While searching a related subject I came across correspondence on a possible Node2Email feature. This feature was supposed to allow a monk to email a node to him/herself or anyone else s/he care to inform. This was discussed back in the early part of the year 2000, long before I came aboard. The Node@Email node is still there but has been turned off for security reasons. From the comment in the node it was supposed to be turned back on RSN but never was. Was the idea dropped?

My related subject was to discuss the feasibility of setting up a 'monk-to-monk' email system. Email limited to PM, addressed by handle.CB is OK although I seldom use it, and participating in threads is excellent but sometimes the ability to write privately at length is desireable. Perhaps it should be limited in the number of addressees (5?) in one email to prevent public rants or, god forbid, spam. At any rate, does anyone think either is a good idea? Worth talking about?

xenchu

Update: Once again my ignorance of Perl and the Monastery shows. I didn't know PM would redeirect mail sent to xenchu@perlmonks.org. Frankly it never occurred to me that they would. That is my reason for being here, to correct the faults of ignorance (my others are beyond help or education). I thank you all for helping.

I think my main reason for asking about 'monk-to-monk' mail was that I dislike the tiny window in CB for inputting messages. If I write someone personally it tends to be a longer note. I prefer to reread it before I send it. And I really don't like giving out my email address except by necessity, which is a personal failing of mine. I suppose there is a way around the tiny window that I just haven't found yet.

The Needs of the World and my Talents run parallel to infinity.

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Re: Whatever happened to Node2Email?
by CountZero (Bishop) on Dec 18, 2003 at 19:42 UTC
    Worth talking about? Certainly!

    A good idea? Answers will vary.

    I could live with it, but only if each Monk could choose to get e-mail through the Monastery. Some kind of "switch" needs to be implemented ("off" by default), to allow mail to be send in this way. This will avoid spam and respect your right not to receive e-mail.

    I see only one worse problem than receiving lots of e-mail in your mailbox: not receiving any Monastery e-mail in your mailbox at all! ;)

    CountZero

    "If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law

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Re: Whatever happened to Node2Email?
by theorbtwo (Prior) on Dec 18, 2003 at 22:38 UTC

    Node2email is really pretty useless, IMHO. If you want to mail a pointer to a node, or even a node, to yourself, or another person, you know where to find your mailer. Indeed, write a script to do it, if that's not easy enough. We make it rather easy to do that. If you want the raw form of the node, use the xml view, if you want the cooked form, use the print view, and parse it out.

    As to your email system, the best way to do it is probably simple email forwarding -- if mail comes to an unknown address @perlmonks.org, check if it's a user. If it is, forward it to the address they've chosen to forward to, if any, or bounce it if none.

    However, I don't see the neccisity -- if the monk wants email, they'll put the address on their homenode. Plenty, including me, do. It's just one more thing to load the server, and potentialy be buggy. It's also something that doesn't fit in well with our current paradigm (IE the Everything Engine), as it invoves lots of external scripts and configuration files, not nodes.

    Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).

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Re: Whatever happened to Node2Email?
by BUU (Prior) on Dec 18, 2003 at 21:06 UTC
    As to the first, well, sounds like a sort of good idea. No real opinion.

    As to the second, why on earth should we need to duplicated something that already exists and works damn well? If you want to talk privately either private message the monk or just email him. Simple.
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Re: Whatever happened to Node2Email?
by nimdokk (Vicar) on Dec 19, 2003 at 11:23 UTC
    My 2 cents on the idea of the 'monk-to-monk' email system is that it might not be a good idea unless adequate controls were in place to prevent spamming. I'm on a chat system that does email redirects to your real address that you gave when registering (and is in your profile) so I could send an email to "user@chatboard.com" and it would get to them even if I didn't know their real address (providing they kept a valid email address in their profile). The problem is that this got out somehow and as a result, spam levels increased significantly. I ended up setting up a filter that trashes anything sent that comes in with "myuser@chatboard.com" anywhere in the headers. I don't miss much in the way of email because no one really uses the redirection much. Probably because of the spamming. Perhaps include something (if this were ever implemented) that would allow an individual to select not to receive these sorts of emails. While this might not be quite the same as your suggestion, there could still be problems. To paraphrase one of Murphey's Laws of Programming: It Is Impossible to Make Anything Spam-proof, Because Spammers are so Ingenious. ;-)

    "Ex libris un peut de tout"
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Re: Whatever happened to Node2Email?
by l3nz (Friar) on Dec 19, 2003 at 12:53 UTC
    I don't think I would actually use Node2Email, but the iea of having it around does not disturb me, if anybody finds a positive value. Something I don't want is one more email address - I have enough of them already.

    About your second point, PerlMonks has a way to send private messages to users, and it seems to be working. Of course it works only for short pages, but in the end I could page you my email address and we could continue the discussion that way. What's wrong with it?

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