I keep getting pings from the group news, which I do belong to, yet I click and get an error "you are not a member of this group" Yeah, I am!

I got that too, but my guess is that the post was actually on a forum for a different ping group that we don't belong to, and for some reason the news group got pinged.

Oh? This can be happening, eh? Okeeday then...thanks! :)