filter,
but mh is flexible and refiling a message later is easy.

	To go through the articles submitted, you merely read the mh folder in
question.  After reading a submission with "show", you have several options.
One is to edit the submission: the script "med" in this package allows you
to (by default) vi the current message you've just looked at.  You could 
adjust it to use another editor.  Another choice (or once done editing) is
to post the message.  The command "pn" in this package will do that.
It will run the "checkmods" command to let you know (in case you didn't
notice) which of the groups the message is aimed at are moderated. 
Once it's done that, it asks you to confirm, then will post the article
by telnetting to your nntp server.  The output from the telnet session
is displayed to let you see if it posted successfully.  I didn't use
Inews because the version at my site is the inn version which always
gave me problems trying to be a moderator...

	I personally have a second folder set up for posted messages,
and an alias "rs" set up to refile this message to that folder and
go to the next message.  You could as easily have an alias delete the
message if you don't want to archive it, or whatever you prefer.

INSTALLING

	This package will unpack into a directory called "modsoft" with
the various scripts.  You can either move them into your local bin directory
or add the modsoft directory to your search path.

	You will have to link either the checkmods.local or checkmods.nntp
program to "checkmods" depending on which type of lookup you prefer.
The local lookup is faster but most users probably only have nntp
access to a server.  A fix to only download the active file once a day
into a local temporary file is being pondered (which will be the best
of both worlds 8-)

BUGS IN PACKAGE

	Bug number one is that this assumes you have both local and nntp
access to news (active file search is local, but posting isn't).  This is
probably a dangerous assumption.  The "checkmods" program is going to be
modified to use the output from an nntp "list" to run the check: this should
solve that problem (assuming more people run nntp based news 8-).
## Fixed v0.15 6/14/94 gwh option of checkmods.nntp or checkmods.local

	Bug number two is that the awk script doing the preprocessing to
take NNTP and Recieved headers out will sometimes nuke something it should
not... like the Newsgroups: line, if the preceding Recieved: was one line.
I haven't fixed this yet because I'm lazy and it only happens every few
days.  The output from the nntp server, displayed by pn, will let you 
know if this happens so you can manually edit the file (with "med")
and fix the problem.
## Fixed v0.15 6/14/94 gwh mod to awk script to check second line read

-george william herbert
gwh@crl.com  6/12/94
