[Zest-devel] Re: [Mailman-Developers] Pipermail replacement? Zest!

[Chuq Von Rospach]

On 2/26/02 9:17 AM, "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

> Searching doesn't belong inside of a list archiver that has a web
> interface -- why do the same work twice?  There are half a dozen or
> more web search engine packages which can be pointed at that interface,
> right?

This is a discussion we had early on at apple. You'll notice if you look
closely that apple's list archives are not available through apple's
corporate search engine, and lists has its own search engine.

Why? Because of focus. People going to www.apple.com don't want to be
sidetracked having to wade through hits in the archives looking for what
they want on the main site. Loading in the archives really hurts being able
to find stuff in BOTH data sets. My opinion is that archives should not be
generically lumped in with the rest of the web site in a single browser,
because our tests and studies have shown it reduces the efficiency in
finding stuff in both. They're really disjoint data sets.

So my feeling is a list server archive ought to be an independent search
engine, and our tests back that up. If someone goes to www.apple.com and
wants to find the latest java updater for MacOS X, they don't really want
100 postings from Java-dev to pop up and annoy them.




-- 
Chuq Von Rospach, Architech
chuqui@plaidworks.com -- http://www.chuqui.com/

The Cliff's Notes Cliff's Notes on Hamlet:
    And they all died happily ever after