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Date: Tue, 29 Aug 95 09:44:58 CDT
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To: hackers@freebsd.org, questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Can mailing list archives be read by ftp ( via (ding) Gnus)
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Greetings, There have been frequent questions as to 'Why mailing list
and not newsgroups'. My personal preference is newsgroup since you can
quickly graze through it instead of having your mailbox pounded.

Some of you may have used (ding) Gnus which is the rewrite of the GNU
newsreader in Emacs. I won't go into the features of ding, Suffice to
say that it is radical !!. I see one feature of ding as very
useful. Ding's mailing list (very high volume) is archived on a ftp
site I believe in the form of MH messages. Ding allows one to read the
mailing list as a newsgroup. You have to type two keystrokes inside
ding to incorporate it as one. It supports NOV databases.

My suggestion is that on an experimental basis, one or more of the
freebsd mailing lists be archived in the same manner. One can request
the author of ding to add some keystroke mappings to bring the
archived mailing list as part of the list of subscribed groups.
I understand that there are WAIS searchable archives, but with this
interface I need to use only one tool.

This will allow lurkers (like me) to keep up with the happenings and
yet not get swamped by email. FreeBSD gets a much wider audience. A
win-win situation.

I do not have the technical expertise to set up the archive. I am sure
somebody from the ding list can help. Should be a simple procmail
recipe.

Information about ding is available at

		http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/ding.html

My apologies if this question is inappropiate for this list. I do not
as yet subscribe to them.

Cheers, Yusuf

--
Yusuf Goolamabbas                     (O)    512-331-3439
Schlumberger Austin Systems Center  
yusufg@slb.com