LYNX-DEV Lynx service desk

[Al Gilman]

At present the MHonArc installation at FLORA.org fails to
recognize a significant number of reply relationships.  Some of
these missed connections are fairly trivial matters -- the most
serious problem has been that replies from Fote have not been
threaded to the posts they answer.

If someone were to play with MHonArc enought to figure out how to
correct these failures, I suspect Russell would be very
cooperative in installing a configuration that works.  Some of
these problems may already be fixed in version 2 of MHonArc.

Our automated helper, there, is close to doing something really
useful in terms of tracking unanswered questions; but it doesn't
quite make it.  I am not sure we can sustain the effort to do it
manually.

I replied to the topic of "questions going un-answered" in terms of
an auto-responder is based on the following reasoning:  I have been
one of the more agressive list subscribers in terms of responding
to posts that ask things answered somewhere on file.  If we used
an auto-responder on the mailto: address at lynx.browser.org, some
of these posts would be answered in the automatic response and those
of us who try to cover the low end of difficulty would have fewer
to cover, and our coverage rate could go up.

--
Al Gilman

details interleaved:
>                             Lynx Service Methods
>                                       
>   This document is an attempt to create a mechanism so that legitimate
>   questions posted to the lynx-dev mailing lists are systematically
>   answered.
>   
>Need for this method
>
>   Here are some questions/subjects posted in December 1996. As far as I
>   can tell, the answers were not on the list.
>     _________________________________________________________________
>                                      
>   [1]http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/html/month1296/msg00111.html
>          Subject: Question4_
>          
This post requests speculation about how to structure a spider-like
service using Lynx.  While people might wish to comment on this, I
don't see this post as "we failed if there was no response."

>   [2]http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/html/month1296/msg00319.html
>          Subject: Let me turn off <CENTER>, PLEASE!!!
>          
The way this group works, unless someone chooses to implement a patch
to implement this request, nobody is going to respond.  Nobody is
going to step forward and say "No; we would never do that."  The
request mostly hangs on the programming effort to do it.  So once
again, I don't see non-response to this post as a problem.

>   [3]http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/html/month1296/msg00510.html
>          Subject: file system access from lynx
>          
I haven't confirmed this, but this may have been addressed by a response
that the archiver failed to thread.

>   [4]http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/html/month1296/msg00756.html
>          Subject: Inline Images
>          
I haven't searched the archive, but I suspect that this message was 
answered, perhaps in the following month.

>     _________________________________________________________________
>                                      
>A possible mechanism for tracking posted questions
>
>   Several people who regularly read the list volunteer to flag the
>   questions posted for "need to answer". This needs to be entered into a
>   database that parallels the sig.net mailing list mechanism, i.e.,
>   message numbers. These readers may or may not be the people answering
>   the questions.
>   
>  Criteria for answering questions
>  
>    1. It is not a reply to a thread.
>    2. It is not a rhetorical question.
>    3. It is not a hoax, spam or other non-question.
>       
>  Flagging questions
>  
>   The database of "outstanding questions" should be writable by the list
>   dwellers who normally answer questions. It should be structured as
>   some type of html form so that the question and current status can be
>   seen. By picking a question through the database form, there should be
>   a way of indicating "I answered this".
>   
>   One possible method for maintaining the database of questions would be
>   to have a few fields that parallel the question and answer mechanism.
>   
>   X-QA-Question-URL
>          The archive location of the question.
>          
>   X-QA-Tagged-By
>          Who marked this as needing an answer.
>          
>   X-QA-Followup
>          The URL of an answer.
>          
>   X-QA-Status
>          Tagged/Answered/Bug
>          
>  Questions can be resolved in a number of ways
>  
>    1. Refer to manual or help page.
>    2. Refer to previous answered question or FAQ page.
>    3. Suggested resolution.
>    4. Promotion to "bug" status.
>       
>Comments
>
>   Send comments to address@hidden

;
; To UNSUBSCRIBE:  Send a mail message to address@hidden
;                  with "unsubscribe lynx-dev" (without the
;                  quotation marks) on a line by itself.
;