"Trevor G Quayle" <Tin### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message 
news:web.4717b160ee6ce4b8c150d4c10@news.povray.org...
> Not sure where to post this, it relates to the online newsgroups.
>
> I don't have a newsgroup reader set up at home and I can't run one at work
> so I like to use the web-based newsgroups.  I tend to use the "Message
> Digest" multi-group digest so I can see the latest replies without haveing
> to sift through the threads to find whats new.  Up until recently, the
> off-topic group was not included in this digest, however, sometime in the
> past few days it has been included.  The digest only holds the latest 100
> messages, so now it tends to fill up rather quickly with all the off-topic
> threads.  Is there a reason this got changed (or is my memory faulty and
> it's always been like this)?  And is there any way to get it changed back.

      Hi Trevor, well spotted ref: O-T. I noted same and actually enquired 
about it via the wrong person, but oh well...

      Anyway, I also noticed via the 'Image Digest' that if any images get 
posted to O-T, then they will also show publically now.

      Just my tuppence worth.

       ~Steve~




>
> Thanks
>
> -tgq
>
>

Post a reply to this message

Trevor G Quayle wrote:
> Not sure where to post this, it relates to the online newsgroups.

The change to make the off-topic group available via the web view again was
intentional.

As far as your observation is concerned, personally I agree that it is
annoying to have the off-topic messages fill up the digest views. I can't
say yet if we will change this detail as it depends on two things: If we
want to, and if we easily can.

	Thorsten, POV-Team

Post a reply to this message

"Trevor G Quayle" <Tin### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Not sure where to post this, it relates to the online newsgroups.
>
> Up until recently, the
> off-topic group was not included in this digest, however, sometime in the
> past few days it has been included.

And we still can't use the web interface to _post_ to the OT group, so isn't
it kind of pointless to include them?

Now, if they (whoever "they" might be) decide to change that and allow posts
via the web interface to the OT group, then we can all just disregard my
little mindless blurb...  :)

--
Dan
GoofyGraffix.com

Post a reply to this message

I'll see if I can improve this over the weekend (pending getting a new beta
out first). I'll also enable posting to off-topic via the web view on a
trial basis.

NB the off-topic posts have been excluded from search engine indexing via
robots.txt.

-- Chris

Post a reply to this message

more importantly:  the offtopic threads via web don't show a reply link!
I've been intrigued by some of the threads so far, but have no means to
reply to them...

"Trevor G Quayle" <Tin### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> I don't have a newsgroup reader set up at home and I can't run one at work
> so I like to use the web-based newsgroups.

Post a reply to this message

Charles C <"nospam a nospam.com"> wrote:
> I noticed the change too. I haven't made up my mind yet whether I like
> it the new way or the old way better.
>
> I've always normally used only the web interface, but depending on the
> season, it takes a good amount of luck for my logging on to the system
> to work... So in the last few days I've been using thunderbird quite a
> bit.   But then with a news-reader, afaik there is no message digest so
> I've been using the web-interface to find and read newer messages, and
> the message reader to write....
>
> I think what would be ideal imho would be for the message digest to be
> twice as long, available on both the web and the news-reader, and for
> the web login-system to work right for me.
>
> Charles



all at work and they scroll the other messages off the page quite quickly.

Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Thorsten Froehlich <tho### [at] povrayorg> wrote:
> Trevor G Quayle wrote:
> > Not sure where to post this, it relates to the online newsgroups.
>
> The change to make the off-topic group available via the web view again was
> intentional.
>
> As far as your observation is concerned, personally I agree that it is
> annoying to have the off-topic messages fill up the digest views. I can't
> say yet if we will change this detail as it depends on two things: If we
> want to, and if we easily can.
>
>  Thorsten, POV-Team

With due respect to your position, that last paragraph SEEMS to make no
sense.

You just commented that filling up the digest is annoying.
But again, "we" involves more than just your opinion, but the whole
POV-Team.

Also, "and if we easily can" seems strange.
You just stated that the change to show off-topic in the digest was
intentional.
Did someone break the handle on the switch that turns it off/on?

Not that I begrudge there being an off-topic group, especially if I had an
off-topic message. But 49% of the Message Digest was in the last 30 hours,
and was on "Life Sucked at My School This Week", 11% more was spread across
other off-topic threads.

There are at least 20 groups I'd rather read, even from a newbie (such as
myself) asking a FAQ, that actually have to do with POVRAY, than in reading
chit-chat that has no relationship. Unintentionally so, but this is SPAM.

Leef_me (newbie extraordinaire)

Post a reply to this message

"Leef_me" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Also, "and if we easily can" seems strange.

I'll venture the guess that he might've been alluding to the possibility of
leaving the off-topic group acccessible via the web, but not included in
the web interface's message digest.  In that case, it would not be the same
as flipping the switch the other way.  Anyway, if that's do-able, it sounds
worthwhile IMHO, although I still think making it twice as long would be
great too ;-)

Charles

Post a reply to this message

Charles C wrote:
> "Leef_me" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
>> Also, "and if we easily can" seems strange.
> 
> I'll venture the guess that he might've been alluding to the possibility of
> leaving the off-topic group acccessible via the web, but not included in
> the web interface's message digest.

Exactly. If this can be done depends on how the digest SQL queries are
formulated right now (which I don't recall from memory even though I wrote
them many years ago), and if modified queries are still efficient.

	Thorsten

PS: Yes, my original sentence makes more sense if one assumes a few bits
about the inner workings of the news web view ;-)

Post a reply to this message

Charles C wrote:
> I'll venture the guess that he might've been alluding to the possibility of
> leaving the off-topic group acccessible via the web, but not included in
> the web interface's message digest.  In that case, it would not be the same

Exactly. It's not as simple as it sounds, since the digest was simply the
most recent 100 rows in the message table, retrieved with the following query:

  SELECT * from messages ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 0,100

Note that the message table does *not* contain any group ID. It has never
been necessary. And apart from that, there is not necessarily a 1-1
relationship between a message and a group (i.e. a single message may be
posted in multiple groups simultaneously, at least if you are using the NNTP
interface).

Therefore there is no direct way (from the message table alone) to tell if a
given message is in a particular group. We must also query the threads table.
That said, while I'm not particularly familiar with SQL, it wasn't too hard
to do. This new query is now in place:

  SELECT * from messages,threads
    WHERE messages.id=threads.messageid AND threads.groupid<>41
    ORDER BY messages.id DESC LIMIT 0,100

which to the credit of mysql executes in about 5 milliseconds.

-- Chris

Post a reply to this message