[Python-ideas] Browser for mailing lists

[Cameron Simpson]

On 30Mar2014 08:05, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 30 March 2014 06:54, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> > Richard Prosser <richard.prosser at mail.com> writes:
> > We have generally-appicable services that index the web and make much
> > better search tools. I don't often find a site's own custom search tool
> > to be sufficiently better to use it, when DuckDuckGo is available.
> 
> That said, migrating to Mailman3 + HyperKitty is definitely in the
> longer term plans for the python.org mailing list infrastructure, and
> that includes integrated search on the HyperKitty side of things.
>
> While Mailman3 has been an ongoing project for quite some time (I
> believe the remaining blockers mostly relate to handling migrations of
> existing Mailman 2 installations), the HyperKitty work is mostly being
> driven by some Fedora folks in order to upgrade Fedora's own
> infrastructure. You can see the current state of the prototype here:
> https://lists.stg.fedoraproject.org/archives/

Please tell me Mailman3 still includes the pipermail stuff still.

Looking at the Fedora HyperKitty page you cite, is it just me or
is this really slow and clunky? [Ten minutes later...] It is slightly
quicker now, but that first page load took minutes.

The main page search (multilist) doesn't show the list name in the
search results, making it harder to gauge relevance.

I think this is an argument for the OP's "convenient search of
relevant python lists" request, even if that were a quick hack that
readirected to a general purpose search engine with a funky search
criterion. But a search engine covers multiple sites; this can only
search its own lists.

Also, there are no archive download links.
Nor can I see the original text of any message (no headers or anything).
This cripples personal searching.

When I join a list my first act, if possible, is to download the
pipermail archives and unpack them into the mail folder in which
future lists posts will go.

That gets me:

  - local search of local data
    access when offline, privacy, speed, whatever tools or indices I prefer

  - search tools of my choosing (eg mairix or mu), including the
    search facilities of my mail reader

  - using my mail reader search lets me read messages in my _preferred_ form,
    as it would for anyone else using their preferrer mail reader

Without an archive download, this is all far far less useful.

HyperKitty looks... pretty... I suppose (for some definition of the
term; I'm no far of the great big blocks of whitespace on either
side, etc), for someone who enjoys web forums.

Disgruntledly yours,
-- 
Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au>