Unofficial New Mozilla News Server Information Centre

Server History

The history of Mozilla newsgroups

How Giganews became the host

Giganews hosting the new Mozilla news server

How/When the transition will take place

A Gradual Transition
News server switch date moved to Jan 9th

Accessing the newsgroups

What will the new server name be?

Right now, the server has one name. news.mozilla.org This is meant as a replacement for the old server, so the old name is used.

Do I have to be a Giganews customer to access the new newsgroups?

No.

Will public access still be free?

Yes.

Do I have to register or provide credit card info to access the new newsgroups?

No.

Will the new newsgroups be on usenet? (and will they be archived on Google?)

No and yes. :-) The new groups will not be propagated to usenet, but there will be one feed going to Google, where Google will provide read-only access. There has been some recent discussion about allowing posting via Google Groups, so that might change.

March 29, 2006: Mozilla newsgroups are now allowing posting through Google Groups

Does that mean I should be able to access the groups through my ISP's news server?

No. You won't be able to access the new newsgroups through your ISP's news server.

Will the new newsgroups require a secure connection?

No.

What are the names of the new newsgroups?

The list of new newsgroups (including user-support newsgroups) can be found at:
https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/

Where can I find detailed instructions on how to access the server?

I've create a list of instructional pages, listed by newsreader.

Will the new server also carry the netscape.public.mozilla* newsgroups?

During the transition period: yes. One side affect of redirecting the server to Giganews before the newsgroup transition is that the article sequence numbers won't match between the news server at AOL and the Giganews server. This means that you will have a wrong count of which messages are read. (Most likely, all messages will be marked as read, as well as many new ones after that.) It would be best to re-subscribe to your current netscape.public.mozilla.* newsgroups.

After the transition is complete, it is likely that access to the entire netscape.public.mozilla* hierarchy will be closed. A new alias to the old server has been created It is: oldnews.mozilla.org

Will the new newsgroups be bi-directionally mirrored on mailing lists?

Yes. Lists will be at the domain lists.mozilla.org, and a hyphen will be used in place of periods, when replicating a newsgroup name. The 'mozilla' portion of the list name is also dropped. For example, for the newsgroup mozilla.support.firefox, the list will be support-firefox@lists.mozilla.org.

Server info

What is the retention of the new server?

Over 14 years

Does the new server honour message cancels?

No.

Does the new server filter binaries in text groups?

Yes. Messages with binary attachments, such as images (screenshots), will be filtered, and will not appear in the newsgroups. Files that can be viewed and edited using a text editor will not be filtered. These include: TXT, CSS, and ICS files, vCards, PGP (inline) or GPG signatures, and HTML posts.
S/MIME signatures are also allowed.

Does the new server support XPAT searches?

No. This means that in Thunderbird, using 'Edit-->Find-->Search Messages' will not work. The same goes for 'Tools-->Search Messages' in SeaMonkey. For more info, see Bug 147884. Using the Search bar, or switching to offline mode before going to "Search Messages" will work.

About the newsgroups

Are there any posting rules/guidelines?

The Mozilla Forum Etiquette page that applied to the previous newsgroups also applies to the new newsgroups. https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/etiquette/

Will the Mozilla Foundation have the ability to remove/create more groups?

Yes.

Will the new newsgroups be moderated?

Posting messages will not require approval, but the Mozilla Foundation can remove messages.

Will the Mozilla Champions be moderators of the new support newsgroups?

No.

Will the moderators close threads with a high amount of OT discussion?

Right now, there are no plans to close threads. The Mozilla Foundation is approaching the new groups and moderation, with a "Let's see if we need it first" philosophy.

Will OT discussion be appropriate in the new support groups?

No. Off-topic discussion not taken to private email, mozilla.general, or any place where it is not considered off-topic, by someone who knows they should be taking it elsewhere, is eligible for removal from the news server.

Other info

What will become of the netscape.mozilla.* user support newsgroups on secnews.netscape.com?

Those groups were created as an interim solution. Hopefully the traffic there will move on to news.mozilla.org.

Will the AOL server still carry the netscape.public.mozilla.* groups? (if so, will they be marked read-only?)

Nothing will change on the AOL server.

Is Giganews charging the Mozilla Foundation for this service?

No; Giganews is donating use of their news servers to the Mozilla Foundation, in exchange for a sponsorship credit.

Who do we contact in the event of problems with the newsgroups or mailing lists?

File a bug in bugzilla.mozilla.org. Server issues should be filed in the Server Operations component of the mozilla.org product. Newsgroup issues having to do with adding/removing/renaming newsgroups go in the Discussion Forums component.

Blog and news links

Bugzilla