HyperNews FAQ

Introduction

These FAQ's provide additional information, more associated with the policy and management of the HyperNews. For more information, see main HN pages.

Questions and Answers

New Forums

1. Conveners make a request which goes to hn-atlas-admin
2. Karl (Physics, Detectors) or Dario (Computing) either
   • inform Administrator (Yves Perrin, via mail to hn-atlas-admin) that they approve the Forum
   • interact directly with the convener (cc hn-atlas-admin) indicating why they reject the request or how it might be modified
     • if modifications of the submitted request are needed, like a better description of the purpose of the forum, then the reviewers will clarify this with the requester
3. Administrator creates new Forum

Migration from Simba

Why should we move ?

We would encourage people to move to HyperNews - but there is no policy to force people to make the transition (especially as HN cannot support restricted forum viewing required for more sensitive issues).

HyperNews is

• Proving popular - people are voting with their feet
• Has good web interface
• Much less opaque than Simba
• Easy to follow threads
• Good for seraching for info

Migration from Simba

See HN Policy.

Groups would like "automatic" migration of Simba lists to HN. This is far from straightforward and counter to the design philosophy of HN (and difficult to get around).
Migration is not likely to happen because:

• Two very different systems (cf Latex vs Word); HN is not an ATLAS or CERN product, while Simba is. For example, HN users identifiers for users (which are connected to email addresses), while Simba uses directly email addresses.
• No obvious manpower to undertake the development

Restricted Forums

For some activities, it is necessary to have restricted Forums, eg communication associated with Steering Groups or the EB. The possibility to restrict membership of a Forum does not exist in HyperNews:

• It is counter to the "open" philosophy of HyperNews ...
• Because of this, the source code is structured in such a way as to make it difficult to introduced restricted membership ...
• And there is not the development effort to introduce this feature.

Attachments

24/7/06:
Only certain attachments are allowed - see User Info. While it is true that pernicious scripts can be contained in Microsoft files, at least the files are given as links, which provides some measure of protection.

4/7/07:
HyperNews will accept attachments smaller than 150kB. This is to keep the server area manageable, but it should be sufficient for simple plots/images, small presentations and small documents. If the size is larger than 150kB, it is simply stripped.

Because you cannot attach large files, instead, you can store them:

• On a corresponding Indico page
• As TWiki attachments (upto 100 MB)
  • Official ATLAS Web, if approriate
  • Main.YourTWikiName or Sandbox.YourTWikiName if you are registered
• On a static web site such as on AFS (my web area is /afs/cern.ch/user/h/haywood/www) or at your home institute

Password Problems

23/11/07:
When someone tries to change his/her password on hypernews.cern.ch, may get warning

> [jenna@lxplus238]~% ssh hypernews.cern.ch
> ssh(2791) @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
> ssh(2791) @       WARNING: POSSIBLE DNS SPOOFING DETECTED!          @
> ssh(2791) @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
etc

Remove .the line for the hypernews machine in .ssh/known_hosts file

This happens when you have not logged on to the machine since the move to the new hardware this summer. With this move, the ssh key was also changed and this is the usual warning you get when it happens. Normally this should be something worrying, in this case, it results frm the change of machine h/w and is to be expected.

Transfering from Another Expt

If someone is registered with HN for some other expt, he cannot access the ATLAS HN. He must:

1. From old expt HN, go to Subscribe to Forums
2. Unsubscribe from all forums and submit changes
3. Let Yves Perrin know; Yves will then transfer the account

For Administrators

Deleting a Posting

Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:20:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: Terry Hung
Subject: The feature of deleting/moving/copying messages is added to HN

The new feature of deleting/moving/copying messages has been added to HyperNews v1.11-slac-78. The History file and tar file can be found in http://hypernews.slac.stanford.edu/hn/download/.

hypernews v1.11-slac-78 (20070725) - This version adds the feature to delete/move/copy messages.

Here is the steps to use this feature:

• Login as administrator and go to a forum's outline page.
• Click "Editing Mode" in the top menu to enter the editing mode.
• Select messages by clicking the checkbox next to the messages.
• Click "Delete/Move/Copy" button to enter the edit panel.
• Click "Delete" to delete selected messages.
• Or set the destination path and click "Copy" or "Move" to move selected messages.
• (Click Help to get help messages.)
• Click "Turn off Editing" to turn off the editing mode.

%RESPONSIBLE% StephenHaywood
%REVIEW% StephenHaywood - 11 Jun 2007