Saturday, February 25th, 2006, 5:39 pm
Mailing Lists Statistics
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HIS item serves as a brief introduction and a pointer to a mailing list analysis tool. The tool in question is capable of producing statistics for mail that is stored in a standardised form, namely the MBOX format. The tool is called MailListStat, MLS being the memorable abbreviation.
I am currently generating statistics for mailing lists where I am most active, but there is a pitfall. Messages are not always RFC-compliant and, as a result, a certain number of messages gets discarded by MLS. Consequently, statistics do not reflect on the true figures and facts. I have changes the code and re-compiled it, but it was a “mend-and-break” situation. I could never get the desired results and only borked the package progressively. So, eventually I chickened out and aborted my initiative. The author of the tools admits there are some issues related to message headers interpretation. In the mean time, it seems as though I definitely gave up on this.
UPDATE: As of this morning, I am able to use the tool perfectly well. By saving mailing list archives in Horde/IMP, I am able to make the header both uniform and acceptable as input to MLS.
Related item: Newsgroups Statistics
