archive format change

archive format change

[Tom Tromey]

When did the mailing list archive format change?
And why?

If you look at the April and the Jan-March pages for java-discuss
you'll notice that April uses a different format.  I've gotten
complaints about the change.

Tom

Re: archive format change

[Jeffrey A Law]

  In message < 87em8nm21y.fsf@cygnus.com >you write:
  > When did the mailing list archive format change?
  > And why?
  > 
  > If you look at the April and the Jan-March pages for java-discuss
  > you'll notice that April uses a different format.  I've gotten
  > complaints about the change.
Twasn't me.

jeff

Re: archive format change

[Benjamin Kosnik]

yeah. the date sorts in particular are incredibly screwed up:

http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/libstdc++/2000-q2/

I'm just using the thread index right now because the date index is 
messed up.

What's the deal? This "Mail converted by MHonArc 2.4.5" stuff appears to 
be new.

-benjamin


On 3 Apr 2000, Tom Tromey wrote:

> When did the mailing list archive format change?
> And why?
> 
> If you look at the April and the Jan-March pages for java-discuss
> you'll notice that April uses a different format.  I've gotten
> complaints about the change.
> 
> Tom
> 

Re: archive format change

[Jason Molenda]

On Mon, Apr 03, 2000 at 01:12:25PM -0600, Tom Tromey wrote:
> When did the mailing list archive format change?
> And why?

I changed gdb, gdb-cvs, gdb-patches, java-discuss and one or two
other lists from the medium/low volume format date index to the
high volume format index this weekend.  I've been generating both
styles of index for most of March, but when the quarter ended I
had the formats automatically roll over.

Old format:
	http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/java-discuss/2000-q1/

New format:
	http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/java-discuss/2000-03/

I've often changed the style of mailing list archive from low-volume
to medium-volume to high-volume as the traffic on lists increase.
When I do this, I generate both formats for a small overlap period,
and change the top-level list index.html so that at the next date
increment, the new style is pointed to.  Then I stop generating
the old format archive.

The high volume format is suitable for lists with five messages a
day or more.  For fewer messages then that, the high volume index
is not an efficient use of screen space.  The low-volume index
(which is what java-discuss was using) is not an efficient display
(IMHO) for a higher volume list.

Furthermore, when a mailing list has large volume and you're using
a low-volume (one-archive-per-year) or medium-volume
(one-archive-per-quarter) display, the mailing list indexes become
really large (== slow to download) towards the end of the time
period.

Java-discuss should have monthly mailing list archives given its
current volume.  Whether it has the high-volume index format or
not is a separate matter -- if you're unhappy with the high-volume
format, I can have a low-volume index used for java-discuss.  (it's
just another command line option to www-archives.sh).

This is the first time I've heard of anyone unhappy with the change
in archive formatting, I've never bothered to tell anyone what I
was doing behind the scenes because no one seemed to care one way
or the other.  I can change things back as you prefer.

Jason

PS-  In case anyone is curious, I'm doing all of this by editing
the files /qmail/listarch/.qmail-LISTNAME and changing the timeperiod
marker in /www/sourceware/ml/LISTNAME/index.html e.g. from
"<!--newquartersgohere-->" to "<!--newmonthsgohere-->"

Re: archive format change

[Jason Molenda]

On Mon, Apr 03, 2000 at 12:39:50PM -0700, Benjamin Kosnik wrote:
> 
> yeah. the date sorts in particular are incredibly screwed up:
> 
> http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/libstdc++/2000-q2/

Er..  there's only one note in this archive, and it's filed under
the correct date.  What's the problem?

> I'm just using the thread index right now because the date index is 
> messed up.

I've never seen any problem with mhonarc like this.  Can you provide
a better example?

> What's the deal? This "Mail converted by MHonArc 2.4.5" stuff appears to 
> be new.

No, I switched to 2.4.5 a while ago, it's a bug patch release from
2.4.4 which I've been using for quite some time now (and 2.4.4 is a
bug patch release for 2.4.3 which I was using for even longer :-)

Jason

Re: archive format change

[Jason Molenda]

On Mon, Apr 03, 2000 at 01:10:52PM -0700, Jason Molenda wrote:
> > yeah. the date sorts in particular are incredibly screwed up:
> > 
> > http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/libstdc++/2000-q2/
> 
> Er..  there's only one note in this archive, and it's filed under
> the correct date.  What's the problem?


Oh wait, I didn't see that there was crap beyond the first page of
text.  (the first page looked perfectly normal, it was when I 
scrolled down that I saw oddness)

I'll check it out tonight.

J

Re: archive format change

[Jason Molenda]

> > > yeah. the date sorts in particular are incredibly screwed up:
> > > 
> > > http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/libstdc++/2000-q2/


I've got it.

I changed my monthly-ml-tasks scripts to create a placeholder
index.html if a directory had no mail notes archived in it yet.
This was to avoid the problem where the /ml/libstdc++/index.html
has a "April - June 2000" link, but when the user clicks on it,
they get a "Permission denied" or "File not found" error because
there is nothing in that directory yet.

My script created a little one-paragraph index.html which said "No
messages for this time period yet".  Much better than an error,
which made people think something was wrong with sourceware.

It looks like that placeholder index.html has confused mhonarc
greatly.  It has happened for a few other lists, as well.  I'll
fix them tonight by hand and see if there is a way I can make my
placeholder page w/o confusing mhonarc.

Jason

Re: archive format change

[Jason Molenda]

> > > yeah. the date sorts in particular are incredibly screwed up:
> > > 
> > > http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/libstdc++/2000-q2/


I've got it.

I changed my monthly-ml-tasks scripts to create a placeholder
index.html if a directory had no mail notes archived in it yet.
This was to avoid the problem where the /ml/libstdc++/index.html
has a "April - June 2000" link, but when the user clicks on it,
they get a "Permission denied" or "File not found" error because
there is nothing in that directory yet.

My script created a little one-paragraph index.html which said "No
messages for this time period yet".  Much better than an error,
which made people think something was wrong with sourceware.

It looks like that placeholder index.html has confused mhonarc
greatly.  It has happened for a few other lists, as well.  I'll
fix them tonight by hand and see if there is a way I can make my
placeholder page w/o confusing mhonarc.

Jason

Re: archive format change

[Jason Molenda]

On Mon, Apr 03, 2000 at 01:10:52PM -0700, Jason Molenda wrote:
> > yeah. the date sorts in particular are incredibly screwed up:
> > 
> > http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/libstdc++/2000-q2/
> 
> Er..  there's only one note in this archive, and it's filed under
> the correct date.  What's the problem?


Oh wait, I didn't see that there was crap beyond the first page of
text.  (the first page looked perfectly normal, it was when I 
scrolled down that I saw oddness)

I'll check it out tonight.

J

Re: archive format change

[Jason Molenda]

On Mon, Apr 03, 2000 at 12:39:50PM -0700, Benjamin Kosnik wrote:
> 
> yeah. the date sorts in particular are incredibly screwed up:
> 
> http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/libstdc++/2000-q2/

Er..  there's only one note in this archive, and it's filed under
the correct date.  What's the problem?

> I'm just using the thread index right now because the date index is 
> messed up.

I've never seen any problem with mhonarc like this.  Can you provide
a better example?

> What's the deal? This "Mail converted by MHonArc 2.4.5" stuff appears to 
> be new.

No, I switched to 2.4.5 a while ago, it's a bug patch release from
2.4.4 which I've been using for quite some time now (and 2.4.4 is a
bug patch release for 2.4.3 which I was using for even longer :-)

Jason

Re: archive format change

[Jason Molenda]

On Mon, Apr 03, 2000 at 01:12:25PM -0600, Tom Tromey wrote:
> When did the mailing list archive format change?
> And why?

I changed gdb, gdb-cvs, gdb-patches, java-discuss and one or two
other lists from the medium/low volume format date index to the
high volume format index this weekend.  I've been generating both
styles of index for most of March, but when the quarter ended I
had the formats automatically roll over.

Old format:
	http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/java-discuss/2000-q1/

New format:
	http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/java-discuss/2000-03/

I've often changed the style of mailing list archive from low-volume
to medium-volume to high-volume as the traffic on lists increase.
When I do this, I generate both formats for a small overlap period,
and change the top-level list index.html so that at the next date
increment, the new style is pointed to.  Then I stop generating
the old format archive.

The high volume format is suitable for lists with five messages a
day or more.  For fewer messages then that, the high volume index
is not an efficient use of screen space.  The low-volume index
(which is what java-discuss was using) is not an efficient display
(IMHO) for a higher volume list.

Furthermore, when a mailing list has large volume and you're using
a low-volume (one-archive-per-year) or medium-volume
(one-archive-per-quarter) display, the mailing list indexes become
really large (== slow to download) towards the end of the time
period.

Java-discuss should have monthly mailing list archives given its
current volume.  Whether it has the high-volume index format or
not is a separate matter -- if you're unhappy with the high-volume
format, I can have a low-volume index used for java-discuss.  (it's
just another command line option to www-archives.sh).

This is the first time I've heard of anyone unhappy with the change
in archive formatting, I've never bothered to tell anyone what I
was doing behind the scenes because no one seemed to care one way
or the other.  I can change things back as you prefer.

Jason

PS-  In case anyone is curious, I'm doing all of this by editing
the files /qmail/listarch/.qmail-LISTNAME and changing the timeperiod
marker in /www/sourceware/ml/LISTNAME/index.html e.g. from
"<!--newquartersgohere-->" to "<!--newmonthsgohere-->"

Re: archive format change

[Benjamin Kosnik]

yeah. the date sorts in particular are incredibly screwed up:

http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/libstdc++/2000-q2/

I'm just using the thread index right now because the date index is 
messed up.

What's the deal? This "Mail converted by MHonArc 2.4.5" stuff appears to 
be new.

-benjamin


On 3 Apr 2000, Tom Tromey wrote:

> When did the mailing list archive format change?
> And why?
> 
> If you look at the April and the Jan-March pages for java-discuss
> you'll notice that April uses a different format.  I've gotten
> complaints about the change.
> 
> Tom
> 

Re: archive format change

[Jeffrey A Law]

  In message < 87em8nm21y.fsf@cygnus.com >you write:
  > When did the mailing list archive format change?
  > And why?
  > 
  > If you look at the April and the Jan-March pages for java-discuss
  > you'll notice that April uses a different format.  I've gotten
  > complaints about the change.
Twasn't me.

jeff

archive format change

[Tom Tromey]

When did the mailing list archive format change?
And why?

If you look at the April and the Jan-March pages for java-discuss
you'll notice that April uses a different format.  I've gotten
complaints about the change.

Tom