On Mon, 17 May 2021 Richard Owlett wrote:
On 05/17/2021 08:50 AM, Brian wrote:
On Mon 17 May 2021 at 04:58:42 -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
Some mailing list save posts in mbox format.
Is there any way to download specific threads from
lists.debian.org/debian-user in mbox format?
I've wondered this for a long time.
No.
I suspected that.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2003/02/msg02997.html
Bug #161440.
Thank you for this!
Only ~2 decades old. Wouldn't want to fix things too fast. :{
It is currently tagged wontfix. That means don't hold your breath.
But look at the rationale:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=161440#49
One reads, "As to the rationale: Making mboxes available facilitates
harvesting of mail addresses even more than the web archives."
It seems to me that this rationale depends on a couple of unstated
premises:
1. If published, each mbox would contain one month's worth of
messages, all of the messages in one file.
2. it is significantly easier for spammers to download a single file
containing one month's worth of debian-user addresses, than it is to
crawl through individual messages (using, presumably, the posted
monthly author-indices).
So why not just publish monthly *per-subject* mboxes?
I see about 180 distinct authors on last month's author index
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2021/04/author.html
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2021/04/author2.html
and about 160 distinct subjects on last month's subject index.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2021/04/subject.html
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2021/04/subject2.html
If last month's author-to-subject ratio is representative, then
publishing monthly per-subject mboxes (instead of monthly messages
containing all messages) would invalidate premise 2 (and contradict
premise 1, obviously).
So, can anyone see a reason not to propose publishing monthly
per-subject mboxes?
--
Ce qui est important est rarement urgent
et ce qui est urgent est rarement important
-- Dwight David Eisenhower
