Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
I have a correction to the recipe I sent earlier...
On Mon, Dec 04, 2000 at 03:31:09PM -0600, Chad '^chewie' Walstrom wrote:
> The recipe I use to launch this is:
>
> # RECIPE BEGINS --
> MONTH=`date +%Y%m`
>
> :0:
> * [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> {
> :0 Wic
> * test -d list-foo.${MONTH}
Change the above line to:
* ? test ! -d list-foo.${MONTH}
> | listln list-foo
>
> :0:
> list-foo/.
> }
> # RECIPE ENDS
Sorry about that.
--
Chad "^chewie, gunnarr" Walstrom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.wookimus.net/
pgpSYfrVLA2dI.pgp
Description: PGP signature
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
Here's my setup:
Software
nmh - A set of electronic mail handling programs.
mutt - Text-based mailreader supporting MIME, GPG, PGP and threading.
fetchmail-ssl - POP2/3, APOP, IMAP mail gatherer/forwarder (with ssl support)
sendmail - A powerful mail transport agent.
procmail - Versatile e-mail processor.
I like nmh for it's strength on the command line, it's WONDERFUL
regexp matching, and for it's organization of email messages as
separate files organized under directories. Mutt is a very nice
ncurses CUI to interface with the mailboxes when I'm too lazy to do it
from the shell and when I want to see articles in a threaded
presentation. Fetchmail-ssl is essential for grabbing my email from
the number of different SSL enabled IMAP/POP servers. Procmail, of
course, is great for writing filtering recipes for my email so that
everything gets put into place.
To make this all work together, I've written a small shell script to
create new list directories at the beginning of the month (inspired by
the procmailex(5) man page).
# SCRIPT BEGINS --
#!/bin/bash
# Folder manager for the ~/Mail folder
# by Chad Walstrom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
# Move to the Mail directory
builtin cd ~/Mail
# make sure we have a list
[ 0 -eq ${#1} ] && exit 0
# Assign the lists
LIST=${1}
YEARMONTH=`date +%Y%m`
if [ ! -d ${LIST}.${YEARMONTH} ] ; then
mkdir ${LIST}.${YEARMONTH}
fi
if [ -a ${LIST} ] && [ -L ${LIST} ] ; then
rm ${LIST}
elif [ -a ${LIST} ] ; then
mv ${LIST} ${LIST}.bak
fi
ln -s ${LIST}.${YEARMONTH} ${LIST}
touch ${LIST}/.mh_sequences
# SCRIPT ENDS
The recipe I use to launch this is:
# RECIPE BEGINS --
MONTH=`date +%Y%m`
:0:
* [EMAIL PROTECTED]
{
:0 Wic
* test -d list-foo.${MONTH}
| listln list-foo
:0:
list-foo/.
}
# RECIPE ENDS
Additional Tools
abook - A text-based ncurses address book application.
lbdb - The little brother's database for the mutt mail reader
muttzilla - Launch email or news clients from Netscape.
procmail-lib - A library of useful procmail recipes.
junkfilter - A junk-email filtering program for procmail
spamfilter - Filter spam from incoming mail
dotfile-procmail - Dotfile Generator, module for procmail
Documentation
-
mh-book - MH & nmh: Email for Users & Programmers online book
sendmail-doc - A powerful mail transport agent.
--
Chad "^chewie, gunnarr" Walstrom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.wookimus.net/
pgpLcYhDKtwEc.pgp
Description: PGP signature
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
oops sorry this was my comment about disconnected mode imap that started this ... didn't realise it'd been picked up on. > Well I'm no expert, but I suspect that "disconnected mode" with IMAP > means that after IMAP has downloaded all the mail headers, it > disconnects, allowing the user to peruse the mail headers and mark the > ones (s)he wishes to download, and mark the ones (s)he wishes to > delete. Then the user reconnects, and IMAP causes all the downloads > and deletes to happen quickly. more or less that's what it means. i've found imap to be very slow over a wan link. it's okay over ethernet but even over my 768k dsl it's slow. after playing around with the same server using outlook i'm inclined to blame pine for the slowness. as fas as i can tell pine doesn't cache any of the messages locally so every operation requires it to talk to the imap server, this is so slow that i went back to using fetchmail to download my mail and just using the imap server for my saved messages. pine also does all it's imap transactions in the foreground which is annoying. it would be nice if when you changed into a folder it showed you what was there and you could start reading and new message would just show up as usual, instead you have to wait for it to check and download all the message headers from that folder blah blah. that being said i love pine and have it's keystrokes imbedding in my brain from so many years of use. but roles are great in pine, i like the way it's collections work my only gripes are: - no disconnected mode imap - no good threading (but you can fake it close enough) - crappy mime support (no pgp/mime) it keeps being almost enough to make me change over but i can't find anything better. adam.
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>it was written: >I'm curious to know what strategies are used by regular subscribers >to this list to deal with the high volume of messages (>250/day)? Although it doesn't pertain directly to your question, I felt like sharing :) I used to use mh to filter all the messages into a separate folder for "later viewing". MH (and nmh) provide some great mechanisms for this if you happen to have a "hosted" email address on some unix box and don't mind command line stuff (of course procmail is much better for filtering, more flexible and lets you use whatever frontend you want, but I digress). Anywho, the problem with sorting all my list mail into a separate folder was that I *never* got around to reading any messages in the list and they would build up into the thousands which I would delete periodicly. I moved machines but didn't move my folder sorting thing, and noticed that I read every message now, or at least skim it quickly. This is probably a side effect of how mh from the command line works.. just a matter of typing next over and over and over .. (though in actuality I don't use 'next', I use a little util I wrote called mh-watch[1]). Anyway. I find it sort of amusing. At least now I have lots to read with ltitle effort, and I'm actually pleased when I wake up in the morning with 200 messages to skim through. :) [1]: http://www.grawk.net/~nick/proj/mh-watch/ as always, nick [EMAIL PROTECTED] * http://www.fargus.net/nick Developer - Systems Engineer - Mad System Guru - MOO Sales he picks up scraps of information/he's adept at adaptation because for strangers and arrangers/constant change is here to stay
RE: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
Title: RE: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)? kmself@ix.netcom.com writes: > When I get particularly behind, I just delete a few days (or weeks) > worth of posts. Debian Weekly News tends to highlight significant list > events. Krzys Majewski writes: >What's this? Does it say things like, "This week Krzys Majewski posted >a really stupid question"? Should I be worried? Probably not :). However the guy who wrote to the list wanting to know about spam tools and then changed his mind[1] managed to make DWN. I can't recall any other instances though... - Chris [1] Yes I know he spammed the list a couple of days after with something else. But DWN came out before this happened.
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
"Lawrence H. Robins" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I'm curious to know what strategies are used by regular subscribers
> to this list to deal with the high volume of messages (>250/day)?
All my mail is handled by a server at my school. On this server, I run
procmail (via ~/.forward and ~/.procmailrc) to put debian-user mail in
a debian-user folder. I read this folder from home, with the Gnus
news-reader, via IMAP.
Gnus is occasionally hairy (way too many
features) but a great medium for reading news/mail. It runs within the
Emacs editor, so everything is a buffer. For example, you can
have the list of messages in one buffer, the contents of a message
in another buffer, your reply to a third message in yet another
buffer, etc. The contents of a buffer can be displayed with a
keystroke, or you can display several buffers at once.
Since Gnus treats everything like a newsgroup, all the messages are
organized according to subject ("threaded"). Finally, since Gnus runs
within Emacs, it means that I can edit my replies with the same
program that I use to read them (and not some half-baked appendage to
that program, either). So, less keystrokes to memorize, one familiar
interface, and so on.
I try to read debian-user a couple times a week (more if I have a
pressing question..). The messages really do pile up, and I'm still
looking for ways deal with this well. Gnus has an "expiry" feature
which will hopefully do what I want, failing that I'll try to write a
procmail recipe to "rotate" the debian-user folder, so that it never
contains more than, say, 500 messages.
Even when I don't have a question posted, I do scan through all the
subject lines. So, no filtering or scoring or whatever. (If I knew
exactly what I wanted to read, I wouldn't be subscribed in the first
place. See also next paragraph.)
If I want to search for a message on a given topic, I use the
www.debian.org search engine, which seems to more or less work these
days.
-chris
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
kmself@ix.netcom.com writes: > When I get particularly behind, I just delete a few days (or weeks) > worth of posts. Debian Weekly News tends to highlight significant list > events. What's this? Does it say things like, "This week Krzys Majewski posted a really stupid question"? Should I be worried? -chris
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
--- Begin Message --- On Thu, Nov 30, 2000 at 12:20:41PM +1100, Chris Kenrick wrote: > Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)? > >I would assume that if you didn't want to leave the mail on the remote > >server you'd just use fetchmail to download it, although, I *think* > >gnus has it's own software to download the mail if that's what you > >want. > > You can still use fetchmail to get the mail even if you _do_ want to leave > it > > on the IMAP server (can't remember the switch offhand). Although what > > the original poster _might_ have meant by disconnected mode is that the > > client only connects to the IMAP server when it wants to do something > > (send/check mail), and is disconnected otherwise. Maybe some clients > > keep the IMAP session up all the time? Well I'm no expert, but I suspect that "disconnected mode" with IMAP means that after IMAP has downloaded all the mail headers, it disconnects, allowing the user to peruse the mail headers and mark the ones (s)he wishes to download, and mark the ones (s)he wishes to delete. Then the user reconnects, and IMAP causes all the downloads and deletes to happen quickly. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Hi! I'm a .signature virus! Copy me into your ~/.signature, please! -- --- End Message ---
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
I won't say much more that has been said before (actually I wouldn't be able to say halfof the comments said, he). But, as an ex-Eudora Light user I'll tell you something that perhaps you'll appreciate a lot. When emptying the trash (200 messages per day, to say the least) the differences are the following: Eudora: the disk drive song (seven seconds on a PIII?) Mutt: a SNAP. Man man man. I still feel quite awkward with Mutt, but I think I'm starting a love affair with this program. On the other hand, I answer the questions I can. As a newbie, there are not much, so no trouble at this time. I delete more than 95% of messages. I keep only the interesting messages that I know they would be quite difficult to find using standard searching techniques. I use a lot search engines for this list. I go to http://geocrawler.com to do basic search about debian-user. If the thread is enough interesting to follow, I follow it copying year, month and day in http://lists.debian.org (The reason why I use geocrawler instead of the lists.debian search engine is because I'm too lazy to learn how it works :) Best, Ignasi _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
On Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 05:55:54PM -0700, Hubert Chan wrote:
> > "Gary" == Gary Hennigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> Gary> I would assume that if you didn't want to leave the mail on the
> Gary> remote server you'd just use fetchmail to download it, although, I
> Gary> *think* gnus has it's own software to download the mail if that's
> Gary> what you want.
>
> Yup, gnus has its own stuff to download. It can read from a local file, a
> remote file (using some hackery described in the info page), for a POP3
> account, and an IMAP account.
>
> I just use gnus' stuff because I'm too lazy to learn fetchmail.
There's a package 'fetchmailconf' that makes setup pretty braindead
easy.
mutt/procmail/fetchmail has been the nicest route for me. There are a
few 10-second procmail walk-throughs, so that's not something to worry
about either.
Take this to set up your procmail rules and I bet you can get
everything set up on the nicer side of 15 minutes.
#! /bin/sh
#
# debian procmail setup script
#
# no harm in including lists not subscribed; procmail won't
# make a folder 'til it actually has mail.
#
FILENAME="debian.rc"
rm $FILENAME
AddList() {
echo ":0:" >>$FILENAME
echo "* ^X-Mailing-List: [EMAIL PROTECTED]" >>$FILENAME
echo "in-l-$1" >>$FILENAME
echo >>$FILENAME
}
AddList debian-68k lists.debian.org
AddList debian-beowulf lists.debian.org
AddList debian-boot lists.debian.org
AddList debian-bugs-closed lists.debian.org
AddList debian-bugs-dist lists.debian.org
AddList debian-bugs-forwarded lists.debian.org
AddList debian-cd lists.debian.org
AddList debian-changes lists.debian.org
AddList debian-devel lists.debian.org
AddList debian-devel-changes lists.debian.org
AddList debian-dpkg lists.debian.org
AddList debian-firewall lists.debian.org
AddList debian-hurd lists.debian.org
AddList debian-isp lists.debian.org
AddList debian-jr lists.debian.org
AddList debian-laptop lists.debian.org
AddList debian-legal lists.debian.org
AddList debian-mentors lists.debian.org
AddList debian-newmaint-admin lists.debian.org
AddList debian-newmaint-discuss lists.debian.org
AddList debian-perl lists.debian.org
AddList debian-pilot lists.debian.org
AddList debian-policy lists.debian.org
AddList debian-powerpc lists.debian.org
AddList debian-project lists.debian.org
AddList debian-qa lists.debian.org
AddList debian-release lists.debian.org
AddList debian-security lists.debian.org
AddList debian-security-announce lists.debian.org
AddList debian-sgml lists.debian.org
AddList debian-testing lists.debian.org
AddList debian-user lists.debian.org
AddList debian-vote lists.debian.org
AddList debian-www lists.debian.org
AddList debian-x lists.debian.org
AddList ldp-discuss lists.debian.org
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
Title: Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)? >I would assume that if you didn't want to leave the mail on the remote >server you'd just use fetchmail to download it, although, I *think* >gnus has it's own software to download the mail if that's what you >want. You can still use fetchmail to get the mail even if you _do_ want to leave it on the IMAP server (can't remember the switch offhand). Although what the original poster _might_ have meant by disconnected mode is that the client only connects to the IMAP server when it wants to do something (send/check mail), and is disconnected otherwise. Maybe some clients keep the IMAP session up all the time? - Chris
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
> "Gary" == Gary Hennigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Gary> I would assume that if you didn't want to leave the mail on the Gary> remote server you'd just use fetchmail to download it, although, I Gary> *think* gnus has it's own software to download the mail if that's Gary> what you want. Yup, gnus has its own stuff to download. It can read from a local file, a remote file (using some hackery described in the info page), for a POP3 account, and an IMAP account. I just use gnus' stuff because I'm too lazy to learn fetchmail. Hubert -- | --- | / --+-- | / ___|___Hubert Chan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | \ | _|_ | |__| |__|__|GCS/M d- s:- a-- C++ UL+() P++ L++ E++ W++ N++ o? || K? w--- O++ M- V- PS-- PE+++ Y+ PGP+ t+ 5 X R- tv+ b+ | / | \ DI D G e++ h! !r !y | / | \ || <><-- http://www.crosswinds.net/~hackerhue/ PGP/GnuPG fingerprint: 6CC5 822D 2E55 494C 81DD 6F2C 6518 54DF 71FD A37F Key can be found at http://www.crosswinds.net/~hackerhue/hackerhue.asc
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
"Hubert Chan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > "Adam" == Adam Shand <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Adam> does it support disconnected mode imap? that is my one big remaining > Adam> gripe about pine (and as far as i know mutt's imap support is more > Adam> primitive then pines still). > You mean downloading messages from IMAP locally? Yup. > Unfortunately, I found that its IMAP support (at least when I tried > it, a few months back) didn't work that great with non-INBOX > folders. I don't know if it was a problem with gnus, or my mail > provider (MyRealBox.com), but I assume that if you're downloading > your messages, you won't really care about IMAP folders. > > But, like the other guy said, it's not for newbies. Getting it set > up properly can take a while. And make sure you read the info file. > And then read it again, to find out about all the cool features that > it has. Yeah, it's not fun to set up. I guess I'm not clear what Adam meant by "disconnected mode"? I assumed that he did NOT want to download the mail locally, but wanted the email to remain on the IMAP server. That's what I assumed in my previous answer which, again, is that gnus will definately let you keep your email on the remote IMAP server and let you manipulate remote folders and move mail around in them and I haven't had any problems with non-INBOX folders. I would assume that if you didn't want to leave the mail on the remote server you'd just use fetchmail to download it, although, I *think* gnus has it's own software to download the mail if that's what you want. Gary
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
> "Adam" == Adam Shand <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> (Not for newbies, but...) I read all of my mail in Gnus, the singing, >> dancing mail- and newsreader for Emacs. Gnus' view of the world is that >> everything (including mail groups, mbox files, IMAP folders, ...) is a >> newsgroup, and reacts accordingly. Adam> does it support disconnected mode imap? that is my one big remaining Adam> gripe about pine (and as far as i know mutt's imap support is more Adam> primitive then pines still). You mean downloading messages from IMAP locally? Yup. Unfortunately, I found that its IMAP support (at least when I tried it, a few months back) didn't work that great with non-INBOX folders. I don't know if it was a problem with gnus, or my mail provider (MyRealBox.com), but I assume that if you're downloading your messages, you won't really care about IMAP folders. But, like the other guy said, it's not for newbies. Getting it set up properly can take a while. And make sure you read the info file. And then read it again, to find out about all the cool features that it has. Hubert -- | --- | / --+-- | / ___|___Hubert Chan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | \ | _|_ | |__| |__|__|GCS/M d- s:- a-- C++ UL+() P++ L++ E++ W++ N++ o? || K? w--- O++ M- V- PS-- PE+++ Y+ PGP+ t+ 5 X R- tv+ b+ | / | \ DI D G e++ h! !r !y | / | \ || <><-- http://www.crosswinds.net/~hackerhue/ PGP/GnuPG fingerprint: 6CC5 822D 2E55 494C 81DD 6F2C 6518 54DF 71FD A37F Key can be found at http://www.crosswinds.net/~hackerhue/hackerhue.asc
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
"Adam Shand" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > (Not for newbies, but...) I read all of my mail in Gnus, the singing, > > dancing mail- and newsreader for Emacs. Gnus' view of the world is > > that everything (including mail groups, mbox files, IMAP folders, ...) > > is a newsgroup, and reacts accordingly. > > does it support disconnected mode imap? that is my one big remaining > gripe about pine (and as far as i know mutt's imap support is more > primitive then pines still). Yes, in it's more recent incarnations gnus does support disconnected IMAP. I believe the version that you can get in Potato has this support. If you install gnus take a peek at the nnimap backend documenation. Gary
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
> (Not for newbies, but...) I read all of my mail in Gnus, the singing, > dancing mail- and newsreader for Emacs. Gnus' view of the world is > that everything (including mail groups, mbox files, IMAP folders, ...) > is a newsgroup, and reacts accordingly. does it support disconnected mode imap? that is my one big remaining gripe about pine (and as far as i know mutt's imap support is more primitive then pines still). adam.
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
Phillip Deackes writes: > There is a news app, similar to leafnode, which allows fetching of news > from multiple servers, and also allows you to create a 'local' newsgroup > from a mailing list. mailagent can do the latter as well without requiring any particular news server. -- John Hasler [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Hasler) Dancing Horse Hill Elmwood, WI
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
On Wed, 29 Nov 2000 09:23:53 +0100 Pap Tibor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Could you offer a mail2news gateway for home use? I would like to read > mailing lists through news client but my ISP doesn't provide this. > There is a news app, similar to leafnode, which allows fetching of news from multiple servers, and also allows you to create a 'local' newsgroup from a mailing list. It is faster than leafnode at downloading news too. The app is Simple News (sn) and is available from http://infa.abo.fi/~patrik/sn/ -- Phillip Deackes Using Storm Linux 2000
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
> "kmself" == kmself writes: kmself> I tend to favor posts by: Ethan Benson (especially when kmself> he's correcting me), Joey Hess, Sean Perry, and some other kmself> regulars. I'll save and come back to threads dealing with kmself> topics I'm interested in. kmself> If traffic keeps climbing, I may isolate posts by kmself> particularly insightful users and/or block posts with: kmself> - No subject. - Content 'unsubscribe' and short length. kmself> - Anything else I find particularly annoying. I just got gnus working: it's *very* cool. It can do all that you are describing automatically with its scoring mechanism. Apparently mutt has scoring as well, but with gnus it's quite easy to use. Also, it allows sorting the threads by their score, so I can read posts by my favorite authors first, while the posts without a subject languish at the bottom. And like the rest of emacs, it is infinitely customizable. For example, from the gnus info manual: The function in the `gnus-thread-score-function' variable (default `+') is used for calculating the total score of a thread. Useful functions might be `max', `min', or squared means, or whatever tickles your fancy. I find the fact that you could use a squared mean to calculate which thread you see first very cool. Cheers, Chris P.S. I *know* a lot of people don't like emacs. Please don't feel the urge to tell me about it. I'm really not all that interested in having a vi versus emacs flame war.
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
David Z Maze wrote: > > Frank Copeland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > FC> On 29 Nov 00 05:34:28 GMT, Lawrence H. Robins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > LHR> I'm curious to know what strategies are used by regular > LHR> subscribers to this list to deal with the high volume of > LHR> messages (>250/day)? > FC> > FC> A mail2news gateway. A decent news client is always going to be a > FC> better bet for dealing with a high volume threaded discussion group. > > (Not for newbies, but...) I read all of my mail in Gnus, the singing, > dancing mail- and newsreader for Emacs. Gnus' view of the world is > that everything (including mail groups, mbox files, IMAP folders, ...) > is a newsgroup, and reacts accordingly. Gnus is great, one fo the best :) (...) > > The big downside of Gnus, of course, is that it's written entirely in > Emacs-Lisp, and you pretty much need to know elisp moderately well to > be able to effectively configure it. It is a very powerful program, > though; current versions support reading and sending MIME > out-of-the-box, and good support for encrypted messages is coming up > in the next version. Actually the biggest downside for me is that I can't use gpg with it... yes, I know about mailcrypt, it works very well and all looks great, but for ppl tha use another charset beside us-ascii AFAIK it doesn't work because apparently Emacs converts the chars with the high bit set from escapes into actual chars (or something to that effect :) ) *after* the message has been signed, and thus the signature will not check. I hope they fix this soon (if it is fixed please tell me); in the meantime i'm usign Mutt: I must say that I'm very happy with it so far, gpg works very well and it also works well with my procmail settings (BTW, to cope with the Debian lists the script that comes in the devscripts package is excellent! It creates the folders automatically and as .forward for sendmail and exim). So, both rock :) best regards, fsm -- Frederico Serrano Muñoz GNU: http://www.gnu.org [EMAIL PROTECTED]Debian: http://www.debian.org SDF - Public Access Unix Systems - http://sdf.lonestar.org
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
David Z Maze writes: > The big downside of Gnus, of course, is that it's written entirely in > Emacs-Lisp, and you pretty much need to know elisp moderately well to be > able to effectively configure it. I don't think this is true any more. The customization menus take care of most things, and as long as you don't attempt anything unusual the remainder requires only very simple cookbook elisp copied out of the manual. -- John Hasler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dancing Horse Hill Elmwood, Wisconsin
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
Frank Copeland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: FC> On 29 Nov 00 05:34:28 GMT, Lawrence H. Robins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: LHR> I'm curious to know what strategies are used by regular LHR> subscribers to this list to deal with the high volume of LHR> messages (>250/day)? FC> FC> A mail2news gateway. A decent news client is always going to be a FC> better bet for dealing with a high volume threaded discussion group. (Not for newbies, but...) I read all of my mail in Gnus, the singing, dancing mail- and newsreader for Emacs. Gnus' view of the world is that everything (including mail groups, mbox files, IMAP folders, ...) is a newsgroup, and reacts accordingly. Gnus has a couple of nice features. One is automatic expiry: for selected groups (including all of the high-traffic Debian lists I'm on), mail sits around for about a week, then automatically gets deleted. Another is adaptive scoring: each article gets a score based on its author and subject line. If I read articles with certain words in the subject or from a particular author, the score goes up; if I kill articles off, the score goes down. This way, for the most part, stuff I'm interested in filters to the top of the list. The big downside of Gnus, of course, is that it's written entirely in Emacs-Lisp, and you pretty much need to know elisp moderately well to be able to effectively configure it. It is a very powerful program, though; current versions support reading and sending MIME out-of-the-box, and good support for encrypted messages is coming up in the next version. -- David Maze [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mit.edu/~dmaze/ "Theoretical politics is interesting. Politicking should be illegal." -- Abra Mitchell
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
On 29 Nov 00 08:23:53 GMT, Pap Tibor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Frank Copeland wrote: >> On 29 Nov 00 05:34:28 GMT, Lawrence H. Robins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >I'm curious to know what strategies are used by regular subscribers >> >to this list to deal with the high volume of messages (>250/day)? >> A mail2news gateway. A decent news client is always going to be a >> better bet for dealing with a high volume threaded discussion group. >> I'm responding to this in a gated newsgroup set up by my ISP, but I >> could just as easily have set it up myself, and I have done so. >Could you offer a mail2news gateway for home use? I would like to read >mailing lists through news client but my ISP doesn't provide this. I do it all with inn, but that may not be an option in all circumstances, especially if you can't create arbitrary local email addresses. The method is: 1. apt-get install inn2 (inn may be suitable if it includes the mailpost script, I haven't used it for a while). 2. create a local *moderated* newsgroup for the list, for example: $ /usr/lib/news/bin/ctlinnd newgroup local.lists.debian-user m 3. create a mail alias for the list and pipe any mail for it through mailpost, for example (in /etc/aliases): debian-user: "|/usr/lib/news/bin/mailpost -a [EMAIL PROTECTED] local.lists.debian-user" 4. add an entry to /etc/news/moderators pointing back to the list, for example: local.lists.debian-user:debian-user@lists.debian.org 5. subscribe the mail alias for the group to the mailing list. The trick is in making the newsgroup moderated. The -a option to mailpost adds an Approved: header to each incoming article so that inn knows not to send it straight back to the list. Locally posted articles will lack an Approved: header so they will be mailed to the list address. It isn't perfect, and I use a slightly modified mailpost script that strips out some headers that tend to confuse inn if they appear in incoming articles. By default, inn will expire (delete) messages after 2 weeks. You can modify that by editing /etc/news/expire.ctl. If you can't create arbitrary local email addresses, for example if you have a dialup connection to an ISP, you will need to do something with exim .forward files or procmail scripts to identify list mail and pipe it into mailpost. I have no experience with that so I can't suggest a solution. If you are already using another news server such as leafnode, you will have to work out the equivalent setup yourself. Frank
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
"Lawrence H. Robins" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >I'm curious to know what strategies are used by regular subscribers >to this list to deal with the high volume of messages (>250/day)? I gateway all the debian-* mailing lists I read to local newsgroups, using a mail-to-news gateway I wrote myself (at the time I found the one in Debian, newsgate, inadequate; I don't know what pyg is like). At the moment I think I'd count that gateway still a bit too unreliable for public use, but technically it's freely available if anyone's interested. Once in a newsgroup, that means I get automatic expiry of old messages, good threading in my newsreader (although I know mutt is good at dealing with this), and can apply killfiles if it ever turns out I need them (though I try not to do that for debian-*). Normally I simply read the newest couple of pages of subject lines, and any articles whose subjects grab my eye. If an article has an unhelpful subject line, I'm likely not to get round to reading it - simple as that. If threads have been posted to by a decent number of people, particularly interesting regulars, then I'll probably notice them and read them. Anything that doesn't catch my eye just goes by unread and eventually expires; I don't bother filtering automatically. >Also, is there any way to filter the messages **before** downloading >them from your ISP to your local machine, which takes time in itself? Personally, I don't bother, as I have a cable modem. :) If your ISP lets you run things like procmail or exim filters on their mail server, then you could do this; I'm not sure how you could do it otherwise. >This message is being written from an e-mail client program (Eudora) in >another OS. Eudora doesn't seem designed to handle huge mailing lists >- I hope there is something better in Debian.) Although personally I prefer newsreaders for mailing lists, that's a lot of work to set up, and a certain amount of work to keep running smoothly. My favourite mail client is mutt, and it handles mailing lists very well. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
Hi! On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Frank Copeland wrote: > On 29 Nov 00 05:34:28 GMT, Lawrence H. Robins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >I'm curious to know what strategies are used by regular subscribers > >to this list to deal with the high volume of messages (>250/day)? > > A mail2news gateway. A decent news client is always going to be a > better bet for dealing with a high volume threaded discussion group. > I'm responding to this in a gated newsgroup set up by my ISP, but I > could just as easily have set it up myself, and I have done so. Could you offer a mail2news gateway for home use? I would like to read mailing lists through news client but my ISP doesn't provide this. Thanks, --Tibor -.Sig e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
On 29 Nov 00 05:34:28 GMT, Lawrence H. Robins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >I'm curious to know what strategies are used by regular subscribers >to this list to deal with the high volume of messages (>250/day)? A mail2news gateway. A decent news client is always going to be a better bet for dealing with a high volume threaded discussion group. I'm responding to this in a gated newsgroup set up by my ISP, but I could just as easily have set it up myself, and I have done so. >Suppose you only want to see messages with certain keywords in the >subject line, or only replies to your questions, and filter out all >the others? These are standard facilites provided by news clients like slrn and pan. >Also, is there any way to filter the messages **before** downloading >them from your ISP to your local machine, which takes time in itself? If you use fetchmail to collect your mail then I vaguely recall that something like this is possible. However, I don't use it so I may well be hallucinating. Frank
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
Hello Lawrence, This is a good question. I actually filter the headers, anything to do with debian-user is put into a special folder. I am using kde and the latest email client (kmail) has a really nice search feature I'm really enjoying. I was a new user, now I'm only a new user. I feel that way all the time even though I have been using only debian for way over a year now. This list has shown me some great things about linux I don't think I would have ever found any any manual, book or hints & tips manual. It really is up to you in the end. You might find it too much to deal with and remove yourself from the list. I really enjoy it though. I have seen some amazing people talking about amazing things and some day, when I grow up perhaps will find myself actually knowing what the blazes is going on! I really count on this list for technical help when I'm in a pinch > Like when I discovered how powerful 'rm *' was... Some days, I just delete it all, while other days I find all sorts of great tricks and information. You're right about Eudora. I had several large folders and lost mail a few times, but the latest copies should work well for you - look in your help for "filters". Good luck, and I do hope you find this list helpful and amusing. tatah On Tuesday 28 November 2000 21:34, Lawrence H. Robins wrote: > I'm curious to know what strategies are used by regular subscribers > to this list to deal with the high volume of messages (>250/day)? > Suppose you only want to see messages with certain keywords in the > subject line, or only replies to your questions, and filter out all > the others? Also, is there any way to filter the messages **before** > downloading them from your ISP to your local machine, which takes > time in itself? (Note: I am just getting started with Debian, and > am not yet familiar with most of the packages. This message is being > written from an e-mail client program (Eudora) in another OS. Eudora > doesn't seem designed to handle huge mailing lists - I hope there is > something better in Debian.) > > Lawrence H. Robins > e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Jaye Inabnit, ARS ke6sls e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 707-442-6579 h/m 707-441-7096 p http://www.qsl.net/ke6slsICQ# 12741145 This mail composed with kmail on kde on X on linux warped by debian If it's stupid, but works, it ain't stupid.
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
On Wed, 29 Nov 2000 01:00:37 -0500 "Brenda J. Butler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 12:51:17AM -0500, Brenda J. Butler wrote: > > I use mutt for my mail client, and exim for my mail transfer agent > (MTA). > > I use fetchmail to download my email from my isp to my machine and > > I look at it locally. I use procmail to pre-sort the email into > > folders (one just for debian-user) and when I have a question > > I bring up the debian-user folder and run searches in it. > > Oh yes I forgot: debian-user grows very quickly (and I don't > delete any mail), so once a month I move the folder to a new > name like "debian-user-mm" and start a new one "debian-user". > > For slower-growing folders (like debian-sparc) I do that > once a year. "debian-sparc-" > > Since I have a slow modem, I don't mind downloading all that > mail and archiving it locally, so I can do quicker searches > when I need info. > > For other people, perhaps you should just run searches against > the mail archives on the web. > Well I am surprised and disappointed if debian-users are simply scanning messages in order to receive help when *they* need it. I like to scan the list to see if I can offer any help, as well as receiving it. The list would collapse if it became a on-way street. -- Phillip Deackes Using Storm Linux 2000
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
on Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 12:34:28AM -0500, Lawrence H. Robins ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > I'm curious to know what strategies are used by regular subscribers to > this list to deal with the high volume of messages (>250/day)? > Suppose you only want to see messages with certain keywords in the > subject line, or only replies to your questions, and filter out all > the others? Also, is there any way to filter the messages **before** > downloading them from your ISP to your local machine, which takes time > in itself? (Note: I am just getting started with Debian, and am not > yet familiar with most of the packages. This message is being written > from an e-mail client program (Eudora) in another OS. Eudora doesn't > seem designed to handle huge mailing lists - I hope there is something > better in Debian.) Procmail filters -- debian-user goes to its own folder. This is a must. Heady use of delete key. I tend to delete threads for which first post is a reply -- I figure the post has already largely been answered, unless the subject is particularly compelling. I ignore topics out of my area of interest -- sound and video cards in particular. Most new-installation posts, particularly if they've got replies. Most anything that has multiple responses. I tend to favor posts by: Ethan Benson (especially when he's correcting me), Joey Hess, Sean Perry, and some other regulars. I'll save and come back to threads dealing with topics I'm interested in. If traffic keeps climbing, I may isolate posts by particularly insightful users and/or block posts with: - No subject. - Content 'unsubscribe' and short length. - Anything else I find particularly annoying. When I get particularly behind, I just delete a few days (or weeks) worth of posts. Debian Weekly News tends to highlight significant list events. -- Karsten M. Self http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org pgp2WiWcxctru.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
On Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 12:51:17AM -0500, Brenda J. Butler wrote: > I use mutt for my mail client, and exim for my mail transfer agent (MTA). > I use fetchmail to download my email from my isp to my machine and > I look at it locally. I use procmail to pre-sort the email into > folders (one just for debian-user) and when I have a question > I bring up the debian-user folder and run searches in it. Oh yes I forgot: debian-user grows very quickly (and I don't delete any mail), so once a month I move the folder to a new name like "debian-user-mm" and start a new one "debian-user". For slower-growing folders (like debian-sparc) I do that once a year. "debian-sparc-" Since I have a slow modem, I don't mind downloading all that mail and archiving it locally, so I can do quicker searches when I need info. For other people, perhaps you should just run searches against the mail archives on the web. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Hi! I'm a .signature virus! Copy me into your ~/.signature, please! --
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
I use mutt for my mail client, and exim for my mail transfer agent (MTA). I use fetchmail to download my email from my isp to my machine and I look at it locally. I use procmail to pre-sort the email into folders (one just for debian-user) and when I have a question I bring up the debian-user folder and run searches in it. If your isp supports IMAP protocol, then you can download just header information about your emails, and you can download just the email bodies you are interested in and delete the rest without downloading. I don't use it and haven't investigated it beyond the above, so I can't advise you further on which packages work with IMAP. You would use IMAP protocol instead of POP3 protocol. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Hi! I'm a .signature virus! Copy me into your ~/.signature, please! --
Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
since i run my own mail servers i have a dedicated account for this mailing list .. only downside is when i access it using netscape my From: shows my normal account which is a pain when people reply..but i need my normal account to show for my other accounts that i use :/ (and id probably be happy to ditch netscape if there was a common multiplatform mail client that supported IMAP4 over SSL) nate "Lawrence H. Robins" wrote: > > I'm curious to know what strategies are used by regular subscribers > to this list to deal with the high volume of messages (>250/day)? > Suppose you only want to see messages with certain keywords in the > subject line, or only replies to your questions, and filter out all > the others? Also, is there any way to filter the messages **before** > downloading them from your ISP to your local machine, which takes > time in itself? (Note: I am just getting started with Debian, and > am not yet familiar with most of the packages. This message is being > written from an e-mail client program (Eudora) in another OS. Eudora > doesn't seem designed to handle huge mailing lists - I hope there is > something better in Debian.) > > Lawrence H. Robins > e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ::: ICQ: 75132336 http://www.aphroland.org/ http://www.linuxpowered.net/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?
I'm curious to know what strategies are used by regular subscribers to this list to deal with the high volume of messages (>250/day)? Suppose you only want to see messages with certain keywords in the subject line, or only replies to your questions, and filter out all the others? Also, is there any way to filter the messages **before** downloading them from your ISP to your local machine, which takes time in itself? (Note: I am just getting started with Debian, and am not yet familiar with most of the packages. This message is being written from an e-mail client program (Eudora) in another OS. Eudora doesn't seem designed to handle huge mailing lists - I hope there is something better in Debian.) Lawrence H. Robins e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
