[Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>] Re: FAQ Buttons on Newsreaders (was FAQ sites on the web?)

[Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>] Re: FAQ Buttons on Newsreaders (was FAQ sites on the web?)

[Steven L Baur]

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This sounds like a good idea.  Could it be added to the Red Gnus TODO
list?

-- 
steve@miranova.com baur
Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be proofread for $250/hour.
Andrea Seastrand: For your vote on the Telecom bill, I will vote for anyone
except you in November.

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From: Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>
To: fburke@ccnet.com (Fred Burke)
Cc: bunda002@gold.tc.umn.edu, faq-maintainers@consensus.com
Subject: Re: FAQ Buttons on Newsreaders (was FAQ sites on the web?)
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 08:15:51 -0400 (EDT)
Message-ID: <199607241215.IAA08016@access2.digex.net>

  From: Fred Burke <fburke@ccnet.com>
  
  > Dragomir R. Radev wrote:
  > > 
  >> Shouldn't Netscape and other web browsers that supply usenet access have a
  >> default button for the FAQ for each newsgroup?
  > 
  > Prodigy's newsreader has had that from the very beginning. That is a
  > very newby-friendly feature, but it only works if a particular newsgroup
  > has an FAQ with a title or header that unerringly matches it to the
  > newsgroup. NONE of the newsgroups I've frequented most often in the past
  > two years have one. 
  
Extracting entries in the LoPP that post to the current newsgroup would
seem to be a method that would catch more FAQs than title matching.

One way to help this idea catch on would be for somebody to cut a Gnus
patch that does this and start circulating it.

Al Gilman
  
  

Re: [Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>] Re: FAQ Buttons on Newsreaders (was FAQ sites on the web?)

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Steven L Baur <steve@miranova.com> writes:

> This sounds like a good idea.  Could it be added to the Red Gnus TODO
> list?

> From: Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>

> Extracting entries in the LoPP that post to the current newsgroup would
> seem to be a method that would catch more FAQs than title matching.

What's a "LoPP"?

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

Re: [Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>] Re: FAQ Buttons on Newsreaders (was FAQ sites on the web?)

[Steven L Baur]

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

Lars> What's a "LoPP"?

`List of Periodic Postings'.  It's a guide to FAQs, and is
periodically posted to news.answers and news.lists.

-- 
steve@miranova.com baur
Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be proofread for $250/hour.
Andrea Seastrand: For your vote on the Telecom bill, I will vote for anyone
except you in November.

Re: [Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>] Re: FAQ Buttons on Newsreaders (was FAQ sites on the web?)

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Steven L Baur <steve@miranova.com> writes:

> `List of Periodic Postings'.  It's a guide to FAQs, and is
> periodically posted to news.answers and news.lists.

So Gnus should sniff that post to find the Subjects for the FAQs in
the groups and then be able to get the FAQ posting for the group?
*perspire*.  Let's see...  Fetch all headers from news.answers, find
article, go through article, fetch all headers from current group,
find the matching subject, fetch article.  *perspire*.

-- 
  "Yes.  The journey through the human heart 
     would have to wait until some other time."

Re: [Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>] Re: FAQ Buttons on Newsreaders (was FAQ sites on the web?)

[John Griffith]

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

    LMI> Steven L Baur <steve@miranova.com> writes:
    >> `List of Periodic Postings'.  It's a guide to FAQs, and is
    >> periodically posted to news.answers and news.lists.

    LMI> So Gnus should sniff that post to find the Subjects for the FAQs in
    LMI> the groups and then be able to get the FAQ posting for the group?
    LMI> *perspire*.  Let's see...  Fetch all headers from news.answers, find
    LMI> article, go through article, fetch all headers from current group,
    LMI> find the matching subject, fetch article.  *perspire*.

But you could keep a cache so you don't have to do this the next time.
Then every now and then you could just check to see if there's a new
one and either rebuild or merge the changes (I think there is a diff
file posted as well.)

There are some other interesting postings as well as web pages with
(near) machine readable regularity like newsgroup and mailing list
archives sites and the list of publicly accessible mailing lists.
Imagine being able to bring your mail server to its knees by
subscribing to lots of high volume mailing lists with just a few mouse
clicks.  But Gnus giveth and Gnus taketh away.  If your mail server
doesn't crash then all of the mail from those lists could be
automatically split into there own mailboxes.  Automatic mailing list
subscription might even come with a liberal default expiry policy.

Re: FAQ Buttons on Newsreaders

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

John Griffith <griffith@sfs.nphil.uni-tuebingen.de> writes:

>     LMI> So Gnus should sniff that post to find the Subjects for the FAQs in
>     LMI> the groups and then be able to get the FAQ posting for the group?
>     LMI> *perspire*.  Let's see...  Fetch all headers from news.answers, find
>     LMI> article, go through article, fetch all headers from current group,
>     LMI> find the matching subject, fetch article.  *perspire*.
> 
> But you could keep a cache so you don't have to do this the next time.

I didn't mean that it was much work for Gnus -- just lots of typing
for me.  :-)

-- 
  "Yes.  The journey through the human heart 
     would have to wait until some other time."