From: Jeremy McAnally <jeremymcanally@...>
Date: 2006-12-24T01:40:45+09:00
Subject: Re: where have all the experienced users gone?

On further reflection, perhaps something at the gateway/server level
might be appropriate.  Send a mail back that says something like,
"Check this FAQ, it may answer your question.  If not, reply to this
e-mail with a blank body" or something.  That way there's no
additional list traffic and it still gets the same thing accomplished.
 OF course, you would really only want to do that if the algorithm was
pretty darn positive it knew the answer.

--Jeremy

On 12/23/06, Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 23.12.2006 15:16, Trans wrote:
> > Trans wrote:
> >> Robert Dober wrote:
>
> >> In a post script, Jeremy McAnally had written,
> >>
> >> "It would also be mildly entertaining to have an auto-answer FAQ bot
> >> that parsed the language of a message and if it could decently figure
> >> out what they're saying, post an answer pointing  to a (currently
> >> non-existent) Ruby FAQ..."
> >>
> >> I realize that automated replies don't have the niceties of human
> >> interaction, but I think something like this could go a long way toward
> >> improving list usage. Rather then automated answers just against a FAQ,
> >> automate them against the mailing list itself via the archives. An
> >> automated answer could then provide a list of links to related old
> >> posts. Even as an experienced user I would find this kind of
> >> representation helpful! Also, with these automated replies, experienced
> >> users who are already setting up "weak" list filters, could create
> >> stronger ones based on whether a new topic received an automated reply
> >> or not, and what the automated reply concluded about it. (In fact I
> >> imagine a Bayesian filter would be part of the bots implementation.) I
> >> think it would be better for us to try something like this, and see how
> >> it fairs, before taking the leap to two lists.
> >>
> >> What do others think? And also, is anyone up to the challenge?
> >
> > I'm curious. Did anyone recieve/read this? I'm surprised no one has
> > replied to it, even if it's just to say "dumb idea".
>
> I received and read it - but since I could not provide good feedback...
>   It sounds like a good idea but I wonder how it will work in practice.
>   This might not be a problem in a newsgroup but for a mailing list this
> automated reply could easily trigger spam filters etc.  Generally I have
> a tendency against stuff that automatically increases traffic but it
> still might well be worth a try.  Dunno...
>
> Regards
>
>         robert
>
>