list changes & RFC on archives & rack chassis

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Wed Mar 20 12:13:14 2002

I've noticed that comments made years back, and more recently, on the list,
appear in various searches I've run on GOOGLE. This certainly is a place
where the email addresses of the list and the parties appearing in the post
are accessible. What can be done to put a stop to that?

Also, the fact that these items come up in searches certainly makes it
important that the subject line be the actual subject of the post. There have
been plenty of posts with a title of (just as an example) "MV2000 PSU" that
are 20 posts down the road from the last even remotely related item. If every
post to the list with that title produces a hit for the search engines looking
for MV2000, I'd bet they get a lot of spambot fodder from that. What's more,
if you want your posts to be locatable by the search engines, it certainly
doesn't help that the discussion topic wanders under a completely irrelvant
title.

Perhaps the solution would be to purge the email addresses before items are
posted to the list.

The HTML filter would certainly be a good idea. Once people realize their
HTML posts don't find their way to distribution, they'll take the 1 second to
turn that feature off.

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jay West" <jwest_at_classiccmp.org>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 9:53 AM
Subject: list changes & RFC on archives & rack chassis


> 1) Ok, here are the two things I was considering doing to change the mailing
> list settings....
>
> A) Reject posts to the list which contain any kind of HTML content. I think
> this would be fairly unobtrusive - most people don't want HTML posts here
> anyways. And - I would bet that most all SPAM contains some form of HTML, so
> this might not get rid of all SPAM forever, but I think it would make the
> very few that come here dwindle to even less. Comments?
>
> B) I also like the 'self-policing' idea of making posts to the list from
> non-subscribers get a subject tag of [OL] or something like that. This one I
> am not sure how to do off the top of my head, but would think it pretty
> straightforward. Comments?
>
> 2) WRT the archives at www.classiccmp.org THAT is a project I have fallen
> far behind in. When I moved the list from the old ISP to the new ISP (me in
> both cases, long story)... something broke in getting emails from the list
> to the archive mechanism. I noticed this maybe a month ago, and when I
> started digging into it I realized it was time for a change - the archives
> there are not searchable and that just isn't acceptable. So - I have been
> looking for software to HTML'ize the mailing list that allows searching as
> well. I really need suggestions here as my initial searches came up less
> than satisfactory. The archives are currently using hypermail. My criteria
> is something that is FreeBSD and Sendmail friendly, and allows searching the
> archives OR viewing them by thread. I don't mind if the emails need to get
> stored in a database, but if they do, mysql must be the database used (picky
> aren't I). The only package I found had statements all over it to the effect
> that "this package will no longer be supported by the author". I did notice
> the list archives for netsaint that are stored at sourceforge look REALLY
> nice, and do allow searching, but didn't see a good way to follow threads. I
> would greatly appreciate it if anyone can point me to mail list archives
> that work well (for the user) and look nice (or to software for unix that
> does the same). Please send these suggestions to me off-list at
> jwest_at_classiccmp.org
>
> 3) This isn't really important - just random "what if" thinking out loud - I
> was considering moving the mailing list and mail list archives off to a
> separate machine that does nothing but classiccmp. This is being considered
> for logistics reasons, not for horsepower/load reasons. I have all the
> spare components (cpu, memory, drives, etc) but no spare rackmount chassis.
> I can just order a rackmount chassis under my company which I'm perfectly
> willing to do, but was wondering if anyone had a rackmount chassis just
> laying around that they didn't need and would donate to the cause. The key
> criteria - EIA units (space!). I would strongly prefer a 1U (1 EIA unit, or
> 1.75 inches) tall unit. We charge on rackspace by the inch, so I want the
> machine to take as little space as possible so I can obviously sell the
> rackspace to other paying customers. I would consider a 2U (2.5 inches) tall
> unit (which I already have spare) as a fall-back plan, but definitely
> nothing taller than that. Anyone have a spare laying around? If so, please
> contact me OFF LIST at jwest_at_classiccmp.org
>
> Regards,
>
> Jay West
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Wed Mar 20 2002 - 12:13:14 GMT