Re: coping with a high-volume mailing list (like this one)?

[Chris Gray <cgray@nowonder.com>]

>>>>> "kmself" == kmself  <kmself@ix.netcom.com> writes:

    kmself> I tend to favor posts by: Ethan Benson (especially when
    kmself> he's correcting me), Joey Hess, Sean Perry, and some other
    kmself> regulars.  I'll save and come back to threads dealing with
    kmself> topics I'm interested in.

    kmself> If traffic keeps climbing, I may isolate posts by
    kmself> particularly insightful users and/or block posts with:

    kmself>   - No subject.  - Content 'unsubscribe' and short length.
    kmself> - Anything else I find particularly annoying.

I just got gnus working: it's *very* cool.  It can do all that you are
describing automatically with its scoring mechanism.  Apparently mutt
has scoring as well, but with gnus it's quite easy to use.  Also, it
allows sorting the threads by their score, so I can read posts by my
favorite authors first, while the posts without a subject languish at
the bottom.  

And like the rest of emacs, it is infinitely customizable.  For
example, from the gnus info manual:

   The function in the `gnus-thread-score-function' variable (default
`+') is used for calculating the total score of a thread.  Useful      
functions might be `max', `min', or squared means, or whatever tickles 
your fancy.

I find the fact that you could use a squared mean to calculate which
thread you see first very cool.

Cheers,
Chris

P.S.  I *know* a lot of people don't like emacs.  Please don't feel
the urge to tell me about it.  I'm really not all that interested in
having a vi versus emacs flame war.