[Gmecm] comments on reorganizing lists

[Tomas J. Sokorai Sch.]

On Wednesday 08 February 2006 13:14, Steve Ravet wrote:
> So thanks to Tomas (or props, as the kids say) for getting the search
> function back together.

:) My pleasure!

Sorry I didn't finish this 100%, but "real life" got a bit into my spare time, 
and besides, I think I have a bit of Attention Deficit Disorder, and if 
nobody whips me, I don't finish what I start ;)

>
> 1)  Get the search engine finished up.  It needs to be tied into the
> current archives, and the old archives need to be installed and indexed.

The old archives for diy-efi are 100% complete as long as I can tell, 
completed with bits I had on my own archives.
I wasn't subscribed much long ago to gmecm, so I didn't had from where to fill 
the gaps from the last crash.

I didn't automate the archive indexing process, because I didn't know what the 
policies were from the hosting provider for Cron jobs.

But these things should be doable in a couple of hours.

>
>
> 2)  Mailman is the mailing list software, and it creates threaded html
> archives.  If every posting contained a link back to itself in the html
> archive then a single click could allow you to review the context.  For
> example, Tomas' post would have included this link at the bottom:

The archives are rebuilt with mhonarc, so it does the message threading. 
For example: 
http://www.diy-efi.org/gmecm/mailman_archive/html_2005-September/msg00006.html

Click on the "Thread"  on the bottom, and there you have the context regarding 
this post.

> 3)  pictures -- the the html archiving software I think already takes
> care of saving attachments and creating links to them.  The outbound
> email may be able to be modified to include this link instead of the
> attachment, or if nothing else then if 1) can be implemented then one
> further click after going to the html archive will show the attachment,
> if you know to do that.

I'll have a look into this if you like.


And finally, my position regarding the list/forum debate:
I think navigating pages with 10 posts each plus graphics and tables, doesen't 
improve much the speed of the whole experience.
I guess that many people who say that browser based forum is the same or 
faster than email, is because they read their mailboxes thru a web interface.
For a real email client, the experience is hands-down faster than web forum.

I think there's one more advantage to email lists: on email list you get all 
messages, so there are better possibilities to get input from more people 
than when you have to explicitly load a (sometimes slow) web page, and that's 
particularily important when the subject of the message is not very 
descriptive.

But the wiki idea, sounds very good to build a collaborative knowledge base 
for example grouping and associating BINs with definition files,  howtos, 
disassemblies, wirings and sensor documentation, for each ECM.

-- 
Tomas J. Sokorai Sch.