Re: Mailing list archive is available

[Jason R Mastaler <jason@mastaler.com>]

Steven L Baur <steve@xemacs.org> writes:

> It's indexed using Swish, a front-end to WWWWAIS, anything else
> WWWWAIS should be O.K. if I'm reading the sparse documentation correctly.

Yeah, Swish is a really old program that isn't really being maintained
or supported by it's author.

> That's what I like about the Emacs community -- you can't get away
> with *anything* ... :-/

:-)

> I didn't find this problem until after indexing the archives twice (a
> *most* painful process -- ~100 minutes at 95% CPU on a Pentium 100).

I was using swish and wwwwais a few years ago when running a couple
of really large mailing list archives (like the DIRECT-L LISTSERV) and
found it frustrating.  I was happy when I found Excite for Web Servers
(EWS).  It works great and is free.  For more info see,
http://www.excite.com/navigate/home.html

> Now for the important question, these archives have to move off of
> miranova.com sometime soonish since I haven't worked for them
> since April.  The stablest home I can provide for them would be at
> xemacs.org.  A more logical place might be gnus.org.  What do people
> think?

My idea for gnus.org was primarily to provide a placeholder and common
entry point for those seeking the various Gnus resources.  I don't
think it matters if the archives are located elsewhere as long as
gnus.org always points in their direction.  I think distributing the
responsibility for all these resources (mailing lists in one place,
archives in another, faq in still another, etc) with the common tie
being gnus.org works well because it doesn't put all the eggs in one
basket, yet still ties everything together.  Also, a large searchable
archive can sometimes put undue restraints on a heavily loaded web
server.  The SGI Challenge server gnus.org is hosted on is a shared
webserver hosting a number of other websites for customers of various
sorts.  So, it would probably be best if another site could catch the
archives.  However, this is an important resource, so if noone else is
able to do this, I could probably work something out.

Sorry for the delay in response, I've had my nose in a new book 
_all_ day.

   Jason R. Mastaler                      jason@mastaler.com