Re: A taste of things to come

[Greg Merritt <gregm@umich.edu>]

At 8:21 AM -0800 11/20/97, Toby Erkson wrote:
>Lookin' good!

	Thanks!  I, er, downloaded the software myself... ;)

><Possible follow-up(s)>   Is this really needed?  Obviously, replies to the
>original message are indented under it -- looks like the newsgroup format.

	I think it has a particular utility.  Some people who aren't
allowed to have personal email at their work (you know, to read at lunch
time;) could read the list on the web.  It's also good for the occasional
reader.  I use the Type 2 recent-posts-on-the-web from time to time.
Sometimes friends will e-mail me and say "hey Greg, there's an interesting
discussion of <whatever> going on over on the Type 2 list..." and I'll go
check it out on the web.  Works for me!

>Did not seem to be consistent (compare "hard to start, king-of-battle", and
>"Re: Re: brake sqeel!!!!, Melissa & Jim").  It also adds another line of
>text (hey, it adds up!).

	The ninety-odd messages I grabbed for this sample unfortunately
included some "doubles"--this is an artifact of having recently put the
list on moderated status (I get the messages twice when I do this).  I
think that this is some of what you see on that page.

>Visited links don't change color in Internet Explorer (3.02)!  This
>definitely needs to be rectified.  It did work in Netscape.

	*That's* a puzzler.  What platform are you using?  I will look into
this.

>How is the web page set up in keeping messages (this is hard to verbalize so
>bear with me)?  Will there be an index broken down by month or year (or

[various scenarios deleted]

	This software (MHonArc) simply takes a mailbox full of messages
(whether it's got 2 or 2,000 messages), threads the messages, and creates a
web page of each message along with thread & date indices.  This is not
necessarily intended to be done on the fly.

	However, with perl scripting, cron (tasks done regularly at a
specified time interval in the Unix environment), and cgi on the web
server, there are a number of possibilities.

	All messages *could* be continuously archived in
daily/weekly/monthly blocks, etc.  These archives could be searched by a
visitor to the site, browsed, etc.

	Alternatively, things could be arranged so that "current" (day?
week?  month?) messages are kept on the web (and updated automatically or
"by hand"), while only the "best" threads are kept for a "permanent" Best
of Type III archive.  There are many possibilities.

>I saw that there was a subscription request, are these going to be saved
>to the
>web page as well or routed automatically away?

	If procmail or similar is available on the new server, this could
be done fairly easily.  If some folks (anybody we know?;) edited their
inclusions of previous messages a bit more heavily in their replies, that
would cut down a lot more bandwidth than we're currently wasting in sub
requests to the list... :)

>Can people send messages anonymously?  I hesitate on this because it allows
>serious flaming (and possibly spamming) without accountability.

	I will endeavor set the new list to "only members can post"!  That
is not possible with the current list.

	Not certain if these topics are of general interest, at least at
this level of detail.  Feel free to reply directly if you think it's more
appropriate.

-Greg
'69 & '71 Squarebacks
'63 Beetle