Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Mark Rousell]

On 09/08/2018 18:39, tech wrote:
> Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to something
> more modern like a bugzilla or else ???

No. Mail lists works as well now as they did then.

Mail lists are efficient, to the point, simple to use.

Don't try to fix what isn't broken.


-- 
Mark Rousell
 
 
 

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Shea Alterio]

On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 5:59 AM Jonathan Dowland  wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 05:39:36PM +, tech wrote:
> >Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to something
> >more modern like a bugzilla or else ???
>
> Assuming you are talking about systems for discussion, rather than
> filing bugs: Debian has  and has had for a
> long time, but it gets relatively little use.
>
> Personally I'd love to see the list archive software get an overhaul,
> and mailman3's "HyperKitty" archiver looks very promising to me, but I'm
> not sure whether it has delivered on the promise, which was to offer a
> very forum-like interface to mailing lists, permitting people to reply
> via web, or click "+1" buttons (thus freeing the mail interface of lots
> of "+1" mails, a blight that debian-user fortunately doesn't suffer)
>
>
> I've set up mailman3 servers and messed with the code quite a bit. It's a
huge step up from mailman v2, and not just cause the web interface is a
whole lot slicker.

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[deloptes]

Piotr wrote:

> The best was NNTP, but sadly there are not many places where it is still
> used. Web and e-mail approach is for more "handicaped" users, and as the
> exampes shows, there are many of them. Otherwise the trend would be to
> stick to NNTP and not to move to no powerfull solutions.

If someone wants to put his/her news system on non NNTP base it is his/her
own free will.
I guess there are enough people who understand the difference and major user
groups are hosted on nntp - somehow supply and demand question. May be at
some point of time it will be replaced by something else, but I don't see
it coming

regards

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[cyaiplexys]

On 08/10/2018 08:58 AM, The Wanderer wrote:

On 2018-08-10 at 08:29, Rich Kulawiec wrote:


On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 11:46:12AM -, Dan Purgert wrote:


Not familiar with procmail.  A quick perusal of the manpage seems
to indicate this is a local mail "processor" for sorting things, as
opposed to say something on the mailserver itself?


Correct.  Procmail uses a set of rules to decide what to go with messages
presented to it; those rules are usually based on the contents of message
headers, but don't have to be.  For example, for this mailing list:

:0:
 * ^X-Mailing-List:.*
 /home/rsk/linux/debian-user

Translating, this means that any message which has the specified header
will be appended to the file named in the last line.  (It would be nice
if the debian lists complied with RFC 2919 by using List-Id, but at least
this header works and is consistent throughout.)


Hm? The Debian mailing lists I'm on *do* have List-Id; that's how I
filter them into folders on my end, although I do it via Thunderbird's
built-in filtering mechanism rather than via procmail.


I use Thunderbird as well. Only I have set up a separate email account 
special for getting mail list messages, ads, etc. What I do then is set 
that account up to use collapsable threads. I delete all threads I don't 
think I'd be interested in and then keep the threads I think I want to 
read. I'm only on a couple Debian lists though (Security announcements 
being one, and this one and I think News). This Users one has the most 
activity but it really isn't too much trouble for me.


I also set up my email check to once every 720 minutes (12 hours). This 
way I'm not getting popups every 10 minutes that there's new messages 
while I'm trying to work or watch a tutorial video full screen or something.

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Dan Ritter]

On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 07:55:00AM -0500, Dave Sherohman wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 08:29:34AM -0400, Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> > Correct.  Procmail uses a set of rules to decide what to go with messages
> > presented to it; those rules are usually based on the contents of message
> > headers, but don't have to be.  For example, for this mailing list:
> > 
> > :0:
> > * ^X-Mailing-List:.*
> > /home/rsk/linux/debian-user
> > 
> > Translating, this means that any message which has the specified header
> > will be appended to the file named in the last line.
> 
> I used to use procmail a couple decades ago, then I switched to Debian,
> and Debian installed exim by default, and I started using exim to sort
> my mail instead.  My corresponding rule is:
> 
> if $h_X-Mailing-List: contains "debian-" then
>   save $home/Mail/deb/
>   finish
> endif

And maildrop says:

if (/^X-Mailing-List:.*debian-/:h)
to $home/Mail/deb/

although I would recommend sorting each Debian list to a
different folder. 

-dsr-

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Dan Ritter]

On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 11:33:39AM -, Dan Purgert wrote:
> Dan Ritter wrote:
> > 3. Indexed mail searching. Whatever works with your preferred
> > mail client. Have cron run a re-index every morning before you
> > wake up.
> 
> Care to expand on this one a bit? Not entirely sure what you mean here,
> and it's intriguing.

Full-text searching of all your mail folders is a reasonable
thing to ask your mail server and/or client to do.

notmuch, maildir-utils, mairix, nmzmail are all Debian packaged
utilities that will look through all your mail and construct an
index so that when you ask for things like:

I want the mail from people who have "Dan" in their email
addresses and had a subject with "GNU"

it can compile that list for your mail client in a second or
three, instead of reading through all your mail when you make
the query and thus taking several minutes or hours.

Each package is a little different: some want to add new
messages to an index on arrival, others want to roll through
all your mail archives each time you re-index. 

If you're a mutt user, you should also be using the amazing
power of limits to do things like "show me mail in this folder
that arrived yesterday and I replied to it" or "show me mail
in this folder that is not from my company's domain".

-dsr-

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Michael Stone]

On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 08:29:34AM -0400, Rich Kulawiec wrote:

Correct.  Procmail uses a set of rules to decide what to go with messages
presented to it; those rules are usually based on the contents of message
headers, but don't have to be.  For example, for this mailing list:

:0:
   * ^X-Mailing-List:.*
   /home/rsk/linux/debian-user

Translating, this means that any message which has the specified header
will be appended to the file named in the last line.  (It would be nice
if the debian lists complied with RFC 2919 by using List-Id, but at least
this header works and is consistent throughout.)


Debian lists have had List-Id for years. This is classic procmail rule 
bitrot. :)


The equivalent maildrop syntax is:

 if (/^List-Id: /)
   to linux/debian-user

It's hard to argue that the procmail version is less error-prone or more 
readable. Especially when you get to things like


 :0 Whc: $HOME/msgid.lock
 | formail -D 8192 $HOME/msgid.cache

 :0 a
 .duplicate/

versus

 `reformail -D 8192 msgid.cache`
 if ( $RETURNCODE == 0 )
   to Maildir/.duplicate

Very few people can read and understand the procmail version without 
looking up what the 'W', 'h', 'c', and 'a' mean, and why there's 
sometimes two ':' and sometimes one. It was a great program back in the 
day, but that day was back when we were still writing sendmail.cf by 
hand and the procmail syntax was comparatively easy to read. If you're 
starting from scratch, this is not the place to start.


Mike Stone

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Dan Purgert]

Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 11:46:12AM -, Dan Purgert wrote:
>> Not familiar with procmail.  A quick perusal of the manpage seems to
>> indicate this is a local mail "processor" for sorting things, as opposed
>> to say something on the mailserver itself?
>
> Correct.  Procmail uses a set of rules to decide what to go with messages
> presented to it; those rules are usually based on the contents of message
> headers, but don't have to be.  [...]
>

Thanks for the explanation.  At some point I may have to look into it in
more detail -- although since I run my MTA (well, at least for the mail
that matters) that does sorting serverside, might not do me any good.

-- 
|_|O|_| Registered Linux user #585947
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5  4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Brad Rogers]

On Fri, 10 Aug 2018 08:29:34 -0400
Rich Kulawiec  wrote:

Hello Rich,

>will be appended to the file named in the last line.  (It would be nice
>if the debian lists complied with RFC 2919 by using List-Id, but at
>least

All the Debian lists I'm subbed to have a List-Id header.  Maybe they
didn't in the past, IDK

-- 
 Regards  _
 / )   "The blindingly obvious is
/ _)radnever immediately apparent"
Gary don't need his eyes to see, Gary and his eyes have parted company
Gary Gilmore's Eyes - The Adverts


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Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Dan Purgert]

Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Friday 10 August 2018 07:24:18 zaxonxp wrote:
>> [...]
>> NNTP was a way to go. Sadly not many portals supports it promoting
>> only web access or mail list. Personally I do not like to polute my
>> mailbox with a tons of e-mails and clean them up later on. NNTP client
>> does this when I want it and you can configure it the way you want it.
>> What else would you need for a news groups?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Piotr
>
> And NNTP will never get there. Why? Its the most bandwidth hungry thing 
> in an ISP's closet of tools. To fully support it needs 2000 times the 
> bandwidth of an email server.  

Maybe eternal-september is simply an extremely quiet news server, but
the stats page shows they've been transferring at just under 100kbps
(max) over the past month (avg 55kbps).


-- 
|_|O|_| Registered Linux user #585947
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5  4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Dan Purgert]

Erik Christiansen wrote:
> On 10.08.18 11:46, Dan Purgert wrote:
>> Rich Kulawiec wrote:
>> To expand on that with my own personal prejudice -- the people using
>> these "sub-par" tools are also the ones who're the cause of some of the
>> existent (modern?) problems with mailing lists.
>> 
>> Namely:
>> 
>>  - HTML Messages
>>  - Not wrapping messages at ~80 characters
>>  - top posting
>> 
>
> It is easy to delete posts so egregiously presented that reading them is
> too much trouble. (When I return from a week out in the country, every
> month, there's usually over 1200 emails waiting - down to half that after
> procmail has done some weeding. So a post should also chop out all
> quoted text not explicitly related to the reply, if it is to be read in
> the time which can be given to it.)

Yeah, and if we all do that, the people who don't know any better don't
get any help. :)

Not that I don't delete (or otherwise outright ignore) the exceptionally
bad mails.

>> Guess I'm not a "serious" email user then.  Half the time I'm still
>> using Tbird.
>
> Having moved to mutt between 15 & 20 years ago, I've found it powerful
> and highly configurable. It'll see me out.

I have it for my "main" email account - but still use tbird for
alternate accounts.  It's just "easier" to see all the mail there.  That
being said, I have taken steps to make tbird behave properly.

>> Not familiar with procmail.  A quick perusal of the manpage seems to
>> indicate this is a local mail "processor" for sorting things, as opposed
>> to say something on the mailserver itself?
>
> Yup. Details on how to direct its filtering/distribution are in the
> procmailrc manpage. Its development stabilised some time ago, and those
> of us who use it are very content with that.

So, if I'm understanding you correctly, it'd end up doing the same
thing as sieve is already doing on the mailserver (or perhaps a
secondary pass for things sieve missed).


-- 
|_|O|_| Registered Linux user #585947
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5  4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[The Wanderer]

On 2018-08-10 at 08:29, Rich Kulawiec wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 11:46:12AM -, Dan Purgert wrote:
> 
>> Not familiar with procmail.  A quick perusal of the manpage seems
>> to indicate this is a local mail "processor" for sorting things, as
>> opposed to say something on the mailserver itself?
> 
> Correct.  Procmail uses a set of rules to decide what to go with messages
> presented to it; those rules are usually based on the contents of message
> headers, but don't have to be.  For example, for this mailing list:
> 
>   :0:
> * ^X-Mailing-List:.*
> /home/rsk/linux/debian-user
> 
> Translating, this means that any message which has the specified header
> will be appended to the file named in the last line.  (It would be nice
> if the debian lists complied with RFC 2919 by using List-Id, but at least
> this header works and is consistent throughout.)

Hm? The Debian mailing lists I'm on *do* have List-Id; that's how I
filter them into folders on my end, although I do it via Thunderbird's
built-in filtering mechanism rather than via procmail.

-- 
   The Wanderer

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw



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Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Michael Stone]

On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 10:29:53PM +1000, Erik Christiansen wrote:

Yup. Details on how to direct its filtering/distribution are in the
procmailrc manpage. Its development stabilised some time ago, and those
of us who use it are very content with that.


I would not recommend procmail for new deployments. Its configuration 
syntax is obscure, it's no longer maintained, and there are better 
options available. maildrop is a good choice, with a very simple 
filtering syntax. sieve is another option that's a bit more complex but 
capable of being managed via a gui in a mail client.


Mike Stone

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Dave Sherohman]

On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 08:29:34AM -0400, Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> Correct.  Procmail uses a set of rules to decide what to go with messages
> presented to it; those rules are usually based on the contents of message
> headers, but don't have to be.  For example, for this mailing list:
> 
>   :0:
> * ^X-Mailing-List:.*
> /home/rsk/linux/debian-user
> 
> Translating, this means that any message which has the specified header
> will be appended to the file named in the last line.

I used to use procmail a couple decades ago, then I switched to Debian,
and Debian installed exim by default, and I started using exim to sort
my mail instead.  My corresponding rule is:

if $h_X-Mailing-List: contains "debian-" then
  save $home/Mail/deb/
  finish
endif

No translation required.  (And I prefer a single mailbox for all my
debian lists, which is why I just match on "debian-" instead of the full
name/address of the list.)

-- 
Dave Sherohman

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Rich Kulawiec]

On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 11:46:12AM -, Dan Purgert wrote:
> Not familiar with procmail.  A quick perusal of the manpage seems to
> indicate this is a local mail "processor" for sorting things, as opposed
> to say something on the mailserver itself?

Correct.  Procmail uses a set of rules to decide what to go with messages
presented to it; those rules are usually based on the contents of message
headers, but don't have to be.  For example, for this mailing list:

:0:
* ^X-Mailing-List:.*
/home/rsk/linux/debian-user

Translating, this means that any message which has the specified header
will be appended to the file named in the last line.  (It would be nice
if the debian lists complied with RFC 2919 by using List-Id, but at least
this header works and is consistent throughout.)  The small regexp in
there is present because the functional part of the header is the text
in angle brackets; any text preceding it is for human consumption,
and may change (or not be present at all).

A typical usage pattern for procmail might be something like this:

mail server -> fetchmail -> procmail -> mail client

In other words, a program like fetchmail is used to retrieve mail
(via POP or IMAP) from a mail server.  Fetchmail hands off each message
to procmail.  Procmail decides what to do with each message, which usually
means filing it. [1]  The user can then read each mailing list by pointing
their mail client at it.  This also accumulates a per-mailing list
archive (in mbox format), which is useful.

This is a highly scalable, very robust setup for anyone who has to
deal with lots of mailing lists or with correspondence involving diverse
groups of people.  It scales to thousands of rules (I have 3000+ as
of this morning), it executes quickly, and because procmail is careful
to Do The Right Thing even under adverse circumstances, it's rather
tolerant of configuration errors.  Happily, most mailing lists now
support RFC 2919 (or at least something functionally equivalent,
as we see here) so it's not often necessary to craft procmail rules
based on other headers.

---rsk

[1] Although it could also mean forwarding it, duplicating it, discarding
it, etc.  For example, there exists a mailing list called "outages", which
is used to announce and track outages of networks and other operations
of interest.  If you're subscribed to outages and have a particular
interest in certain ASNs or operations, you can easily craft a procmail
ruleset specific to those that (a) files a copy of the message as above
and (b) upon a relevant Subject-line match, submits a duplicate copy of
the message to an internal ticketing system so that it becomes visible
to operations staff, and so that it can be tracked in the same way as
other trouble reports.

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Erik Christiansen]

On 10.08.18 11:46, Dan Purgert wrote:
> Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> To expand on that with my own personal prejudice -- the people using
> these "sub-par" tools are also the ones who're the cause of some of the
> existent (modern?) problems with mailing lists.
> 
> Namely:
> 
>  - HTML Messages
>  - Not wrapping messages at ~80 characters
>  - top posting
> 

It is easy to delete posts so egregiously presented that reading them is
too much trouble. (When I return from a week out in the country, every
month, there's usually over 1200 emails waiting - down to half that after
procmail has done some weeding. So a post should also chop out all
quoted text not explicitly related to the reply, if it is to be read in
the time which can be given to it.)

> >
> > Serious email users should be using mutt, which is fast, compact,
> > resistant to attack, and has an astonishing number of features.
> 
> Guess I'm not a "serious" email user then.  Half the time I'm still
> using Tbird.

Having moved to mutt between 15 & 20 years ago, I've found it powerful
and highly configurable. It'll see me out.

> > Those who receive large volumes of mail should be using procmail
> > to pre-sort it, and they should be aware of RFC 2919 (and thus
> > the existence of List-Id) as an excellent means for doing so.
> > These two tools in combination make dealing with large amounts
> > of traffic to large numbers of mailing lists quite easy.

And then with the list mailboxes arranged in order of interest in
"mailboxes" line(s) in ~/.muttrc, they are presented in priority order.
If domestic management, kids, or walking the dog intrude, then it's
automatically the less important emails which must wait for another day.

> Not familiar with procmail.  A quick perusal of the manpage seems to
> indicate this is a local mail "processor" for sorting things, as opposed
> to say something on the mailserver itself?

Yup. Details on how to direct its filtering/distribution are in the
procmailrc manpage. Its development stabilised some time ago, and those
of us who use it are very content with that.

Erik

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 10 August 2018 07:24:18 zaxonxp wrote:

> 
> rH8U]On)GIf;w1ZqdMj$nbYY
>.Ix8o\C &
>
> 
> auM`4jC,sl5vR&@dR!_,^'*^6+Udo[>g^ruiad#l{:lJ?{VKGRV_nM~oBgfJm"TpFZ
>=!t0yw! $
>  UN
> References: 
> User-Agent: Pan/0.141 (Tarzan's Death; 168b179 git.gnome.org/pan2)
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
> On Thu, 09 Aug 2018 19:40:02 +0200, tech wrote:
> > The way most people keep up to date on network news is through
> > subscription to a number of mail reflectors (also known as mail
> > exploders). Mail reflectors are special electronic mailboxes which,
> > when they receive a message, resend it to a list of other mailboxes.
> > This in effect creates a discussion group on a particular topic.
> > - E. Krol; The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet; RFC 1118; Sept.
> > 1989.
> >
> >
> > Seem's the first "bitnic listserv" is dated from 1984 ! More than 34
> > years ago !
> >
> >
> > Just as a reminder, we are now in 2018 ... something called the XXI
> > century ... with 4G, optical FTTH connection, smartphones ...
> >
> >
> > Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to something
> > more modern like a bugzilla or else ???
>
> NNTP was a way to go. Sadly not many portals supports it promoting
> only web access or mail list. Personally I do not like to polute my
> mailbox with a tons of e-mails and clean them up later on. NNTP client
> does this when I want it and you can configure it the way you want it.
> What else would you need for a news groups?
>
> Regards,
> Piotr

And NNTP will never get there. Why? Its the most bandwidth hungry thing 
in an ISP's closet of tools. To fully support it needs 2000 times the 
bandwidth of an email server.  And bandwidth like that to the backbone 
can bankrupt the ISP. Even web access to a forum wastes 90% of the 
bandwidth it uses with html crap you can't read. TANSTAAFL. 


-- 
Cheers, Gene Heskett
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Curt]

On 2018-08-10, Rich Kulawiec  wrote:
>
> Serious email users should be using mutt, which is fast, compact,
>

...

> Furthermore, everyone using mailing lists should be maintaining

...

> maintained by the site running the mailing list.  in turn, everyone
> running a mailing list should take care to see that those archives
> are fully accessible, unredacted, and downloadable on demand.)
>

...

Should should should. And furthermore, too. Crikey! Have any toothpaste
recommendations for serious carnivores? I feel like ripping something
apart with my teeth.

-- 
You are an ugly little monster, you know, I shouted in my mind’s
loudest voice – so loud it made my heart reverberate. 
Haruki Murakami, “The Little Green Monster”

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Dan Purgert]

Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 06:24:55AM -0400, Dan Ritter wrote:
>> I get more mail than that before breakfast. If you've got the
>> right tools, it's easy to deal with.
>
> This is an excellent point.  Many of the people who lodge complaints
> like the one that started this discussion thread have chosen very poor
> tools and thus have conflated the failings of those tools with some
> non-existent inherent problems with mailing lists.

To expand on that with my own personal prejudice -- the people using
these "sub-par" tools are also the ones who're the cause of some of the
existent (modern?) problems with mailing lists.

Namely:

 - HTML Messages
 - Not wrapping messages at ~80 characters
 - top posting


>
> Serious email users should be using mutt, which is fast, compact,
> resistant to attack, and has an astonishing number of features.

Guess I'm not a "serious" email user then.  Half the time I'm still
using Tbird.

> Those who receive large volumes of mail should be using procmail
> to pre-sort it, and they should be aware of RFC 2919 (and thus
> the existence of List-Id) as an excellent means for doing so.
> These two tools in combination make dealing with large amounts
> of traffic to large numbers of mailing lists quite easy.

Not familiar with procmail.  A quick perusal of the manpage seems to
indicate this is a local mail "processor" for sorting things, as opposed
to say something on the mailserver itself?


-- 
|_|O|_| Registered Linux user #585947
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5  4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[zaxonxp]

 rH8U]On)GIf;w1ZqdMj$nbYY.Ix8o\C
&

 auM`4jC,sl5vR&@dR!_,^'*^6+Udo[>g^ruiad#l{:lJ?{VKGRV_nM~oBgfJm"TpFZ=!t0yw!
$
 UN
References:  
 

User-Agent: Pan/0.141 (Tarzan's Death; 168b179 git.gnome.org/pan2)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

On Fri, 10 Aug 2018 13:30:01 +0200, Rich Kulawiec wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 06:24:55AM -0400, Dan Ritter wrote:
>> I get more mail than that before breakfast. If you've got the right
>> tools, it's easy to deal with.
> 
> This is an excellent point.  Many of the people who lodge complaints
> like the one that started this discussion thread have chosen very poor
> tools and thus have conflated the failings of those tools with some
> non-existent inherent problems with mailing lists.

The best was NNTP, but sadly there are not many places where it is still 
used. Web and e-mail approach is for more "handicaped" users, and as the 
exampes shows, there are many of them. Otherwise the trend would be to 
stick to NNTP and not to move to no powerfull solutions.

Regards,
Piotr

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[zaxonxp]

 rH8U]On)GIf;w1ZqdMj$nbYY.Ix8o\C
&

 auM`4jC,sl5vR&@dR!_,^'*^6+Udo[>g^ruiad#l{:lJ?{VKGRV_nM~oBgfJm"TpFZ=!t0yw!
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References: 
User-Agent: Pan/0.141 (Tarzan's Death; 168b179 git.gnome.org/pan2)
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On Thu, 09 Aug 2018 19:40:02 +0200, tech wrote:

> The way most people keep up to date on network news is through
> subscription to a number of mail reflectors (also known as mail
> exploders). Mail reflectors are special electronic mailboxes which, when
> they receive a message, resend it to a list of other mailboxes. This in
> effect creates a discussion group on a particular topic.
> - E. Krol; The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet; RFC 1118; Sept. 1989.
> 
> 
> Seem's the first "bitnic listserv" is dated from 1984 ! More than 34
> years ago !
> 
> 
> Just as a reminder, we are now in 2018 ... something called the XXI
> century ... with 4G, optical FTTH connection, smartphones ...
> 
> 
> Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to something
> more modern like a bugzilla or else ???

NNTP was a way to go. Sadly not many portals supports it promoting only 
web access or mail list. Personally I do not like to polute my mailbox 
with a tons of e-mails and clean them up later on. NNTP client does this 
when I want it and you can configure it the way you want it. What else 
would you need for a news groups?

Regards,
Piotr

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Piotr]

[This mail was also posted to linux.debian.user.]

On Fri, 10 Aug 2018 13:30:01 +0200, Rich Kulawiec wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 06:24:55AM -0400, Dan Ritter wrote:
>> I get more mail than that before breakfast. If you've got the right
>> tools, it's easy to deal with.
> 
> This is an excellent point.  Many of the people who lodge complaints
> like the one that started this discussion thread have chosen very poor
> tools and thus have conflated the failings of those tools with some
> non-existent inherent problems with mailing lists.

The best was NNTP, but sadly there are not many places where it is still 
used. Web and e-mail approach is for more "handicaped" users, and as the 
exampes shows, there are many of them. Otherwise the trend would be to 
stick to NNTP and not to move to no powerfull solutions.

Regards,
Piotr

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Dan Purgert]

Dan Ritter wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 06:05:41PM +, tech wrote:
>> [...]
>> Since augusth 1st:
>> 
>> I received around 12 familly mails, 62 pro-mails, 147
>> spam/pishing/bullshit mails.
>>
>> Between all the debian mails list who exist, i receives  also 168
>> emails.
>> 
>> I have maybee read 20 of them, and deleted all the others...
>
>
> I get more mail than that before breakfast. If you've got the
> right tools, it's easy to deal with.
>
> 1. Spam filter. Spamassassin is good. If you can add greylisting
> to your mail server, you should try that, too.

Both are amazing, as are some of the less intensive checks before asking
the more computationally expensive tools.

>
> 2. Automatic mail folders. The only mail that ends up in your
> inbox should be mail that your ruleset is not certain about.
> Each mailing list should get its own folder. Maildrop is easy
> to learn.

I use sieve(?) scripts.  Took maybe 10 minutes to learn the syntax
enough to get the auto redirects working.  

Although, I use my inbox somewhat more heavily than "just for things the
rules don't know", since navigating the directories via phone is more
painful than "I really didn't need to see that one".

>
> 3. Indexed mail searching. Whatever works with your preferred
> mail client. Have cron run a re-index every morning before you
> wake up.

Care to expand on this one a bit? Not entirely sure what you mean here,
and it's intriguing.

>
> 4. Mail threading in your mail client. If it doesn't do threads
> properly, time to change clients. I like mutt.

Mutt is quite nice, though I connect to the linux.debian.* MLs via
Usenet ... really ought to dig out that howto and stash it in my "don't
lose these things" directory.


>> I have sent the following emails, received zero anwsers. With a
>> "modern" system like a bugzilla/forum/tracker/else and their moder
>> options, i can know how many peoples have read it ( 23 answer for
>> 9876 readsfor example ) ... with the mailings list, how many people
>> took relly the time to read it ( as i direct-delete most of he amils
>> i receive ) ...
>
> Who cares who read your mail? Only the answers are important.

^ This.  Also it seems you're getting quite a number of responses on
this today.

Perhaps you (tech) just happen to be somwehere that the list is
"generally quiet" during your "day".


-- 
|_|O|_| Registered Linux user #585947
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5  4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Rich Kulawiec]

On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 06:24:55AM -0400, Dan Ritter wrote:
> I get more mail than that before breakfast. If you've got the
> right tools, it's easy to deal with.

This is an excellent point.  Many of the people who lodge complaints
like the one that started this discussion thread have chosen very poor
tools and thus have conflated the failings of those tools with some
non-existent inherent problems with mailing lists.

Serious email users should be using mutt, which is fast, compact,
resistant to attack, and has an astonishing number of features.
Those who receive large volumes of mail should be using procmail
to pre-sort it, and they should be aware of RFC 2919 (and thus
the existence of List-Id) as an excellent means for doing so.
These two tools in combination make dealing with large amounts
of traffic to large numbers of mailing lists quite easy.

Furthermore, everyone using mailing lists should be maintaining
their own archive, simply because there's no reason not to.  The
storage required is small by contemporary standards and doing so
allows the use of local search tools (e.g., grepmail) which can
invaluable in locating relevant messages.  (Those who haven't
been doing this can usually backfill by downloading the archives
maintained by the site running the mailing list.  in turn, everyone
running a mailing list should take care to see that those archives
are fully accessible, unredacted, and downloadable on demand.)

---rsk

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[tomas]

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On Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 05:39:36PM +, tech wrote:
> The way most people keep up to date on network news is through
> subscription to a number of mail reflectors [...]

To add to other people's responses here (with which I do agree), perhaps
you should consider using a more modern mail user agent: guessing by
your headers (the User-Agent header is missing, so I can only guess),
you are using a Microsoft user agent, perhaps Outlook. Microsoft actually
never "got" email right, and these days downright hates it, because it
is decentralized and can't be controlled as centralized platforms can
be[1].

So your experience will always be second-rate with such a user agent.

[1] I know what I'm talking about: I've watched the slow and painful
   process of replacing mail with something more "modern" (O365) in
   a big corp, and the underhanded tactics of badmouthing and
   marginalizing fueled by a Microsoft-supported "team".

cheers
- -- t
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Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Dan Ritter]

On Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 06:05:41PM +, tech wrote:
> 
> ... and why not ?
> 
> 
> As an example, with a bugzilla, you dont have to dig in n*thousands of 
> "unread" mails,. You can organized, have a clear view with a dashboard... and 
> so on.
> 
> And bugzilla is just one possibility.

Are you aware that bugs.debian.org exists already?

> Since augusth 1st:
> 
> I received around 12 familly mails, 62 pro-mails, 147 spam/pishing/bullshit 
> mails
> 
> Between all the debian mails list who exist, i receives  also 168 emails.
> 
> I have maybee read 20 of them, and deleted all the others...


I get more mail than that before breakfast. If you've got the
right tools, it's easy to deal with.

1. Spam filter. Spamassassin is good. If you can add greylisting
to your mail server, you should try that, too.

2. Automatic mail folders. The only mail that ends up in your
inbox should be mail that your ruleset is not certain about.
Each mailing list should get its own folder. Maildrop is easy
to learn.

3. Indexed mail searching. Whatever works with your preferred
mail client. Have cron run a re-index every morning before you
wake up.

4. Mail threading in your mail client. If it doesn't do threads
properly, time to change clients. I like mutt.


> I have sent the following emails, received zero anwsers. With a "modern" 
> system like a bugzilla/forum/tracker/else and their moder options, i can know 
> how many peoples have read it ( 23 answer for 9876 readsfor example ) ... 
> with the mailings list, how many people took relly the time to read it ( as i 
> direct-delete most of he amils i receive ) ...

Who cares who read your mail? Only the answers are important.


> with your "no" spirit, we would still have an horse and wagon like my 
> old-old-old grandpa !

This isn't "No", this is "Why are you insisting on the
superiority of a tack hammer in all circumstances when we have a variety
of tools available? Including a torque-calibrated power driver
that works much better on the bolts you are trying to hammer."

-dsr-

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Dan Purgert]

Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 05:39:36PM +, tech wrote:
>> Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to something
>> more modern like a bugzilla or else ???
>
> No.

Do HTML archives of said mailing lists count as "more modern"?

Granted, they're not "methods of communication" so much as "a lifesaver
when I'm trying to figure out some cryptic error message."


-- 
|_|O|_| Registered Linux user #585947
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5  4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Jonathan Dowland]

On Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 05:39:36PM +, tech wrote:

Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to something
more modern like a bugzilla or else ???


Assuming you are talking about systems for discussion, rather than
filing bugs: Debian has  and has had for a
long time, but it gets relatively little use.

Personally I'd love to see the list archive software get an overhaul,
and mailman3's "HyperKitty" archiver looks very promising to me, but I'm
not sure whether it has delivered on the promise, which was to offer a
very forum-like interface to mailing lists, permitting people to reply
via web, or click "+1" buttons (thus freeing the mail interface of lots
of "+1" mails, a blight that debian-user fortunately doesn't suffer)

--

⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Jonathan Dowland
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://jmtd.net
⠈⠳⣄ Please do not CC me, I am subscribed to the list.

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Darac Marjal]

On Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 05:39:36PM +, tech wrote:
   The way most people keep up to date on network news is through subscription to a number of mail reflectors (also known as  
   mail exploders). Mail reflectors are special electronic mailboxes which, when they receive a message, resend it to a list of   
   other mailboxes. This in effect creates a discussion group on a particular topic.  
   - E. Krol; The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet; RFC 1118; Sept. 1989.
  
   Seem's the first "bitnic listserv" is dated from 1984 ! More than 34 years ago !   
  
   Just as a reminder, we are now in 2018 ... something called the XXI century ... with 4G, optical FTTH connection,  
   smartphones ...
  
   Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to something more modern like a bugzilla or else ???   


OK. Done. There's a forum at http://forums.debian.net. As Maui said: 
"You're welcome."


--
For more information, please reread.


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Description: PGP signature

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[David Wright]

On Thu 09 Aug 2018 at 18:05:41 (+), tech wrote:
> 
> ... and why not ?
> 
> 
> As an example, with a bugzilla, you dont have to dig in n*thousands of 
> "unread" mails,. You can organized, have a clear view with a dashboard... and 
> so on.
> 
> And bugzilla is just one possibility.
> 
> 
> Since augusth 1st:
> 
> I received around 12 familly mails, 62 pro-mails, 147 spam/pishing/bullshit 
> mails
> 
> Between all the debian mails list who exist, i receives  also 168 emails.
> 
> I have maybee read 20 of them, and deleted all the others...
> 
> 
> Too much informations, help, news, updates  simply making those listing 
> useless !
> 
> 
> I have sent the following emails, received zero anwsers. With a "modern" 
> system like a bugzilla/forum/tracker/else and their moder options, i can know 
> how many peoples have read it ( 23 answer for 9876 readsfor example ) ... 
> with the mailings list, how many people took relly the time to read it ( as i 
> direct-delete most of he amils i receive ) ...
> 
> 
> with your "no" spirit, we would still have an horse and wagon like my 
> old-old-old grandpa !

You could consider unsubscribing from this mailing list with
List-Unsubscribe: 

and, instead, reading the archives with

whose postings are usually not many minutes behind.

Cheers,
David.

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Rich Kulawiec]

On Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 05:39:36PM +, tech wrote:
> Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to something more 
> modern like a bugzilla or else ???

No.  This is an absolutely terrible idea.  Here's why mailing lists
are (along with Usenet newsgroups) vastly superior to web-based anything:

1. They're asynchronous: you don't have to interact in real time.
You can download messages when connected to the Internet, then read
them and compose responses when offline.

2. They work reasonably well even in the presence of multiple outages
and severe congestion -- because they queue.

3. They're push, not pull, so new content just shows up.  Web forums
require that you go fishing for it.

4. They scale beautifully.

5. They allow you to use *your* software with the user interface of *your*
choosing rather than being compelled to learn 687 different web forums
with 687 different user interfaces, all of which range from "merely bad"
to "hideously bad".

6. You can archive them locally...

7. ...which means you can search them locally with the software of *your*
choice.  Including when you're offline.  And provided you make backups,
you'll always have an archive -- even if the original goes away.
(Those of who've been around for a while have seen a lot of web-based
discussions vanish forever because a host crashed or a domain expired or
a company went under or a company was acquired or someone made a mistake
or there was a security breach or a government confiscated it.)

8. They're portable: lists can be rehosted relatively easily.

9. (When properly run) they're relatively free of abuse vectors.

10. They're low-bandwidth, which is especially important at a point in
time when many people are interacting via metered services that charge by
the byte and are WAY overpriced, and getting more overpriced every day.

11. They impose minimal security risk.

12. They impose minimal privacy risk.

13. They can be freely interconverted -- that is, you can move a list
hosted by A using software B on operating system C to host X using
software Y on operating system Z.

14. They're archivable in a format that is likely to be readable long
into the future.  (I have archives of lists from the early 1980's.
Still readable with contemporary software because they're in mbox format.
I see no sign that this will cease to be true.)

15. They can be written to media and read from it.  This is a very
non-trivial task with web forums: just try doing the equivalent of
#13 above.  Good luck with that.

16. They handle threading well.  And provided users take a few seconds
to edit properly, they handle quoting well.

17. Numerous tools exist for handling mbox format: for example, "grepmail"
is a highly useful basic search tool.  Most search engines include
parsers for email, and the task of ingesting mail archives into search
engines is very well understood.  Excellent archiving tools exist as well.

18. The computing resources require to support them are minimal -- CPU,
memory, disk, bandwidth, etc.  (I recently set up an instance of Mailman
for someone that's working perfectly fine on a 10-year-old laptop.)

19. Mailing lists interoperate.  I can easily forward a message from this
list to another one.  Or to a person.  I can send a message to multiple
lists.  I can forward a message from a person to this list.  And so on.
Try doing this with web forum software A on host B with destinations
web forum software X and Y on hosts X1 and Y1.  Good luck with that.

20. Mailing lists can be uni- or bidirectionally gatewayed to Usenet.
(The main Python language mailing list is an example of this.)  This can
be highly useful.

There's more, but I think this easily suffices to make a slamdunk case.

---rsk

RE: mailing list vs "the futur"

[deloptes]

tech wrote:

> as i dont want to troll the debian-list, and as i already received several
> mails ( a first for me ) saying i am a dumbass, a stupid eager young 
> for the audience, i will stop the broadcast of bad words here.
> 
> 
> i need to go to the post office to send a letter, so i will take my horse
> ... as i leave approximatly at 39 km, iand my horse is running at 21 Km/h,
> it will take for the round trip around 4 hours to come back ...

you are free to move to a city where they drive electric cars. good luck

You can't simply replace something working, while people are using it. It is
enormous effort with consequences you can obviously not imagine. At the end
nothing is for free, so who will pay for all the work? Or how will you
motivate someone to move the mailing lists to something else, that even you
can not guarantee that it will work?

think of those

regards

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Ben Finney]

tech  writes:

> Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to something
> more modern like a bugzilla or else ???

It's 2018. Shouldn't we move away from an old “keyboard” to something
mroe modern like a data-glove?

Less sarcastically: You have said nothing that demonstrates why a
mailing list is not fit for the purpose.

Merely because some things are newer does not make those things better.

To argue for replacing an established system that works fine today, you
have to actually demonstrate how it fails, and demonstrate how that
failure is sufficiently bad for it to be replaced. Otherwise it stays,
by default.

-- 
 \“I was in Las Vegas, at the roulette table, having a furious |
  `\ argument over what I considered to be an odd number.” —Steven |
_o__)   Wright |
Ben Finney

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[James H. H. Lampert]

On Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 05:39:36PM +, tech wrote:


Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to
something more modern like a bugzilla or else ???


On 8/9/18, 10:47 AM, Greg Wooledge wrote:


No.



What? A list server isn't good enough for you? It's good enough for the 
Tomcat community, and for the IBM Midrange community, not to mention the 
thousand-odd organ geeks subscribed to PIPORG-L.


--
JHHL

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Ric Moore]

On 08/09/2018 01:39 PM, tech wrote:

Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to something 
more modern like a bugzilla or else ???


Why?? There already are plenty of such sites, you need only pick and 
choose. I like it here as I don't have to read a "me too!" message with 
a meg of attachments, html ads and rainbow snorting unicorns. If you 
really are a "tech", you would know better than ask.


--
My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say:
"There are two Great Sins in the world...
..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity.
Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
http://linuxcounter.net/user/44256.html

RE: mailing list vs "the futur"

[tech]

as i dont want to troll the debian-list, and as i already received several 
mails ( a first for me ) saying i am a dumbass, a stupid eager young  for 
the audience, i will stop the broadcast of bad words here.


i need to go to the post office to send a letter, so i will take my horse ... 
as i leave approximatly at 39 km, iand my horse is running at 21 Km/h, it will 
take for the round trip around 4 hours to come back ...




De : tech 
Envoyé : jeudi 9 août 2018 20:05:41
À : Greg Wooledge; debian-user@lists.debian.org
Objet : RE: mailing list vs "the futur"



... and why not ?


As an example, with a bugzilla, you dont have to dig in n*thousands of "unread" 
mails,. You can organized, have a clear view with a dashboard... and so on.

And bugzilla is just one possibility.


Since augusth 1st:

I received around 12 familly mails, 62 pro-mails, 147 spam/pishing/bullshit 
mails

Between all the debian mails list who exist, i receives  also 168 emails.

I have maybee read 20 of them, and deleted all the others...


Too much informations, help, news, updates  simply making those listing 
useless !


I have sent the following emails, received zero anwsers. With a "modern" system 
like a bugzilla/forum/tracker/else and their moder options, i can know how many 
peoples have read it ( 23 answer for 9876 readsfor example ) ... with the 
mailings list, how many people took relly the time to read it ( as i 
direct-delete most of he amils i receive ) ...


with your "no" spirit, we would still have an horse and wagon like my 
old-old-old grandpa !




De : Greg Wooledge 
Envoyé : jeudi 9 août 2018 19:47:24
À : debian-user@lists.debian.org
Objet : Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

On Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 05:39:36PM +, tech wrote:
> Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to something more 
> modern like a bugzilla or else ???

No.

RE: mailing list vs "the futur"

[tech]

... and why not ?


As an example, with a bugzilla, you dont have to dig in n*thousands of "unread" 
mails,. You can organized, have a clear view with a dashboard... and so on.

And bugzilla is just one possibility.


Since augusth 1st:

I received around 12 familly mails, 62 pro-mails, 147 spam/pishing/bullshit 
mails

Between all the debian mails list who exist, i receives  also 168 emails.

I have maybee read 20 of them, and deleted all the others...


Too much informations, help, news, updates  simply making those listing 
useless !


I have sent the following emails, received zero anwsers. With a "modern" system 
like a bugzilla/forum/tracker/else and their moder options, i can know how many 
peoples have read it ( 23 answer for 9876 readsfor example ) ... with the 
mailings list, how many people took relly the time to read it ( as i 
direct-delete most of he amils i receive ) ...


with your "no" spirit, we would still have an horse and wagon like my 
old-old-old grandpa !




De : Greg Wooledge 
Envoyé : jeudi 9 août 2018 19:47:24
À : debian-user@lists.debian.org
Objet : Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

On Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 05:39:36PM +, tech wrote:
> Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to something more 
> modern like a bugzilla or else ???

No.

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[Greg Wooledge]

On Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 05:39:36PM +, tech wrote:
> Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to something more 
> modern like a bugzilla or else ???

No.