[Pan-users] Re: score a troll

[Duncan]

Robert Marshall
<address@hidden>
posted address@hidden, excerpted below, on 
Sun, 27 Jul 2008 08:36:29 +0100:

> That's gnus rather than gnews - I think - there's a news reader for
> emacs called gnews but it's not as poular as gnus

Thanks.  I believe you're right.

> gnus-extra-headers should do what you want though it might be rather
> slow as the headers you want to score on aren't in the nntp overview

That's true, but even if they must be scored after full download (and 
depending on implementation, full download might not be necessary, only 
partial), while the download takes time and bandwidth, it's at worst no 
worse than having to do it manually, which would require full download as 
well, and downloading and automatically deleting (or marking-read) is 
still FAR better than having to spend the time doing it manually, and 
that's not even considering the personal offence one might be avoiding, 
just the hassle alone.

That's why I've been arguing for some time that pan needs something 
similar.  If it can't be taken care of pre-download, it can't be taken 
care of, but handing post-download is still FAR FAR better than forcing 
the human to have to deal with what the computer SHOULD be doing, and 
COULD be doing far easier, if only it were programmed to do so.

But I'm not the one writing the code, nor do I have the money to sponsor 
it, and the guy who IS writing the code prioritized that feature request 
as "bluesky", effectively "yes, that'd be nice... someday", many years 
ago, before the implementation of scoring, even.

And... given the few that have asked for it over the years, while it's 
something I'd really use at times, it's obviously not something that high 
on most users' lists.  Still, I can't help but think that while scoring 
is nice, having real working killfile and watch lists even when the 
header matched is NOT in the overviews would be far more useful.

But again, I'm not writing the code, so I try not to overly criticise 
those who have, in particular the guy who must be doing /something/ 
right, as I'm still here using his program, despite what from my view is 
this gaping hole in effectiveness.

Oh, well... <shrug>

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman