Downloading articles into the agent

Downloading articles into the agent

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

So, I've create a new mode where you can create "categories", which
groups can belong to.  A category is simply a predicate (of sorts):

(& (! spam)
   short
   high)

If a group belongs to this category, the articles will only be
downloaded if they aren't spam (which is determined on a
subject/references/from basis), they are short (less than 100 lines)
and have a high score.

And that last bit is the problem.  We don't want to use the normal
scoring mechanism here, because reading score and downloading scores
should be separate things.  Besides, doing proper scoring (for each
group) when downloading will be much too slow.  So.

I guess I can hack up the score functions to work when a summary
buffer isn't actually being generated.  (It'll only be possible to
score on the NOV headers, though.)

But where should the score expressions to be used be defined?  Hm.  I
guess it could be connected to the category.  So the category would
then contain three things -- the predicate, the score expression, and
the list of groups in the category.  Yes...

Ok, forget I asked.  :-)

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Downloading articles into the agent

[Don Croyle]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no> writes:

> And that last bit is the problem.  We don't want to use the normal
> scoring mechanism here, because reading score and downloading scores
> should be separate things.  Besides, doing proper scoring (for each
> group) when downloading will be much too slow.  So.
> 
> I guess I can hack up the score functions to work when a summary
> buffer isn't actually being generated.  (It'll only be possible to
> score on the NOV headers, though.)

I'm not entirely sure that I see the need for a distinction.  I used
Forte Agent for over a year before switching to Gnus (and still use it
for some purposes), and my strategy was always to connect and grab
headers, disconnect and mark them, then reconnect to get the bodies.

What I'd hope to see in an agent mode for Gnus would be normal scoring
on at least the NOV information and pre-marking everything scoring
higher than N in a newgroup, then showing the summary buffer so that I
could make adjustments in what actually gets downloaded.
-- 
I've always wanted to be a dilettante, but I've never quite been ready
to make the commitment.

Re: Downloading articles into the agent

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Don Croyle <croyle@gelemna.ft-wayne.in.us> writes:

> I'm not entirely sure that I see the need for a distinction.  I used
> Forte Agent for over a year before switching to Gnus (and still use it
> for some purposes), and my strategy was always to connect and grab
> headers, disconnect and mark them, then reconnect to get the bodies.

If you don't want the Gnus agent to fetch any articles automatically,
that's no problem.  I don't quite see why you'd want that, though.

I've now done the first "real" Gnus agent runs.  I've set most groups
to download all small (less than 100 lines) articles automatically,
while in some select groups I exclude all crossposted articles, and in
other groups I just download articles from a certain person
(news.admin.net-abuse.* and Chris Lewis).  (These finer distinctions
are done by the agent scoring mechanism.)

After finishing the downloading, I hang up and start reading.  I found
a couple of articles that I wanted to read that wasn't downloaded, so
I marked them as downloadable, and they'll be fetched the next time
the agent fetches articles.  

> What I'd hope to see in an agent mode for Gnus would be normal scoring
> on at least the NOV information and pre-marking everything scoring
> higher than N in a newgroup, then showing the summary buffer so that I
> could make adjustments in what actually gets downloaded.

I don't follow you.  Pre-mark?  In what way?  

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Downloading articles into the agent

[Don Croyle]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Don Croyle <croyle@gelemna.ft-wayne.in.us> writes:
> 
> > I'm not entirely sure that I see the need for a distinction.  I used
> > Forte Agent for over a year before switching to Gnus (and still use it
> > for some purposes), and my strategy was always to connect and grab
> > headers, disconnect and mark them, then reconnect to get the bodies.
> 
> If you don't want the Gnus agent to fetch any articles automatically,
> that's no problem.  I don't quite see why you'd want that, though.

Timing.  This is actually more of a concern in Gnus than it was in
Agent, since Emacs doesn't multitask.  I don't especially want to wait
an hour or so while bodies download before I can read my mail or start
reviewing the articles that weren't downloaded automatically.

> > What I'd hope to see in an agent mode for Gnus would be normal scoring
> > on at least the NOV information and pre-marking everything scoring
> > higher than N in a newgroup, then showing the summary buffer so that I
> > could make adjustments in what actually gets downloaded.
> 
> I don't follow you.  Pre-mark?  In what way?  

Mark them as downloadable when the summary buffer is generated,
instead of downloading them the first time around.  This is mainly a
matter of convenience.
-- 
I've always wanted to be a dilettante, but I've never quite been ready
to make the commitment.

Re: Downloading articles into the agent

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Don Croyle <croyle@gelemna.ft-wayne.in.us> writes:

> > If you don't want the Gnus agent to fetch any articles automatically,
> > that's no problem.  I don't quite see why you'd want that, though.
> 
> Timing.  This is actually more of a concern in Gnus than it was in
> Agent, since Emacs doesn't multitask.

Well, for things like this it can multitask.  I haven't implemented it
yet, but it's pretty straightforward to do.

> I don't especially want to wait an hour or so while bodies download
> before I can read my mail or start reviewing the articles that
> weren't downloaded automatically.

I've only used the Gnus agent a couple of days, and it uses less
connection time than suck, since it doesn't download articles that I
know I don't want to read (especially long articles).  I've yet to
tell it to download something it decided not to download.  Scoring is
nice. 

> > > What I'd hope to see in an agent mode for Gnus would be normal scoring
> > > on at least the NOV information and pre-marking everything scoring
> > > higher than N in a newgroup, then showing the summary buffer so that I
> > > could make adjustments in what actually gets downloaded.
> > 
> > I don't follow you.  Pre-mark?  In what way?  
> 
> Mark them as downloadable when the summary buffer is generated,
> instead of downloading them the first time around.  This is mainly a
> matter of convenience.

Uhm...  Why would you want to mark the articles as downloadable at
that point?  Why not just download them?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Downloading articles into the agent

[Don Croyle]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> > > I don't follow you.  Pre-mark?  In what way?  
> > 
> > Mark them as downloadable when the summary buffer is generated,
> > instead of downloading them the first time around.  This is mainly a
> > matter of convenience.
> 
> Uhm...  Why would you want to mark the articles as downloadable at
> that point?  Why not just download them?

I want them premarked as downloadable so that I can easily unmark the
ones that I don't really want to download.

Consider, for example, news.groups.  I decided early on that
sci.bio.spanish was a Crawling Horror From the Sewers of Hell[tm] and
that I was going to vote against it and am relying on adaptive scoring
to ignore the threads that the RFD has spawned into oblivion.  But
Russ Albury and Joe Bernstein keep throwing in comments in a futile
attempt to show the proponents the errors of their ways.  They've
built up high enough positive scores over the course of other
discussions to override the negative scores on the threads, and I want
to maintain that since their commenting often brings to my attention
discussions that I might otherwise overlook, but I don't really need
to bother reading their views on this issue again.
-- 
I've always wanted to be a dilettante, but I've never quite been ready
to make the commitment.

Re: Downloading articles into the agent

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Don Croyle <croyle@gelemna.ft-wayne.in.us> writes:

> I want them premarked as downloadable so that I can easily unmark the
> ones that I don't really want to download.

Ok; there'll be a `gnus-agent-mark-over' command that'll set the
downloadable mark on all high-scored articles, and you can put that in
`gnus-summary-prepare-hook'.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen