Subject: Meta: Yahoo Groups "Gzeiroth" (limitations)

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 19:10:41 +0200

Hi all!

Recently Yahoo Groups added another limitation to their interface: the search
extends only to 200 or so last records and to continue it you'll have to press 
"Next". Furthermore, there are also the ads in the message, (with the 
continue to the message) and the one in text which often disrupts this 
reading. All of this is a bit annoying.

The way I see it, we have three options:

1. Accept the status quo. That would be a sub-optimal interface.

2. Pay YahooGroups. I.e: each year or month (whatever its spanning is) one of 
us will volunteer to pay them by credit card to get rid of these limitations.

3. Move all the past messages to a safe place (Perl/LWP anyone? Or does anyone 
has an mbox archive of all or most of them? I've deleted mine) and establish 
a new mailing list on our hackers.org.il domain.

Now I think that paying Yahoo Groups would cost much less time and money than 
trying to do #3. Let's face it: there's no such thing as a free lunch. As 
much as we are hackers and everything, our time is also precious, and if 
someone offers us to manage a mailing list for us for a fee, I say we take 
it. After all, even if we do things our own, we still have to pay for the 
domain, the hosting, the maintenance, etc. And the price of Yahoo Groups for 
it is reasonable.

At the moment, I don't have a credit card or too much money in the bank or a 
steady source of income to afford paying for it, but I'm sure many esteemed 
members of this list do. I volunteer to do so in the next time we need to pay 
them.

Nevertheless, I will support the creating our own self-hosted mailing list, if 
anyone else agrees to it. (and even volunteer to maintain it).

But the status quo is unacceptable. I still recall the early days of this 
mailing list (back when Yahoo Groups was still eGroups) and the web interface 
was much less annoying than today. I want this back! The HTTP protocol did 
not become worse since, it's just what Yahoo are passing through it. Let's 
remedy this situation, and better an hour beforehand.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

-- 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      [email-masked]
Homepage:        http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/

I don't believe in fairies. Oops! A fairy died.
I don't believe in fairies. Oops! Another fairy died.

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From: Ori Idan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 22:04:26 +0200

hackers.org.il

That I think would be the best solution, we need both a storage space 
and buying the domain, We can collect the money to buy the domain 
together, it should be about 50 US$ per 2 years so I think we can raise 
the money together.
As for the storage space, I don't know since we need a big space for all 
the archives.

--
Ori Idan

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From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 12:12:53 +0200

> together, it should be about 50 US$ per 2 years so I think we can raise

Just a correction - we already have the domain. As for storage space, there's 
a mailing list service on both beak.hamakor.org.il and iglu.org.il. IGLU has 
a large disk-space issue, so I'd rather we did not use it for this, until we 
get bigger disks.

I think the switch would be a good time to prepare a homepage for Hackers-IL. 
I can prepare something basic in Web Meta Language without too many hassles. 
Also, a Wiki would be nice so we can edit it in the comfort of our 
web-browsers, and each gradually contribute to improve it. I had a very good 
experience with TWiki, in one of the projects I contribute to. (which I 
cannot really say the same on Kwiki and much less Chiq-Chaq). Unless someone 
can testify another Wiki is a good one, I say we go with TWiki.

Things we can put there:

1. Links to "famous" past discussions.

2. General themes. (Joel on Software, Scheme, Windows vs. Linux, High 
Education and the Technion)

3. Member Pages - each member who desires so will describe himself and put 
links and information about himself. (so people can get to know the names on 
the list when they join).

4. Book Reviews and Recommendations.

5. Etc. etc. The Possibilities with a wiki are endless.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

> Yahoo! Groups Links
> To visit your group on the web, go to:
>  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hackers-il/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>  [email-masked]
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
>  http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

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From: Ori Idan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 12:35:15 +0200

I did not know that there is already a domain so I think we should build 
a home page and store it either on IGLU or Hamakor server if possible.

--
Ori Idan

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From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 12:55:10 +0200

On Wed, Feb 04, 2004, Shlomi Fish wrote about "Re: [hackers-il] Meta: Yahoo Groups "Gzeiroth" (limitations)":
>..

Get real, the disk space is not an issue. How much space do you think the
hackers-il archives take, one megabyte a year?

The bigger issue is the configuration time. Without this issue, I would have
just offered to host hackers-il on ivrix.org.il...

> can testify another Wiki is a good one, I say we go with TWiki.

MediaWiki, the one running wikipedia, is probably the best of the wikis.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |    Wednesday, Feb 4 2004, 12 Shevat 5764
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-790466, ICQ 13349191 |An egotist is a person of low taste, more
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |interested in himself than in me.

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From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 14:08:18 +0200

On Wednesday 04 February 2004 12:55, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> > Just a correction - we already have the domain. As for storage space,
> > there's a mailing list service on both beak.hamakor.org.il and
> > iglu.org.il. IGLU has a large disk-space issue, so I'd rather we did not
> > use it for this, until we get bigger disks.
>
> The bigger issue is the configuration time. Without this issue, I would
> have just offered to host hackers-il on ivrix.org.il...
>

How about stalker.iguide.co.il? If I am to set it up, I'll probably need root, 
which will take some more time until I can afford to pay for it.

Of course, someone else with a steady source of income can afford to pay 200 
NIS/month (IIRC - correct me if I'm wrong) to become a full-fledged member of 
stalker. Again, like I stressed before it would be much cheaper to pay for 
YahooGroups for giving us a premium mailing list interface.

> > cannot really say the same on Kwiki and much less Chiq-Chaq). Unless
> > someone can testify another Wiki is a good one, I say we go with TWiki.
>

I like Wikipedia very much and its Wiki Syntax is wonderful. Still, it does 
seem like an overkill for many purposes. Even its site recommends using 
"UseModWiki" (which I never worked with) instead.

If we don't wish to confuse newcomers with thousands of options, then TWiki 
may be a better idea, because it has a limited, yet complete syntax, and very 
little idiosyncracies. But this is just my opinion. I like both TWiki and 
MediaWiki.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

--

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From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 15:49:04 +0200

> which will take some more time until I can afford to pay for it.

Why do you want to discuss this issue on a public mailing list?

You know very well that I already own that machine (stalker and ivrix are
the same machine), and that it won't cost me one red cent to host the domain
and/or mailing list on it. But as I said, I don't have time to configure
all the necessary stuff, unfortunately.

You also know very well that you have been hosted on stalker for over a year,
taking up 150 MB of disk space, given a shell account and unlimited bandwidth,
and you are yet to pay one shekel. So why do you bring up all these numbers
like 200 NIS/month? This number is absolutely irrelevant to this discussion.

We're hackers. Hosting stuff doesn't cost us money (many of us already have
servers that we're paying for), it costs us time. So either one of us ponies
up the time and runs this on his server, or somebody ponies up the money and
pays yahoo. Or, get this - we can just keep everything as is :)

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |    Wednesday, Feb 4 2004, 12 Shevat 5764
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Cat rule #2: Bite the hand that won't
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |feed you fast enough.

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From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 17:22:50 +0200

On Wednesday 04 February 2004 15:49, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> > How about stalker.iguide.co.il? If I am to set it up, I'll probably need
> > root, which will take some more time until I can afford to pay for it.
>

You are right that it may have been inappropriate here. In any case, I was 
thinking out loud and contemplating our possibilities. The thing is: I can 
easily set up a web-service for www.hackers.org.il with no need for root. 
However, I do need a root for setting up the mail service. If I don't have 
one, there's no way I can do it.

> the same machine), and that it won't cost me one red cent to host the
> domain and/or mailing list on it. But as I said, I don't have time to
> configure all the necessary stuff, unfortunately.
>

Very well. So someone else will have to do it. ;-) I have the time, but I can 
only try to host the domain on iglu.org.il, which is the only server I have 
root on. Note that I never set up a new qmail domain before, just managed 
existing ones, so I may have to RTFM a bit.

> You also know very well that you have been hosted on stalker for over a
> year, taking up 150 MB of disk space, given a shell account and unlimited
> bandwidth, and you are yet to pay one shekel. 

Correct. That's between you and I. (email me in private for some more 
information - I'd rather not discuss it here)

> So why do you bring up all 
> these numbers like 200 NIS/month? This number is absolutely irrelevant to
> this discussion.
>

I meant that if someone (Arik?) wishes to become a co-admin of stalker he can, 
and then he'll be able to set up everything we need (E-mail-wise at least - I 
don't worry about the WWW-part).

> servers that we're paying for), it costs us time. So either one of us
> ponies up the time and runs this on his server, or somebody ponies up the
> money and pays yahoo. Or, get this - we can just keep everything as is :)

Correct again.

I volunteer to ponie the time. But I do need root access, unless you want 
iglu.org.il (which is in a flimsy state nowadays because of the ancient 
distribution there), to be the host for this mail domain and mailing list as 
well. And I'd rather wait until we have bigger hard-disks and install a more 
modern distribution there. ("bimhera beyamenu amen sela")

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

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