The Importance of Filtering

[Patrick J. May]

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Timothy C. May writes:
 > 
 > I used the ExI software, and found it an interesting experiment, but I
 > can't say it save me any real effort. The effort of sending the
 > filtering message to the list site, hassling with the formats, etc.,
 > clearly outweighed the tiny effort it would have taken to manually
 > press "d" to delete the messages when then appeared.

     Like the use of PGP, this may be due to the different tools in
use.  I read email using the vm package for emacs.  While I was on the
extropians list I found it very convenient to reply to the first
message of a topic I was not interested in, modify the address, and
enter the simple ::exclude message.  Other tools and environments
could make this more difficult.

 > (A side issue: Whatever seconds were saved by the distribution-point
 > filtering (and I haven't mentioned the CPU time required...an issue
 > for us to consider with 700 list members) on the Extropians list were
 > often negated for the others by people asking "What are you talking
 > about?" or "Could someone send me Joe's posting on foo--I had him in
 > my ::exclude file.")

     Good point.


- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                A contract programmer is always intense.
Patrick May
pjm at gasco.com (public key available from servers)


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