Re: Mills Tuning Digests

Hi Monz,

> Just thought I'd mention that, yes, I do have just about all
> of the Mills Tuning Digests that were ever available - from
> around #500 (c. 1995, I think) to the end (31 December 1998).
>
> I don't have space on my server to put them up, much as I'd
> like to. After April 9, I'll hunt for them and send them to
> you, Robert, if you want to archive them publicly.

Yes, I can use as much space as I like on the NCBI site. Only proviso
is that it has to be public, I can't use it for storing private
documents.

The digests would have e-mail addresses in them I expect, so wouldn't
be suitable for a public site in that form.

However, I could easily do a little program of a few lines to go
through them all and remove the e-mail addresses, and split them
into individual numbered messages. Then the other program could
read those and use them to make an archive.

Eventually, if I put it on the NBCI site, and leave it there,
I should also link to it from one of the web pages on the site.

I suppose one could link to it from the FAQ tree, making it clear
that it is for use of those who want to look for FAQ questions,
or research for answers (including things they posted themselves)
which is indeed the main reason I had originally for doing it.

Actually I'm a bit unsure about whether it is okay to have the
FAQ tree as it is, because of the way one gets rid of the
banners by clicking on some of the links, and maybe they'd
want me to find another way to do it that doesn't have that
effect.

I'll need to ask them about that if it stays there for any
length of time.

That also answers a question Joseph asked earlier - there are
no bandwidth or space restrictions on the FAQ tree, so from
that point of view, could stay here indefinitely, but not
so sure what I'll do about the banners at present, and may
need to contact them to clarify what their policies are.

I have downloaded all the posts from the Yahoo archive, and
at present am working on the final details of how to organise
them all, and the indexes, for the zip, which involves some
extra programming.

Robert

--- In tuning@y..., "Robert Walker" <robert_walker@r...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_20665.html#20665

Hi Robert!

Actually, what REALLY should happen, in my opinion, is that the MILLS
Digest and the YAHOOGROUPS Digests should be somehow COMBINED!

Essentially YAHOOGROUPS is a CONTINUATION of the Mills list! The
list had to move after Mills would no longer host it!

Maybe there would be some way to do the numbering so that the first
post of YAHOOGROUPS would still be 0. Maybe a "negative" numbering
of the Mills posts up to "0" or some such (like B.C and A.D, only in
this case it's, of course, "before Yahoo")... I dunno...

But I think the two lists should be together and perhaps, at some
point, released on CD-ROM for people to have for safekeeping, unless
it is quite easy to download all of them...

Just some thoughts! Thanks for all the hard work!

________ ______ _____ _
Joseph Pehrson

Gentlemen,

--- In tuning@y..., jpehrson@r... wrote:
> Actually, what REALLY should happen, in my opinion, is that the
> MILLS Digest and the YAHOOGROUPS Digests should be somehow
> COMBINED!
>
> Essentially YAHOOGROUPS is a CONTINUATION of the Mills list! The
> list had to move after Mills would no longer host it!

I certainly understand the excitement about having the information
contained in this resource available. Please do not, however, forget
that this subject has come up before, and that there are certain
matters to take into account before anyone, willy-nilly, posts or
sells these archives publically:

1. There may well be people who posted to the Mills list that never
intended the posts to become part of a large public database. It was
on university servers, accessed through the net, and not
_necessarily_ intended as an archived body of work. Since much of the
information would be considered the opinions of the individual
authors, what would you do if any of those authors had an objection
to the project?

2. If, for any reason(s) someone decides to go forward, the very
*least* that should be done (and from what I've seen, Robert Walker
is **more** than up to the task!) the files should be scanned and
email addresses should be masked (i.e. joe_p@******.*** or something
similar). The last thing I want is *more* spam, thankyouverymuch.

There /must/ be a way to do this fairly and respectfully, I just know
it. I guess I would just like some careful consideration put into it
instead of the jumpingupanddown hyteria and elation at the thought of
all that good info, ready to eat...

Best,
Jon

Hi Joseph,

End part of the last post is really reply to yours,
sorry, got a bit muddled.

Yes, I agree it makes sense to combine the two lists,
and in fact one of the early posts in the archive
is a digest from the Mills list echoed to
Yahoo.

The Car horn organ looks fun! Just by the pictures,
can't hear it yet...

Robert

> Just thought I'd mention that, yes, I do have just about all
> of the Mills Tuning Digests that were ever available - from
> around #500 (c. 1995, I think) to the end (31 December 1998).

I still have what's before that, including the very first post
"Do you get this message, Dave?"
I think it would be a good idea to prevent the contents to be
indexed by search engines in addition to scrambling the e-mail
addresses. A title page could then be indexed only.

Manuel Op de Coul

--- In tuning@y..., <manuel.op.de.coul@e...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_20665.html#20675

>
> > Just thought I'd mention that, yes, I do have just about all
> > of the Mills Tuning Digests that were ever available - from
> > around #500 (c. 1995, I think) to the end (31 December 1998).
>
> I still have what's before that, including the very first post
> "Do you get this message, Dave?"

This is terrific news, and I hope Robert incorporates the first 500
messages as well. What a poetic way to start... "Do you get this
message, Dave?"...

_________ _______ ______ ___
Joseph Pehrson

--- In tuning@y..., jpehrson@r... wrote:

> > > Just thought I'd mention that, yes, I do have just about all
> > > of the Mills Tuning Digests that were ever available - from
> > > around #500 (c. 1995, I think) to the end (31 December 1998).
> >
> > I still have what's before that, including the very first post
> > "Do you get this message, Dave?"
>
> This is terrific news, and I hope Robert incorporates the first 500
> messages as well. What a poetic way to start... "Do you get this
> message, Dave?"...
>

Uh . . . it's not the first 500 messages that are missing, it's the
first 500 digests . . . I'd love to see those too . . . that was
right before I joined . . .

--- In tuning@y..., PERLICH@A... wrote:

/tuning/topicId_20665.html#20685

> --- In tuning@y..., jpehrson@r... wrote:
>
> > > > Just thought I'd mention that, yes, I do have just about all
> > > > of the Mills Tuning Digests that were ever available - from
> > > > around #500 (c. 1995, I think) to the end (31 December 1998).
> > >
> > > I still have what's before that, including the very first post
> > > "Do you get this message, Dave?"
> >
> > This is terrific news, and I hope Robert incorporates the first
500
> > messages as well. What a poetic way to start... "Do you get
this
> > message, Dave?"...
> >
>
> Uh . . . it's not the first 500 messages that are missing, it's the
> first 500 digests . . . I'd love to see those too . . . that was
> right before I joined . . .

Hi Paul...

Why sure, that's what that means... of course. Well, that's quite a
few messages, then. I hope Robert includes those in the new CD-ROM
that we're selling...

No, we're NOT selling it!!! :)
_______ _____ ______ _____
Joseph Pehrson

Hi Manuel,

> I still have what's before that, including the very first post
> "Do you get this message, Dave?"
> I think it would be a good idea to prevent the contents to be
> indexed by search engines in addition to scrambling the e-mail
> addresses. A title page could then be indexed only.

Yes, one could do that.

If in zip format I don't think they'd index the contents anyway
= never seen a zip listed in the search results, and there must
be many of them on the web.

One could also put the html in a folder excluded
from well behaved search engines using the robots.txt
file.

I do that with the FTS beta web page - prefer anyone
who finds it to get to it from the release page.

If the zip was linked to from, say, the links page of the working
draft tree only, explained as a resource for drafters of the
faqs, maybe that would be a solution that everyone would be
happy with, and would be more convenient than other solutions
(I was thinking about possibly using one of those web "disk drives"
as the alternative).

How does that seem to everyone?

Is it an idea to put the html up as well in a folder excluded
from the search engines?

With a title page indexed only?

The html index is going well, and hopefully now just a matter of making
it - quite a lot of processing to go through 21000 posts however, and
read them all in, convert to html, read all the author, date and
subject details, make the indexes, and convert all the hrefs to links.
At current speed, would take about 6 hours of computer
time, nearly as long as it took to ftp them in the first place
(though that includes ftp-ing all the links to make a list
of them with titles for each).

Maybe if I go through timing everything, will find ways to speed it
up, but meanwhile, will prob. just go ahead and do it after a few
more tests.

Robert

--- In tuning@y..., "Robert Walker" <robert_walker@r...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_20665.html#20722

>
> If the zip was linked to from, say, the links page of the working
> draft tree only, explained as a resource for drafters of the
> faqs, maybe that would be a solution that everyone would be
> happy with, and would be more convenient than other solutions
> (I was thinking about possibly using one of those web "disk drives"
> as the alternative).
>
> How does that seem to everyone?
>
> Is it an idea to put the html up as well in a folder excluded
> from the search engines?
>
> With a title page indexed only?
>

This seems like the perfect solution!

> The html index is going well, and hopefully now just a matter of
making it - quite a lot of processing to go through 21000 posts
however, and read them all in, convert to html, read all the author,
date and subject details, make the indexes, and convert all the hrefs
to links.
> At current speed, would take about 6 hours of computer
> time, nearly as long as it took to ftp them in the first place
> (though that includes ftp-ing all the links to make a list
> of them with titles for each).
>

Looks like an "all night" computer project....

It will be great when it's ready!

Thanks!

________ _____ ___ _
Joseph Pehrson