Re: New Procmail Recipe Forum at UNIX.COM for the Procmail Community

At 13:26 2003-02-15 -0800, Tyler F. Creelan wrote:

> > not well suited to discussions where someone might compose part of a reply
> > and come back later to finish it after running a few tests.  Email works
> > quite well for that.
>
> Here are some more reasons email is preferable:
[snip]

All of which are things which I agree with (only in the context of web v. 
email, not as a commentary of the adequacy of any particular website).
Another liability with webforums is the need on webforums to constantly 
hammer "refresh" to see if there are new posts (and a site with a meta 
refresh is even more annoying, since an idle terminal continues to suck web 
bandwidth).  With email, when there's something new, it'll arrive in my 
inbox when it is sent.  The server needs only send it to me once.  It does 
not send me the entire thread over and over with each page refresh.
If you want to filter out messages (twits, whatever), you can.  Most 
webforums have _no_ filter options whatsoever.
> 2. Email is often easier to archive and search.
OMG, you mean that the webforum doesn't support regexps?!?

> 4. Email is a protocol governed by long respected standards.
Well, long standing, established standards.  Not always respected by 
everybody  though -- MS has a habit of ignoring standards in favour of 
their own, and confusing their own users as well (From: on many list posts 
get mangled to incorporate the From_ address).
(FTR, lest some reader get 'em in a bunch, that isn't a bash against MS for 
being MS, but rather a bash against a specific MS product which ignores 
some standards = there's a HUGE difference.)
> Web forum interfaces may differ depending upon the forum implementation, 
> and the interface may be designed for use under a bulky graphical environment.
IMO, the ubb.x (?) forum interface licensed by infopop is particularly 
horrendous - it's all pretty on the surface, but to check on new messages, 
you have to be rather dedicated to a forum, and you get to reload and 
reload and reload a forum, waiting for new stuff, which it kindly dumps at 
you the entire thread at a time (i.e, all the messages you ALREADY 
viewed).  Selective quoting of a message for context (such as 
point-by-point replies, which are commonplace in _technical_ forums) are 
painful at best.
> 6. Web forums are often supported through graphical advertisements or,
> though registration, collection of email addresses for unsolicted
> marketing.
That may be true in many cases (ok, most), but I wouldn't go so far as to 
infer that is the case with unix.com - my beef here is that the procmail 
list ALREADY serves as a forum for procmail users, and certainly hasn't 
discouraged anyone from sharing their expertise in scriptwriting. Dropping 
this sort of advert on this list is highly inappropriate.  For instance, I 
never saw any posts inquiring as to whether anyone was interested in 
sharing more complete solutions they may have developed for spamfighting.
IMO, a more worthwhile endeavour would be to work on a script database 
which people could submit scripts to.  Basically, a CVS based script 
repository (say, using bitkeeper).  Then, as someone posts a useful script 
to this forum, they're encouraged to post it into the repository (or some 
"keeper of the scripts" does, but with _permission_ of the script author), 
and any time they update it, they can post an updated version 
there.  Future references to it can be to the URL if the reporisory entry 
for that script.  IOW, let's expand upon what we have here in this 
community already, rather than trying to create another forum entirely, 
which only dilites the efforts.
Not that I'd be opposed to a procmail-spamfighters(_at_)lists(_dot_)rwth-aachen(_dot_)de 
discussion list, though I expect most people would continue to post their 
Q's here, and if they saw TWO lists newbies would be prompted to crosspost 
(the same fate would befall procmail-newusers and procmail-experts lists - 
people want their questions answered, and will crosspost everywhere they 
can in the hopes that more people will see their question).
I believe it is well recognized within this forum that many of the 
contributors here use procmail extensively to combat spam.  Often in 
conjunction with other tools (such as DNSBLs).  Suggesting another forum, 
separate from this one for these same contributors to head to (to become 
the braintrust for such a resource on some other site) seems to be inviting 
duplication of effort and would make it necessary for participants here to 
monitor another forum lest they miss useful insights provided there.  As if 
there isn't enough trouble with people not checking _this_ forum for recent 
discussions bearing upon their question, now we'd double the places people 
should check for pertinent discussion.

I use Mozilla as my primary web browser - the anti-popup/under feature is 
great - but only recently did I discover that a webforum site has problems 
with it.  Seems their buttons for popping up new windows (for, of all 
things, access to the forum->email config!) do not directly pop upen the 
window, but call a function which in turn decides to pop a window up (I see 
no reason why that is necessary though), thus getting blocked by the very 
effective (and appreciated) popup blocking option ("allow scripts to... [ ] 
open unrequested windows") in Mozilla.
> 1. Your inbox doesn't get clobbered by list traffic.
I am an administrator on a large autmotive enthusiasts site, and last year, 
we implemented a web based interface into the email-based discussion 
lists.  The lists remain email based (and virtually all of the regular 
contributors continue to use email to participate), but users with a low 
participation commitment can choose to access the lists through a web 
interface (which has commonalities with the web-based archive 
search).  There is significant difference between such an implementation 
and a web-based forum which happens to offer an email option.
Webforums are great places to direct people who find some neat new resource 
and promptly subscribe to every mailing list they find there, then go into 
a panic when they get flooded with email (it cracks me up when people do 
this and frantically post demands that you remove them from the lists they 
just subbed to because they cannot cope with a few thousand messages a 
week).  At least with a web interface into a mailing list, the user can 
browse messages without feeling innundated.  IMO, that is great for the 
casual observer type - once they become a regular participant, the web 
interface becomes a liability.
ubb.x (as a notable example) apparently doesn't allow for emailed replies - 
and although you can receive selected liat messages by email, they arrive 
as bloated HTML (only - no plaintext portion), and the reply functionality 
is a weblink that tosses you right back into the web interface.  ubb.x also 
sends all the messages out from one address without a positive method to 
identify the different "boards" or sub-lists on the site, which is rather 
unfortunate.
> 2. It's easier to put in links, pictures, etc.
I can include links in email.  Inline pictures I think I can do without though.

Unfortunatley, some webchat boards allow users to provide a url to an 
"avatar" graphic to put next to their name on their posts, and most of the 
software which permits users to do this doesn't have anything in place to 
ensure that the user is posting a URL to their own webspace.  When you 
examine your weblogs and wonder why a bunch of (copyrighted) graphics on 
your site are being requested out of the context of their hosted pages, you 
then spend time putting protections into place to block them.  Over the 
years, I've found the most effective method to address such abuses has been 
to implement a URL rewrite rule (in the webserver config) to point to some 
obscene porno image at a site which has spammed you.  Steal graphics from 
my site and make *ME* host 'em for YOU?  Hah.
> 3. You can remove/edit your message if you make a mistake.
.. which at the same time is a liability of the interface.  As are 
"expiring" messages in a forum.  Users who may receive emailed copies of 
list messages will still recieve the message however, so deleting the 
message won't block them from having seen it.
> 4. Extra trimmings, chat interfaces, etc make it more fun.
A plethoa of "gremlins" - animated smileys - and other "fun" things may be 
fine additions for a social board, but IMO, they get in the way of serious 
technical communications.
> 5. You can browse and access the forum from anywhere, everything is
> centralized.
That can be a definite benefit to a web based forum, but with procmail, I 
suspect many people are communicating from the very accounts which they are 
running procmail, since it is a host-based tool.  I can SSH into my mail 
server from virtually anywhere, so I can access my email nearly as easily 
as one can access a webforum.
The centralized nature though is a limitation as well - if the website is 
down, people don't have access to even the old discussions, and cannot 
compose a reply to a discussion either (since both the query they'd be 
responding to, as well as the input form itself, are on the 
webserver).  With email, if I retained the messages, I have access to them 
even if the listserv is inaccessible (whether that be a problem at the list 
end, my end, or some network junction in between), and I can compose and 
SEND a reply even if the list is down - it'll eventually pass through the 
list when communicationes is restored (and I can send it directly to the 
inquiring user if it seems appropriate to do so).  You cannot queue a 
response through a downed weblist however.
All are merely my own insights to the benefits of using an email based 
format for this technical discussion list, rather than using a web based 
one.  None of it really has any bearing on the appropriatness of blowing 
through here to advertise another discussion list on this list, which was 
my primary beef.
---
 Sean B. Straw / Professional Software Engineering

 Procmail disclaimer: <http://www.professional.org/procmail/disclaimer.html>
 Please DO NOT carbon me on list replies.  I'll get my copy from the list.


_______________________________________________
procmail mailing list
procmail(_at_)lists(_dot_)RWTH-Aachen(_dot_)DE
http://MailMan.RWTH-Aachen.DE/mailman/listinfo/procmail