Re: splitting working now : some issues/questions

[Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com>]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> On Sun, 10 Oct 2010 12:17:25 +0200 Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> RR> Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:
>>> For spam-split and general splitting, actually I have wanted for a long
>>> time the group name to be qualified, but currently splitting only works
>>> to the same server.  To keep with the Gnus conventions, I'd prefer to
>>> keep group names qualified whenever poassible.
>
> RR> Yes, but why?
>
> 1) to keep Gnus consistent

Thats my whole point : Its not consistent. Some places need it
qualifying others dont. And if you dont it defaults to the current
server. This is NOT how its done here. And that saw my mail suddenly
vanish and totally hog my network and cause my gmail bandwidth for a day
to run out. Admittedly that was in the context of the INBOX spam
handling bug causing ALL messages to be reprocessed.

>
> 2) to avoid inconveniencing the people who have been using spam.el for
> many years now

Since a lot is changing and certainly my entire spam set up had to be
rewired as a result of the way INBOX was dealt with. Which due to lack
of feedback I assumed was redesign as opposed to bugs. It seems to have
settled back now and was indeed bugs.

>
> 3) because it uses the Gnus "move article" facility, which uses
> qualified names

So it can qualify it before calling that? At least some other vars are
server local.

"because thats the way it is" hardly encourages debate. It makes sense
to me at least that a folder name UNQUALIFIED should be local to that
server. In fact it seems so obvious I wonder why we debate it ;)

>
> RR> If you are working a group in a certain server and something
> RR> operates on that server, unqualified makes a lot more sense and is
> RR> simply more convenient keeping in mind the manual talking about not
> RR> qualifying in other such settings. "spam" means "spam" folder on
> RR> this server, "nnml+otherserver:spam" means something else.
>
> Well, spam.el has been around for a while now (since 2002).  You are the
> first person to say they want the move destination to be unqualified.

Where did I say that? I said I would have *expected* it to be local
because of other such settings which are local. Why qualify something
when on a server each and every time? If you want it moved elsewhere on
another server then qualify it.  A huge hurdle with convincing people to
use Gnus I find in #emacs for example are such inconsistencies and the
general difficulty with customisation. You are aware such a mindset
exists I assume? It's not easy. I am only conveying my views here on how
it would make more sense to be done another way. Of course I understand
reluctance to change as well. The current changes are bordering on
miraculous and make Gnus a wonderful client.

> So while it may be that all the other users have been annoyed by that
> but kept quiet, it's more likely it's not a big deal.  So unless I hear
> from more people supporting your view, I'd rather keep the status quo.

Fine if thats the way you see it. The improvements done to Gnus suggest
that "because thats the way its always been" are not the only criteria
under consideration while development and improvements take place.

I'll wave the white flag now.

cheers for the feedback

r.