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Rick! You DEFINITELY earned a spot on the top-ten list! I'll have to re-read the hillbillies, "Safety Dive", some of Cobb's classics, and some of Kevin's stuff to figure out the exact placement, but you're definitely up there. Part of the reason I don't mind the inanity on this list is that it often serves as the inspiriation for ultra-high quality humor. Rich P.S. Add the following to the "Hot Button" list: "Rebreathers" (or "'breathers") "Wakulla II" "Bill Stone" "Jim King" "John Zumrick" "Independents" "Personal Preference" "Back-mounted Deco Gas" Also, you should add another category "Recipients". For example, I know defacto that anything G writes to, say, Chris Brown, should be deleted immediately without reading it (however, transactions in the reverse direction are almost always keepers). On Thu, 3 Oct 1996, Rick Fincher wrote: > Hi All, > > Several people have posted lately commenting on the fact that George's messages > often contain pearls of wisdom gleaned from hard won experience, but frequently > contain diatribes filled with scatalogical references and little or no > information that furthers their knowledge of diving. > > If you are like I am you have a limited amount of time to read email and would > like an automated way of separating the wheat from the chaff so that you don't > spend a lot of time manually sorting the messages out by reading through them > all. > > A simple kill file will prevent all of George's mail from getting through, but > that also eliminates all the useful info. > > I pondered the problem for awhile and analyzed some of George's messages and > came up with an algorithm to do the job in an automated fashion. > > The general idea is to scan the message looking for key phrases. These phrases > fall into four basic categories. These are: > > Denigration > Homophobic > Hot Button > General > > The Hot Button phrases get the most points because they are most likely to get > George's blood pressure up and set off a tirade. > > Create a file on your system for each category and put the known phrases into > the proper file. So far I have: > > DENIGRATION: > bone smuggler > stroke > suck my dick > SMD > shut the fuck up > stfu > dumb fuck > > HOMOPHOBIC: > anus lapper > transformer > > HOT BUTTON: > butt mount light > Genesis tanks > square battery case > prismatic battery case > Dacor Scooter > magnetic switch > breathe the short hose > > GENERAL: > sushi > Lucys > knee pads > pet the pony > > Your filter program simply scans the mail message for the phrases in each > category and assigns a point value to each. If the points racked up by a message > goes over a preset value it is put in a hold file for later review. Sentences > with more than one phrase in them get extra points. > > As George comes up with new phrases or as you tire of reading the same old > flames every time some new guy comes on the list and posts a message like: > > "I'm having some problems butt mounting my light and was wondering if..." > > Add the appropriate phrase to the proper file and you won't be bothered with it > any more. > > At first I broke each phrase down into nouns and adjectives but after further > thought I decided that it didn't really matter whether you were an "anus lapping > bone smuggler" or a "bone smuggling anus lapper". If the root form of each > phrase is stored in the files your pattern matching software uses, you can catch > either form. For example "anus lapp" will match either the noun phrase "anus > lapper" or the adjective phrase "anus lapping". > > One problem I had was with phrases having double meanings. Some examples are: > > butt mounter > weenie hoover > short hose > > A "butt mounter" could go in the Hot Button file as one who butt mounts lights, > or it could go in the Homophobic file as one who mounts butts. > > Similarly a "weenie hoover" could be simple Denigration as one who sucks a lot > of air on weenie dives, or in the Homophobic file as one who sucks weenies. > > Also a "short hose" could be someone who either breathes the short hose or > someone with a short penis. > > It is difficult for an automated program to determine which meaning these > phrases have, but in these three cases it didn't really matter because either > definition was equally bad. Just be sure and put each phrase in only one > category so it won't be double counted. > > Since I'm in a UNIX environment I used a simple shell file with awk and sed to > do the pattern matching but you could use your favorite programming language or > database to do the job or even macros in a word processor using its "find" > command. > > I'm able to read through techdiver mail much more quickly now, and if it appears > I have missed a message of substance I can retrieve it from the hold file for > review. > > By tuning the point values you set for each phrase you can filter out the > messages that annoy you 90% of the time while rarely missing a good one. > > If I missed any good phrases please post them to the list. > > Please direct flames and hate mail to /dev/null. > > Hope this helps. > > Rick > -- > Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@terra.net'. > Send subscription/archive requests to `techdiver-request@terra.net'. > Richard Pyle deepreef@bi*.bi*.ha*.or* ******************************************************************* "WHATEVER happens to you when you willingly go underwater is COMPLETELY and ENTIRELY your own responsibility! If you cannot accept this responsibility, stay out of the water!" *******************************************************************
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