[ANN] Ruby Forum

[Nikolai Weibull]

In threaded mode, posts are grouped together and put in pretty
threads. However, a thread that was created at the dawn of time
stays at the very bottom my list, even if it was just replied to a
minute ago. Since I only read about 30% of ruby-talk, that means I'd
never notice it, 'cause it's just another old unread message.
Rather, if threads were sorted by *most* recent posting, I'd see it
as I scroll by the new posts, and get to decide what I want to do
with it. (You can argue about the utility of this feature with
yourself, but it is [AFAIK] different from what Thunderbird
provides.)

That's what you would use scoring for, or delete a thread that is not
interesting, or other ways of archiving. mutt provides me with TAB to
go to New mails (or old&unread if there's no New mail).

I agree.

I read ruby-lang on usenet, because I prefer pulling for such a
(reasonably) high volume list. gmail is out because it represents
threads as lists, not as trees.

Yes, I've long been thinking of reinstalling slrn and going the usenet
way for this list instead. But as more and more usenet servers are
closing, it really hasn't been an alternative. It'd be nice if Google'd
provide an NNTP service.

The really perverted way of reading ruby-lang is reading it through
GMANE's NNTP server .

IMHO, it's in the tools, not in another archive that holds the same
content.

Yes, so far that's what I've been thinking for every suggestion for
improvement (to the forum) that has come up in this thread. Still,
perhaps not everyone is comfortable in using mutt. I wouldn't know why,
but that may be so. I'm uncomfortable in using anything _but_ mutt, but
that's me.

nikolai

 

[Austin Ziegler]

- It needs a RegEX to remove all email addresses from the message body
([email protected] -> john.doe@...)

This is ultimately nonsensical, as the public archives have the email
addresses in plaintext.

-austin

 

[Nathaniel S. H. Brown]

Having one less place where spam filters can grab my email address, I would
indeed like to see added

The public archives *hopefully* have filters for headers that prevent this
sort of thing, but in any case, this is something that should be done by
default. Google has implemented this as well.

Warmest regards,
Nathan.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Nathaniel S. H. Brown Toll Free 1.877.4.INIMIT
Inimit Innovations Phone 604.724.6624
www.inimit.com Fax 604.444.9942

-----Original Message-----
From: Austin Ziegler [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: November 14, 2005 10:31 AM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: [ANN] Ruby Forum

- It needs a RegEX to remove all email addresses from the message body
([email protected] -> john.doe@...)

This is ultimately nonsensical, as the public archives have
the email addresses in plaintext.

-austin

 

[Austin Ziegler]

Having one less place where spam filters can grab my email address, I wou= ld
indeed like to see added

The public archives *hopefully* have filters for headers that prevent thi= s
sort of thing, but in any case, this is something that should be done by
default. Google has implemented this as well.

Hm? Filters for headers? As I said, the public archives pretty much
have the email addresses. The only distinction is that they have
replaced '@' with ' '. It's, quite honestly, something that probably
isn't worth the coding time to change at this point.

-austin

 

[Devin Mullins]

That's what you would use scoring for, or delete a thread that is not
interesting, or other ways of archiving. mutt provides me with TAB to go to
New mails (or old&unread if there's no New mail).

No, it's what *you* would use those things for. None of them (I Googled
to find out what scoring is) suit my needs/taste adequately.
Nonetheless, why are we arguing about an off-hand Thunderbird feature
request I made on this list?

IMHO, it's in the tools, not in another archive that holds the same content.

What is mutt, but another (local) archive that holds the same content?
What makes the web forum view not just another tool?

Devin

 

[Lou Scoras]

Andreas;

This looks splendid. Well done.

If you notice problems or have any suggestions, please send me a mail.

My only suggestion is kinda knit-pickedy, but it's hard to tell which
threads have already been read in the thread list. Maybe a bit more
contrast for the followed links?

Again, great job.

 

[Nikolai Weibull]

Kero wrote:

No, it's what *you* would use those things for. None of them (I
Googled to find out what scoring is) suit my needs/taste adequately.
Nonetheless, why are we arguing about an off-hand Thunderbird feature
request I made on this list?

Scoring is precisely what you described yourself. You can give
messages/threads positive and negative scores depending on various
attributes of said entity.

nikolai

 

[Devin Mullins]

Scoring is precisely what you described yourself. You can give
messages/threads positive and negative scores depending on various
attributes of said entity.

Err? Honest confusion. How is that the same as (or isomorphic to)
sorting threads by date of most recent post?

Devin
oh yeah... [OT]

 

[Stephen Waits]

You guys all need imap + a mail client that threads well. I'm on
dovecot+Mail.app(+postfix+procmail), and it's just fine. Use
Thunderbird sometimes too. Whatever...

For those of you that can't get such a setup, use wtf you want,
webforum, nntp, imap, pop3, straight up mail, whatever who cares.

--Steve

 

[Andreas Schwarz]

Andreas;

This looks splendid. Well done.
Thanks.


My only suggestion is kinda knit-pickedy, but it's hard to tell which
threads have already been read in the thread list. Maybe a bit more
contrast for the followed links?

If you are logged in threads with posts that you have not yet read are
displayed in bold face.

 

[Nikolai Weibull]

Nikolai Weibull wrote:

Err? Honest confusion. How is that the same as (or isomorphic to)
sorting threads by date of most recent post?

Ah, I misread. Scoring allows you to give messages a positive or
negative score depending on attributes of a message. The attributes
that may be scored upon are numerous, so you best consult mutt's manual
(which has scoring), or if you use NNTP, slrn's manual. There's also a
separate document about it: http://slrn.sourceforge.net/docs/score.txt.

Thus, instead of sorting your threads in "having the most recent
messages first" mode, you could see to it that uninteresting threads are
removed/ignored, that certain threads are given a higher score than
others and sort based on score (set sort=score in mutt). (You could
also do 'set sort=threads' and 'set sort_aux=score'. I don't know for
sure, but hopefully it'll sort on date if two threads have the same
score.)

nikolai

 

[Andrew Thompson]

This is really cool, I'm not a big fan of high-traffic mailinglists (I
tend to not read them for a couple days then find I'm swamped). This
should fit my reading habits better (I can swing by and see what's
interesting without pulling 500 emails).

I have a couple ideas; would it be possible to have a generic "reply"
option in addition to the "reply with quote"(so I don't have to delete
text)? Would it be possible to try to join broken threads with the
original parent using some heuristic? What about expanding the
line-length so it actually uses more then 1/4 of my screen width? How
about displaying quotes better? Previewing might be handy too...

I actually tried something like this myself a couple years back, except
I did it in PHP so I was doomed to frustration and failure. I'm annoyed
that I don't have enough free time so I could offer to help with this,
but maybe that will change.

Andrew

 

[Nikolai Weibull]

This is really cool, I'm not a big fan of high-traffic mailinglists (I
tend to not read them for a couple days then find I'm swamped). This
should fit my reading habits better (I can swing by and see what's
interesting without pulling 500 emails).

How is it easier to read 500 emails in forum form?

I have a couple ideas; would it be possible to have a generic "reply"
option in addition to the "reply with quote"(so I don't have to delete
text)?

Or better yet, reply to the pertinent message and remove any text that
isn't relevant to your reply, instead of replying to some random message
in the thread.

Would it be possible to try to join broken threads with the original
parent using some heuristic?

In a perfect world, all MUAs would produce In-Reply-To and References
headers.

What about expanding the line-length so it actually uses more then 1/4
of my screen width?

The line-length is probably set at 72 or some such, as most people send
emails with 72-characters-per-line-long lines

nikolai

 

[Nikolai Weibull]

Devin Mullins wrote:

Ah, I misread. Scoring allows you to give messages a positive or
negative score depending on attributes of a message. The attributes
that may be scored upon are numerous, so you best consult mutt's manual
(which has scoring), or if you use NNTP, slrn's manual. There's also a
separate document about it: http://slrn.sourceforge.net/docs/score.txt.

Thus, instead of sorting your threads in "having the most recent
messages first" mode, you could see to it that uninteresting threads are
removed/ignored, that certain threads are given a higher score than
others and sort based on score (set sort=score in mutt). (You could
also do 'set sort=threads' and 'set sort_aux=score'. I don't know for
sure, but hopefully it'll sort on date if two threads have the same
score.)

Actually, the best way to do this exactly what you wanted, i.e., sorting
threads by most recent mail is (in mutt):

set sort=threads
set sort_aux=last-date-received

nikolai

 

[Andrew Thompson]

How is it easier to read 500 emails in forum form?

Well, I can easily see what threads have had updates since I've read
them, and I can easily ignore entire threads. Also, I spend a lot more
time in a browser then a mail client

Or better yet, reply to the pertinent message and remove any text that
isn't relevant to your reply, instead of replying to some random message
in the thread.

And when you don't have a particular reply to reply to? (I usually do
the above when I'm replying to something specific, like right now).

In a perfect world, all MUAs would produce In-Reply-To and References
headers.

Yeah, but we self evidently do not, which is why I proposed something to
augment those.

The line-length is probably set at 72 or some such, as most people send
emails with 72-characters-per-line-long lines

I'm in a browser, I don't need my lines wrapped at 72 characters, I'd
prefer to have them wrapped depending on the size of my browser window.

Andrew

 

[Nikolai Weibull]

Well, I can easily see what threads have had updates since I've read
them, and I can easily ignore entire threads. Also, I spend a lot more
time in a browser then a mail client

Likewise. Thank you mutt(1).

And when you don't have a particular reply to reply to? (I usually do
the above when I'm replying to something specific, like right now).

And why was my message the one you replied to? (I'm not looking for an
argument, honest.)

Yeah, but we self evidently do not, which is why I proposed something to
augment those.

Both you and I have MUAs that add those headers (well ruby-forum does
it, even though it's strictly not an MUA).

I'm in a browser, I don't need my lines wrapped at 72 characters, I'd
prefer to have them wrapped depending on the size of my browser window.

Yes, but how would you determine what lines to join?

Furthermore, the human brain, together with the human eye, prefers to
process lines that contain about 72 (note the about) characters.

nikolai

 

[Andrew Thompson]

Likewise. Thank you mutt(1).

Yeah, I saw this one coming I'm just stating my personal preference,
I prefer a forum to a mailinglist any day.

And why was my message the one you replied to? (I'm not looking for an
argument, honest.)

Last one in the thread at the time, what else should I have done?

Both you and I have MUAs that add those headers (well ruby-forum does
it, even though it's strictly not an MUA).

Indeed, but there's *always* broken threads on just about any
mailinglist I've ever been on and it annoys me, especially when its an
interesting topic and I'd like to see the whole thing in one piece, not
all scattered across the archives

Yes, but how would you determine what lines to join?

Well, one possibility might be to run all lines together that did not
have an empty line between them and let the browser wrap them. I haven't
really thought about *how* this would be done though. It might be more
problematic then I thought.

Furthermore, the human brain, together with the human eye, prefers to
process lines that contain about 72 (note the about) characters.

If you say so, I find the wrapping on most emails kind of annoying, it
also makes things a lot longer vertically then they would be if they
wrapped in a more efficent fashion.

Andrew

 

[Kero]

IMHO, it's in the tools, not in another archive that holds the same content.

What is mutt, but another (local) archive that holds the same content?
What makes the web forum view not just another tool?

mutt is a local tool for a local copy. It does not need to scale, because it
is an endpoint. my endpoint.

a webbased forum is a public proxy for an already complicated
newsgroup-mailinglist combo. The fact that it is possible to make this does
not make it a good idea by itself.

The specific argument I responded to is like "it provides me the view on the
list I never had" and that's IMHO an *extremely* thin argument.

The reason behind all this is that I fear needless fragmentation. The Ruby
community grows, it will have to fragment to some extent, we can't populate
a mailing list with ten times more people. Rails split off the main lists,
main IRC, even gets its own conference. Fine, it seems a clear cut
distinction (but given all other useful web frameworks in Ruby, I doubt it
deserves to be this clear cut).

We have to be critical of new development.

Kero.

 

[Gregory Brown]

The reason behind all this is that I fear needless fragmentation. The Rub= y
community grows, it will have to fragment to some extent, we can't popula= te
a mailing list with ten times more people. Rails split off the main lists= ,
main IRC, even gets its own conference. Fine, it seems a clear cut
distinction (but given all other useful web frameworks in Ruby, I doubt i= t
deserves to be this clear cut).

We have to be critical of new development.

It will only fragment if the shards are appealing enough to attract people.

I personally use a combination of mailing list and reading
comp.lang.ruby online via google groups, and I don't feel like it
takes me away from any of that.

Instead, I think it's encouraging us to get new traffic from people
who have not yet found the list or usenet group. Your personal choice
has not been effected in anyway.

If the new forum results in an influx of spam, poorly formatted
emails, etc, then yeah, we can complain then. But right now, I see
it as a unifier and a new point of entry for people into the ruby
community, rather than a fragmentation.

I only recently signed up on the list, but I've been monitoring
comp.lang.ruby for about a year. I think the trend goes towards the
center, not away from it. I doubt this forum is going to steal people
away from ruby-talk :-/

As far as the Rails conference goes... I think that's great too. It
lightens the pressure on the RubyConf to be rails oriented, and if you
enjoy both, you have two conferences to look forward two now! (i'm
planning on attending both Rails and RubyConf 2006)

 

[James Edward Gray II]

a webbased forum is a public proxy for an already complicated
newsgroup-mailinglist combo. The fact that it is possible to make
this does
not make it a good idea by itself.

For all practical purposes, what has been created here is just
another MUA and the author has decided to share it.

I'm very surprised at the negative response on this. I think it's
great.

James Edward Gray II