Re: total and auto expiry

[kai.grossjohann@uni-duisburg.de (Kai Großjohann)]

Alexander Kotelnikov <sacha@myxomop.com> writes:

>>>>>> On Thu, 13 Mar 2003 18:25:32 +0100
>>>>>> "KG" == Kai Großjohann <kai.grossjohann@uni-duisburg.de> wrote:
> KG> 
> KG> Alexander Kotelnikov <sacha@forexware.com> writes:
>>> Does this mean that the only difference between actions that are taken
>>> over groups matching 'total' and 'auto' it that the former will be
>>> expired even if expiry-wait for it is 'never?
> KG> 
> KG> No.  I think setting expiry-wait to never means that nothing is
> KG> expired.
> KG> 
> KG> Normally, you can mark a message as expirable by hitting `E'.
> KG> 
> KG> Auto-expire means that Gnus hits `E' for you.  Nothing more, nothing
> KG> less.
> KG> 
> KG> Total-expire means that messages marked E are expirable, as always,
> KG> but *also* messages marked r, R, Y, K and so on are considered
> KG> expirable.
>
> Thus the one difference is an article's mark. Its destiny, to be or
> not to be expired, is the same, if group is matched with total or auto
> variable.

Yes.

> This also means that "total" described as dangerous is not too much
> more dangerous than "auto", isn't it?

Before you turned on total-expire, you might have read hundreds of
messages which are suddenly considered expirable.

This is (potentially) dangerous.

> KG> Adaptive scoring does not work with auto-expire because it depends on
> KG> the different marks r, R, Y, K etc.  But using auto-expire means that
> KG> messages will be marked E, instead.
> KG> 
> KG> It used to be that total-expire was slower than auto-expire.  I don't
> KG> know whether this is still true.
>
> So it can be advised to use total with adaptive scoring and auto
> otherwise. At first approximation they are the same.

Except for the above, yes.

Another difference is that total-expire means that you lose one
mark.  With auto-expire, you can distinguish between ticked (!),
dormant (?) and read (R) articles, all of which are kept.  With
total-expire, you only have ticked and dormant.

-- 
A preposition is not a good thing to end a sentence with.