Rod, at 08:38 on Mon, Feb 06 1995, you wrote to Bill Grimsley ...

RS> And its not everyones definition of a twitter. Like all design 
RS> issues, its more complex than that.

BG> True, although it is also my definition of what a true 
BG> twitter should do.

RS> I think its quite the wrong way to do it with a complex 
RS> twitter that can say just drop messages from a particular 
RS> person in a particular area or drop messages on a particular 
RS> subject in a particular area.

I'd have thought that to be the ideal form for an end-user or QWK user.  If
I was going to twit somebody, it would mean that I have no interest in
their messages whatsoever, and would logically prefer them to be physically
removed from my message base, permanently.

RS> For example someone who hates OS wars may want to drop messages 
RS> which are the shots in an OS war. As soon as you have a complete 
RS> twit rule system, you need some safety and not just dump the 
RS> messages forever, coz inevitably you will get the twitting rules a 
RS> bit screwed at times.

Don't understand this at all.  Why should it matter?

RS> IMO if you want a fancy twitter it has to be in the reader, 
RS> not the converter. If only coz the fancier it gets the more 
RS> likely you are to want to tune it.

Agreed, although by their very nature, the add-on apps only work on the
message base itself, which to me is the best method anyway.  Lump them
together in a batch file, and away you go.

BG> I'm unaware of any OLR or native mailer software which
BG> actually removes messages from the database.  Only accessory
BG> apps like WIMM or NetMgr are capable of doing this AFAIK.

RS> Even thats not true. You think of QWK readers and other OLRs 
RS> as the common form where they dont have a mail base. Many of 
RS> them actually do have a mail base just like a point system 
RS> does. There is a whole class of whats generally called 
RS> database QWK readers alone.

Sure, but don't these just make the twitted name transparent to the reader,
rather than physically deleting the message in toto?

RS> And they normally do have twitters which work on the database.

I know of none which will actually delete the message though.

Regards, Bill

--- Msgedsq/2 2.3á