Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!LCS.MIT.EDU!MAP From: MAP@LCS.MIT.EDU (Michael A. Patton) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Networks considered helpful Message-ID: <8912262327.AA15824@gaak.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: 26 Dec 89 23:27:26 GMT References: <8912221738.AA09309@world.std.com> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 42 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 89 12:38:38 EST From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Rather than being blasted (as most of us are) with "You have 34 new messages" every morning [...] You are right Barry, classification is very useful. I do a certain amount of classification using standard tools right now and find that I can deal with a lot more mail that way. I wish there were a few more better tools, but most would require extensions to mail and wide-spread support on originating machines. I have thought about implementing some of the ones that are completely recipient side. My general technique is to group incoming mail into about 10 categories, I can read each grouping with a slightly different mind-set. For example, the mailbox for action requests is dealt with first and carefully, but the mailbox for unimportant "general info only" mail can be scanned with only the headers (in fact when I've been away for a while, I sometimes delete indiscriminantly). Here's a (somewhat made up, since I've already read my mail today :-) version of what I see on a typical morning: There are 5 Local messages. There are 73 Misc messages. There are 3 Digest messages. There is one Kermit message. There are 15 Micro messages. There is one MITAUG message. There is one Amiga message. There are Heath People Request messages. (and yes, I'm thinking of subdividing "Misc" :-). Just for those of you who might be interested in following a similar option, here's what I do. For most systems, this either requires that you have privileges or a sympathetic system manager. Each mailing list I subscribe to is delivering mail to a different address of the form MAP--Mail and I have the local aliases file set up to distribute these among various mailboxes (named MAP-, see above). The mail reader I use (now GNUemacs RMAIL, previously ITS/Tops-20 Babyl) allows seperate mail folders with different inboxes for each. This gives me all the flexibility needed for this approach.