Sputnik-mbox integrates a mailing list archive into a Sputnik site.
This plugin has been half-done for quite some time, but it is finally
presentable.

http://sputnik.freewisdom.org/en/list/

This provides a complete integration of mailing list archives with the
wiki.  Among other things, each email sent to the list shows up in
wiki history as an edit to the corresponding node, with the right time
stamp:

http://sputnik.freewisdom.org/en/history/

Search also looks at both list archives and regular nodes.

Messages are sorted into threads, with one node representing all
messages in a thread. The messages are collapsible through JS. The
first message is shown open by default, while the rest are shown as
closed. This helps with long threads, I think, such as
http://sputnik.freewisdom.org/en/list/blueprint

A thread is defined simply by the subject field. Same subjects = same
thread. This makes it easy to refer to mailing list threads from other
wiki pages. E.g., to link to the thread "Problems installing Sputnik",
one just needs to write: [[list/Problems installing Sputnik]]. To link
to a specific message in that thread, you can write [[list/Problems
installing Sputnik#message_yuri_2]].

Nodes representing list threads are not editable through the web
interface, except by Admin. You can "edit" them by emailing the list,
though. :)

This all only works with the current code in git, but I will try to
make a release of "Fenchurch" in some reasonably near future.

- yuri

On Jan 2, 2009, at 4:24 AM, Yuri Takhteyev wrote:

> Sputnik-mbox integrates a mailing list archive into a Sputnik site.

?Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail??

? Zawinski's Law

Happy New Year! ?

Cheers,

PA.

On Jan 3, 2009, at 3:55 PM, Petite Abeille wrote:

>
> On Jan 2, 2009, at 4:24 AM, Yuri Takhteyev wrote:
>
>> Sputnik-mbox integrates a mailing list archive into a Sputnik site.
>
> ?Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail??
>
> ? Zawinski's Law

Pet peeve: jwz didn't originate that.  See

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.handhelds.ipaq.general/12198

and jwz's followup at

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.handhelds.ipaq.general/12226

Now I feel old.

Jay

On Jan 3, 2009, at 11:42 PM, Jay Carlson wrote:

> Pet peeve: jwz didn't originate that.

Hmmm... you mean it was inspired by the MIT one [1]?

"Every program in development at MIT expands until it can read mail."

Will be remembered as "Zawinski's Law" nonetheless :)

Cheers,

PA.

[1] http://groups.google.com/group/rec.humor.funny/browse_thread/thread/2195f8fdf5402dbd/786a67b37348bc23

> "Every program in development at MIT expands until it can read mail."

I believe the second part says "Those programs which cannot so expand
are replaced by ones which can." :)

More seriously, though, let me clarify two things. First, handling
mbox archives is not intended to be incorporated into Sputnik as a
default feature. It will be a plugin, installable with luarocks, so
there is no bloat in core sputnik. You don't need to install this
plugin. Second, the plugin itself consists of a total of 251 lines of
Lua code, which includes (1) two custom actions, (2) two templates,
and (3) a script to load mbox files into Sputnik. (You will also need
a generic lua module for reading mbox files - which adds whopping 200
lines. And you will need lua-iconv to handle conversion from different
encodings into utf8.)

Sputnik has quite obviously grew in size from its original 2000 lines
of Lua, but not as much as one might think. The current sputnik rock
consists of just a little over 3000 lines of actual Lua code (skipping
comments and blank lines), plus another 3000 lines of templates,
images, css, js, etc. versium and saci together add another 1300
lines.  And with plugins it can do quite a lot of things. To me this a
good balance between features and small code size.

There is a more serious issue with what Andr=E9 once called "paradigm
overload" [1]. Once your site includes non-editable pages that
represent mailing list threads, calling it a "wiki" might perhaps be a
little confusing. To me the benefits of having the list archives
integrated into the site seem obvious, but it does create challenges
for communicating what Sputnik is. Perhaps we should come back to the
question of whether Sputnik should be presented as "a wiki that can be
expanded to do things wikis don't usually do" or "a simple CMS that
works as a wiki out of the box".

 - yuri

[1]: http://sputnik.freewisdom.org/en/list/blueprint#message_carregal_1

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On Jan 4, 2009, at 4:58 PM, Yuri Takhteyev wrote:

>> "Every program in development at MIT expands until it can read mail."
>
> I believe the second part says "Those programs which cannot so expand
> are replaced by ones which can." :)

Ironically and/or shamefully enough, Nanoki has indeed plans for email  
integration as well :))

Interestingly, the plan goes in the exact opposite directly than  
Sputnik: provide Nanoki as a email service vs. convert email into  
Sputnik...

(1) Format

In the same way as pages can be rendered in HTML and XML, pages will  
be represented as a self contained "message/rfc822" content type.

http://www.freesoft.org/CIE/RFC/1521/23.htm

E.g.:

http://svr225.stepx.com:3388/sputnik-program.html
http://svr225.stepx.com:3388/sputnik-program.xml
http://svr225.stepx.com:3388/sputnik-program.msg (not implemented yet)

Collection of pages will be represented as "multipart/digest" content  
type.

http://www.freesoft.org/CIE/RFC/1521/19.htm

E.g.:

http://svr225.stepx.com:3388/search.html?q=sputnik
http://svr225.stepx.com:3388/search.xml?q=sputnik
http://svr225.stepx.com:3388/search.msg?q=sputnik (not implemented yet)

(2) Protocol

In addition to the current HTTP/WebDAV access, POP3 and SMTP will  
provide the necessary plumbing for direct email integration. E.g.  
access page content as message/rfc822 directly from a email client  
through POP3 and, similarly, post new pages directly from an email  
client through SMTP.

Cheers,

--
PA.
http://alt.textdrive.com/nanoki/







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