Ruby-forum.com

I’m planning on using per-mailbox Bayesian analysis for phase three.
What’s interesting to me on this mailing list is not the same as
what’s interesting on FreeBSD-current.

Bayesian filtering on a topic by topic basis!! Awesome!!!

Integrate that into the mailreader in a transparent way and even Gmail
will look clunky!!

(Sorry, I’ll stop salivating now…)

Eric H. wrote:

I’ve written parts one and two:
http://seattlerb.rubyforge.org/IMAPCleanse/

Nice work… I did something to deal with my own Maildir overflowage,
though it’s simpler and infinitely more hacky. But, it’s been working
well for me for quite awhile now.

–Steve

[swaits@gateway] [4:07pm]
[~] 140> cat bin/archive-Maildir.rb
#!/usr/local/bin/ruby

archive_list = [
[“.Lists.GDAlgorithms”, “.Archive.Lists.GDAlgorithms”, 28],
[“.Lists.LocomotiveUsers”, nil, 14],
[“.Lists.Mongrel”, nil, 14],
[“.Lists.RubyTalk”, nil, 14],
[“.Lists.SANS”, nil, 28],
[“.Lists.SDRUG”, “.Archive.Lists.SDRUG”, 28],
[“.Junk”, nil, 7],
]

Dir.chdir(“/usr/users/swaits/Maildir”)

i = 0

archive_list.each do |archive|
srcdir = archive[0] + “/cur/”
dstdir = archive[1] ? archive[1] + “/cur/” : nil
expire = archive[2]

     Dir[srcdir+"*"].each do |oldname|
             age_s = Time.new - File.mtime(oldname)
             if age_s > (expire*24*60*60)
                     if dstdir
                             if File.split(oldname)[1] =~

/^\d+[^:](:.)?$/
newname =
sprintf(“#{dstdir}/%d.%d.autoarchive.%07d%s”, Time.now.to_i,
Process.pid, i, Regexp.last_match(1))
i += 1
#puts “#{oldname} →
#{newname}”
File.rename(oldname, newname)
end
else
File.delete(oldname)
#puts “delete #{oldname}”
end
end
#rescue SystemCallError
# puts “Error moving #{oldname} → #{newname}”
#end
end
end

Matthew S. wrote:

I get the idea that Andreas S., the man behind ruby-forum, is
responsive but doesn’t always keep up with all the postings.
Probably it
would be a good idea to email any suggestions you have directly to
him.
His email address is at the bottom of the web page.

I’ve sent him a pointer and summary.

Here’s to hoping we get not only a response, but some action. It hasn’t
been just one time where I’ve thought to myself “I’d just go and code
myself, but I don’t have access to ruby-forum.com”. I
realize that RForum may be open source, but no one but Andreas can go in
and hack up SPECIFICALLY ruby-forum.com’s installation.

I’m ready, willing and able to code most of the asked-for changes.

As a ruby-forum.com user, I’d love to see it

  • improve
  • have issues removed
  • not disappear
  • not be disliked by an increasing percentage of ruby-talk “real MUA
    users”
  • not develop a bad reputation

I feel distinctly unempowered.

Pistos

On Jun 7, 2006, at 3:07 PM, Giles B. wrote:

http://seattlerb.rubyforge.org/IMAPCleanse/

I’m planning on using per-mailbox Bayesian analysis for phase three.
What’s interesting to me on this mailing list is not the same as
what’s interesting on FreeBSD-current.

Bayesian filtering on a topic by topic basis!! Awesome!!!

Integrate that into the mailreader in a transparent way and even Gmail
will look clunky!!

I use the plain old flag button in the mail client to keep things
simple.

If a message is unread and flagged I should read it. If I didn’t
think it was really interesting I’ll unflag it.


Eric H. - [email protected] - http://blog.segment7.net
This implementation is HODEL-HASH-9600 compliant

http://trackmap.robotcoop.com

On 6/8/06, Pistos C. [email protected] wrote:

As a ruby-forum.com user, I’d love to see it

  • improve
  • have issues removed
  • not disappear
  • not be disliked by an increasing percentage of ruby-talk “real MUA
    users”
  • not develop a bad reputation

I feel distinctly unempowered.

All of these are nice and would be welcome. I don’t see ruby-forum
disappearing anytime soon, and I think it would help EVERYONE involved
if there was a extremely prominent FAQ on the site. We get a lot of
the same questions again and again (how many times have we seen “how
do I get a class out of a string class name?”) It makes no sense for
newbies to have to ask these again and again and then for we ruby-talk
people to answer them again and again. From what I have seen
ruby-forum is mostly “take” with little “give”, in other words the
people who post there are usually the ones seeking answers whereas we
ruby-talk people provide those answers. I’d be interested to see a
ruby-talk question answered by someone on the ruby-forum.

The problem is the ruby-forum caters to newbies with only a few
exceptions, with most of the Ruby “experts” on ruby-talk. Therefore I
see the forum as more of a burden to the rest of us than anything
else.

If efforts can be made to change that, I know I would appreciate it.

Ryan

How about adding an extra header to the messages sent via the forum
gateway? Then you can just let people’s mail filters do their thing
if they don’t want the forum posts.

I realize that it might be a bad idea to just blow away responses in
the middle of the thread, but most mail clients can do other things to
indicate you want to skip it (decrease priority? tags? et cetera).

Andreas S. wrote:

I’ve sent him a pointer and summary.

Thanks.

I have added a short paragraph with some posting rules and links to the
Ruby FAQ & documentation directly above the post form (see
http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/new?forum_id=4). I have also disabled
posting for unregistered users.

I hope this will to improve the quality of postings from ruby-forum.com.
If you have any better suggestions, please tell me.

Much gratitude from me for making these changes. :slight_smile:

Pistos

Matthew S. wrote:

On Jun 6, 2006, at 19:50, Tim H. wrote:

I get the idea that Andreas S., the man behind ruby-forum, is
responsive but doesn’t always keep up with all the postings.
Probably it
would be a good idea to email any suggestions you have directly to
him.
His email address is at the bottom of the web page.

I’ve sent him a pointer and summary.

Thanks.

I have added a short paragraph with some posting rules and links to the
Ruby FAQ & documentation directly above the post form (see
http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/new?forum_id=4). I have also disabled
posting for unregistered users.

I hope this will to improve the quality of postings from ruby-forum.com.
If you have any better suggestions, please tell me.

Andreas

On 6/12/06, Andreas S. [email protected] wrote:

I have added a short paragraph with some posting rules and links to the
Ruby FAQ & documentation directly above the post form (see
http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/new?forum_id=4). I have also disabled
posting for unregistered users.

I hope this will to improve the quality of postings from ruby-forum.com.
If you have any better suggestions, please tell me.

Thank you. Hopefully, this will help.

-austin

It’s difficult not to notice that sometimes posts from ruby-forum.com
inflame the ire of ruby-talk-only persons.

I’d be interested in seeing a document drafted detailing etiquette or
standards to which all ruby-talk-bound messages (whether MUA-originated
or ruby-forum.com-originated, or even comp.lang.ruby-originated) are to
conform.

I think we all want less ire and more joy all around.

Further to that goal, perhaps all ruby-forum.com-to-ruby-talk messages
should be moderated and require acceptance before being sent to the
mailing list? If the traffic is only 20 messages a day or less, I’d be
happy to volunteer for said moderation.

Pistos

On 6/14/06, Pistos C. [email protected] wrote:

It’s difficult not to notice that sometimes posts from ruby-forum.com
inflame the ire of ruby-talk-only persons.

I’d be interested in seeing a document drafted detailing etiquette or
standards to which all ruby-talk-bound messages (whether MUA-originated
or ruby-forum.com-originated, or even comp.lang.ruby-originated) are to
conform.

My guess is that the folks who might post inflammatory messages
(inadvertently or otherwise) probably aren’t going to read such a
document.

I think we all want less ire and more joy all around.

Further to that goal, perhaps all ruby-forum.com-to-ruby-talk messages
should be moderated and require acceptance before being sent to the
mailing list? If the traffic is only 20 messages a day or less, I’d be
happy to volunteer for said moderation.

Pistos

I think the best moderation is that which everyone here participates
in, and which is done publicly for the benefit of other prospective
posters.

That is, if someone posts something rude, off-topic, or even just
hasn’t done their homework before shooting off a message, a prompt,
friendly, brief, and firm nudge in the right direction by anyone here
is probably all that’s required.

For some posts it may be appropriate to toss in a link to ESR’s
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way for good measure.

—John

On Jun 14, 2006, at 1:02 PM, Pistos C. wrote:

It’s difficult not to notice that sometimes posts from ruby-forum.com
inflame the ire of ruby-talk-only persons.

I’d be interested in seeing a document drafted detailing etiquette or
standards to which all ruby-talk-bound messages (whether MUA-
originated
or ruby-forum.com-originated, or even comp.lang.ruby-originated)
are to
conform.

here are some rules of thumb. i’m sure others could add more.

  • make your posts count. lots of people are going to see them.
  • do not post fluff
  • do not post “bump”
  • do not post a question before you google and look at some docs
  • quote correctly
  • don’t top post
  • take the list seriously. we care about signal to noise ratio here.
  • try not to ask questions answered in the Pickaxe index or table of
    contents

if you want to talk before you think, maybe the irc room is a better
place. but the questions there are actually better thought out than a
lot of ruby-forum posts.

that said, i don’t see that a document will help. as John G.
said, the problematic posters won’t read it.

– Elliot T.

Elliot T. [email protected] writes:

if you want to talk before you think, maybe the irc room is a better
place. but the questions there are actually better thought out than a
lot of ruby-forum posts.

I think a lot of that is due to certain people being very diligent
about making nubies look at ri before they answer any simple
questions. Unfortunately corundum can’t solve ML questions.

-Phil H.
http://technomancy.us

Pistos C. wrote:

That may be the case, but I think “document + moderators” at the
ruby-forum.com → ruby-talk gateway would help quite a bit. Essentially
it would “filter” at the entrypoint, preventing “bad” things from
getting through. ruby-talk itself and comp.lang.ruby would of course
continue without explicit moderation.

Pistos
Shall we first wait for a couple of weeks to see what the effect of the
things changed by Andreas are (links to documentation and no
unregistered users).

I see the links don’t include a link to something describing mailinglist
etiquette, so that might be nice to add.

Edwin

Elliot T. wrote:

that said, i don’t see that a document will help. as John G.
said, the problematic posters won’t read it.

That may be the case, but I think “document + moderators” at the
ruby-forum.com → ruby-talk gateway would help quite a bit. Essentially
it would “filter” at the entrypoint, preventing “bad” things from
getting through. ruby-talk itself and comp.lang.ruby would of course
continue without explicit moderation.

Pistos

Ryan L. wrote:

The problem is the ruby-forum caters to newbies with only a few
exceptions, with most of the Ruby “experts” on ruby-talk. Therefore I
see the forum as more of a burden to the rest of us than anything
else.

What is happening to Ruby?
First you guys don’t want Enterprises to use Ruby and now you want to
try to push new users away!

Why is their so much anger and unwillingness to help those of us that
are just trying to get a grasp of this beautiful language?

I understand that Ruby may have been around since the early 90’s, but
most of us are just now really starting to hear about.

Why become an expert on Ruby-talk if don’t want to talk about your
expertise?

Don’t push us away, help us, and as more of us become more of an
“expert” with Ruby, we can start helping out with answering some of the
newbie questions.

Thanks

On Jun 15, 2006, at 11:36, Reggie Mr wrote:

[…]
Don’t push us away, help us, and as more of us become more of an
“expert” with Ruby, we can start helping out with answering some of
the
newbie questions.

How are new users being pushed away? Seriously, have there been any
‘newbie’ questions recently that haven’t been answered?

What has been going on, and I have a hard time faulting it, is
pointing people towards the online docs so they can answer their own
questions, and explaining some of the etiquette involved in using the
group, so that they can get answers more effectively.

matthew smillie

On 6/15/06, Reggie Mr [email protected] wrote:

Ryan L. wrote:

The problem is the ruby-forum caters to newbies with only a few
exceptions, with most of the Ruby “experts” on ruby-talk. Therefore I
see the forum as more of a burden to the rest of us than anything
else.
What is happening to Ruby?
First you guys don’t want Enterprises to use Ruby and now you want to
try to push new users away!

Neither of these statements is true. The former is untrue because it
implies that people don’t want it to happen. The reality is that
most people aren’t willing to make special concessions to make it
happen, especially if those concessions would change the nature of
Ruby. The latter is untrue because you’ll see a lot of people helping
people.

Why is their so much anger and unwillingness to help those of us that
are just trying to get a grasp of this beautiful language?

Again, this is untrue. There is anger about the level of laziness
and lack of manners from a lot of ruby-forum.com posters. Consider two
posts recently, even after the latest changes from Andreas.

The first post said “how do I execute a system command in Ruby? In PHP
it would be exec…”. I’m sorry, but five minutes of documentation
searching would have answered the question. That’s just lazy. We’re
certainly willing to help, but that’s a bit beyond. It’s also
completely within my experience of the nonsense you get from web
boards, where people are (often) too lazy to spend an hour or so
searching (and often the search would take less time than that) before
they start asking questions.

The second was a “bump.” Now, this is common in the web board world.
It’s rude there, too, and one certainly doesn’t do it a mere 18
hours after posting initially. However, it’s completely and utterly
unacceptable on a mailing list. And that is what ruby-talk is; whether
people realise it or not, that’s what the Ruby forum on ruby-forum.com
is, too.

I understand that Ruby may have been around since the early 90’s, but
most of us are just now really starting to hear about.

Why become an expert on Ruby-talk if don’t want to talk about your
expertise?

Don’t push us away, help us, and as more of us become more of an
“expert” with Ruby, we can start helping out with answering some of the
newbie questions.

We don’t push people away who have at least shown that they’re willing
to look or at least remember that they’re posting to a mailing list
with thousands of recipients.

-austin

Austin Z. wrote:

We don’t push people away who have at least shown that they’re willing
to look or at least remember that they’re posting to a mailing list
with thousands of recipients.

Why does Ruby insist on using a Webboard instead of a regular newsgroup
forum?

It may solve some of the problems.

The problems that I have is that I can’t follow/mark a thread.
Searching the webboard is extremely slow and sometime inaccurate.

Lets just switch it to a public newsgroup forum and let Ruby flourish.
There is no need to keep it bottled up like this.

Elliot T. [email protected] writes:

  • make your posts count. lots of people are going to see them.
  • do not post fluff
  • do not post “bump”
  • do not post a question before you google and look at some docs
  • quote correctly
  • don’t top post
  • take the list seriously. we care about signal to noise ratio here.
  • try not to ask questions answered in the Pickaxe index or table of
    contents
  • start new threads for new topics, don’t just change the subject