From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/23781 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: lconrad@world.std.com Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: some mail annoyances Date: 04 Jul 1999 14:18:43 -0400 Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035161453 3877 80.91.224.250 (21 Oct 2002 00:50:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 00:50:53 +0000 (UTC) Return-Path: Original-Received: from farabi.math.uh.edu (farabi.math.uh.edu [129.7.128.57]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA25548 for ; Sun, 4 Jul 1999 14:27:16 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (lists@Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by farabi.math.uh.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id NAB27052; Sun, 4 Jul 1999 13:26:31 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Sun, 04 Jul 1999 13:24:55 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (root@sclp3.sclp.com [204.252.123.139]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id NAA24725 for ; Sun, 4 Jul 1999 13:23:39 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from europe.std.com (europe-e.std.com [192.74.137.10]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA25445 for ; Sun, 4 Jul 1999 14:20:05 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from world.std.com by europe.std.com (STD1.2/BZS-8-1.0) id OAA00768; Sun, 4 Jul 1999 14:19:54 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from 10.0.2.15 (world.std.com) by world.std.com (TheWorld/Spike-2.0) id AA15244; Sun, 4 Jul 1999 14:19:52 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 16226 invoked by uid 500); 4 Jul 1999 18:18:45 -0000 Original-To: ding@gnus.org X-Face: #0j-Ll[fajrfupWYMv&wa\m7!Sh=&3;JE-_&M-L,ULz(aE8iu%m1SHa5wG.V{3B:Fdnd/T# O -}0pPGYw%t1z`o&T_c=)p8l[}7R\={[@B*Jyj*.L4 hnJ*AXb In-Reply-To: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen's message of "04 Jul 1999 04:19:04 +0200" Original-Lines: 71 User-Agent: Gnus/5.070091 (Pterodactyl Gnus v0.91) XEmacs/20.4 (Emerald) Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:23781 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:23781 >>>>> "Lars" == Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen writes: Lars> What many Gnus users find, after using it a while for Lars> both news and mail, is that the transport becomes more and Lars> more irrelevant. What becomes important is the size of the Lars> receiving audience. Lars> Many people subscribe to several mailing lists. These Lars> are transported via SMTP, and are therefore mail. Some Lars> people have local news groups which have only a handful of Lars> readers. These are transported via NNTP, and are therefore Lars> news. Lars> The important distinction turns out to be not the Lars> transport mechanism, but whether the messages are "personal" Lars> or "public". Many users then subtly alter the behavior of Lars> Gnus according to these two categories. I think this needs some rewriting. I'm sure we all know what you're talking about, but a new gnus user who hasn't done any customizing and doesn't even know what the customizing options are, needs a different explanation. My own take on this is that I expire mail that is really "news", that is, someone else is in charge of archiving it somewhere else. I also make a distinction (in how readily I interrupt what I'm doing to read the group) between groups which might contain discussion of an issue I am immediately interested in and those which probably won't, which is sometimes the same as the distinction between the groups where I contribute and groups where I'm a "lurker". I haven't actually done any customizing of score files to automate this distinction, but the thing I would most miss if I couldn't use gnus to read my mail is the ability to read the different groups in their order of importance to me. So here's a rewrite that might explain a little more to a new user: Laura> What many Gnus users find, after using it a while for Laura> both news and mail, is that the transport mechanism has Laura> very little to do with how they want to treat a message. Laura> Many people subscribe to several mailing lists. These are Laura> transported via SMTP, and are therefore mail. But we might Laura> go for weeks without answering, or even reading these Laura> messages very carefully. We may not need to save them Laura> because if we should need to read one again, they are Laura> archived somewhere else. Laura> Some people have local news groups which have only a Laura> handful of readers. These are transported via NNTP, and Laura> are therefore news. But we may need to read and answer a Laura> large fraction of the messages very carefully in order to Laura> do our work. And there may not be an archive, so we may Laura> need to save the interesting messages the same way we would Laura> personal mail. Laura> The important distinction turns out to be not the Laura> transport mechanism, but other factors such as how Laura> interested we are in the subject matter, or how easy it is Laura> to retrieve the message if we need to read it again. Laura> Gnus provides many options for sorting mail into "groups" Laura> (discussed in * Splitting Mail:: ) which behave like Laura> newsgroups, and for treating each group (whether mail or Laura> news) differently. -- Laura (mailto:lconrad@world.std.com , http://www.world.std.com/~lconrad/ ) (617) 661-8097 fax: (801) 365-6574 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139