Re: [SLUG] Call for new list best-of-slug ?

[Sonam Chauhan <sonamc@nospam.ce.com.au>]

> Okay, where is the dummies guide to swish?
> 
> Like what exactly does it do?
> Does it provide a word searchable index to mail messages?
> What does it create? - a html page for my apache to display?
> So, I figure it may be quicker to ask and save reinventing the wheel.

Hi Terry: Swish is an indexing engine. It visits web pages and follows links like web engines do, but only builds a
searchable index. It's search interface is only command line, so Swish needs to be coupled with CGI frontends to work as
a full search engine. There are a few out there like WWWais, and they can be tailored for our specific circumstance. 

However we *don't need* to modify/write anything - WWWais will still work well with a Hypermail/Swish setup. This is
because Hypermail doens't use a database - it stores all archived messages as separate HTML files. The Hypermail archive
index files are regenerated each time a new message is posted.

> > - If at any point of time, people feel that a particular mail exchange on Slug is getting worthwhile , anyone
> > participating in the discussion just adds a cc:<slug-pearls@nospam.slug.com.au> to his next reply. From that point on, the
> > conversation is recorded in the Hypermail archive. Of course, everyone would need to choose reply-all (discussed by
> > Anand earlier). 
> 
> The problem here is that typically by the time someone realises that this 
> is a pearl of wisdom the email has already been sent. Adding a CC at a later
> stage and the pearl archive will end up with emails which have no 
> continuity of flow.

Hello Anand: Most emails include quoted text ("> >") from previous authors in the thread. If you capture the
"conversation" early enough, say within the first 3-4 replies, most of the pertinent points of the thread (or points the
responder thought pertinent) are captured.

Just one of the conversation participants has to cc: slug-pearls for every email to be recorded from that point on. If
the thread gets cc: it more than once - no hassles, the new cc: still gets inserted into the right thread (just did a
quick check on the Hypermail setup here)

> > Advantages:
> > - no sweat (but still a conscious decision)
> > - everybody's involved in selecting "good" stuff
> > - new updates to an old topic update the correct Hypermail thread
> 
> How does that last one work?

Hypermail does subject line matching while deciding to thread a new post (critmail looks as the message body as well).
You can also use this property to make hypermail a rudimentary message board. Use URLs like:
mailto:slug-pearls@nospam.slug.org.au?subject=my_discussion

Take a look at it in action: http://xmlfr.org/listes/xml-tech/0079.html (French)

The main drawback of Hypermail is messages can't be easily deleted. A workaround is doing the deletes on a Unix mbox
file (there are Hypermail-mbox format convertors).  

Regards,
Sonam
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