[ANN] Indexing the Mailing List

PROBLEM Have you ever tried to find an old message in a mailing list -- say one that you remember as crucial, but you just can't track down? It's a common problem with many mailing lists. Literally 1000s of hours of advice and experience; and the messages might as well be deleted after 24 hours for all the use they are to anyone tomorrow. EXISTING RESOURCES For the REBOL mailing list, there are valuable full-text indexes, such a Graham's two projects: http://s94368865.onlinehome.us/rebolml/ http://203.79.110.37/rebolml BUT... A problem with any full-text index is that it only knows what a thread *says*, not what it *means*. ANNOUNCEMENT So, this announcement is about an initiative that attempts to add some meaning to the REBOL Mailing List archive. For a while there has been a "topic index" on the Mailing List archive, eg: http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/ml-topic-index.r?i=v That indexes threads that have *topic tags* in their subject line. It's a quick way, in theory, to get to threads that are *about* a topic, rather than just contain a specific word. But few threads have been tagged by their initial poster in that way. So the existing index is a little sparse. Now, thanks to an initiative from Gerard, any thread can be retro-actively tagged. One day soon that webpage may be a comprehensive index of themes that have been discussed on the Mailing List. That would make the nearly 40,000 messages in over 8300 threads suddenly more accessible. A relatively dead archive will become a live resource. HELP! JOIN THE TAG TEAM For that to happen, we need a few people who'd like to join the tag team, and tag up existing threads. That probably won't take more than five minutes of your time a day or so a week over the next month or two. You might want to spare a little time to help because you already have a "crucial thread list" and this would be one way to make that public. Or maybe you support or promote a product, and could help to index all threads about it under one heading. Or you'd just like to join a fun team on an interesting project. Whatever the reason, if it's something you'd like to know a bit more about, please take a look at: http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/boiler.r?display=ml-tag-team-help.h tml Or ask me more, Thanks, Sunanda