[Pan-users] Re: Editing Scoring Rules

[Duncan]

Bob Henson posted on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 19:48:15 +0000 as excerpted:

> Having set up scoring rules, how can I edit them. There doesn't appear
> to be any way to edit them in 0.133

There's two ways:

1. Edit the scores using pan's individual message scoring editor.

To use this, select an article, then use either the articles or context 
menu, and select the "Edit Article's Watch/Ignore/Score..." option.

This won't actually let you edit the existing scoreline(s), only add or 
remove them.  It thus works well if you just added a score to something 
but screwed up -- this lets you remove it (after which you can of course 
re-add it correctly, if desired).  Because it lists all scores that apply 
to a message to get its final score, it's also a good way of seeing what 
applies and why, if you're trying to figure out how in the world it got 
that score.

2. Edit the scorefile directly, using an ordinary text editor.

The scorefile can be in one of two places.  IIRC it's placed in pan's data 
dir (~/.pan2/ by default) by default, but for compatibility with slrn, 
which uses a very similar scorefile format, it'll use the standard 
location, ~/Newos/Score or ~/.Score or some such (IDR exactly, but you 
shouldn't need to worry about it unless you're using another compatible 
news client anyway), if it exists.

There's two available documents on the scorefile format.  As I mentioned 
above, pan's scorefile is based on the slrn format, and that's the primary 
documentation for pan's scorefile as well.  IIRC the biggest difference is 
that pan's scorefile is case insensitive by default.

http://www.slrn.org/docs/score.txt

xnews is also based on the same format, but with some changes, so this one 
might be worthwhile reading as well for its different viewpoint, but keep 
in mind that it does work a bit differently.

http://xnews.remarqs.net/scoring.txt

So equipped with the documentation, and knowing where to find the 
scorefile, you should be able to open it in your text editor, and edit as 
you like.

Now that you're there, and with the documentation above, you might wish to 
actually combine and optimize your filters into groups, etc, as described 
in the documentation above.  As an example, here's a bit of my scorefile 
(with certain addresses doctored a bit for posting, the actual scorefile's 
longer than this).  Obviously, % beginning a line indicates a comment, so 
the first bit is all comment:

% PAN scorefile
% Very close to SLRN's format at.
% http://www.slrn.org/docs/score.txt
% but with case insensitivity (not other differences) from
% xnews at http://xnews.remarqs.net/scoring.txt

% [newsgroup.*] wildcard (not regex) format (~ negates).
% header lines regex. (~ negates).
% Score conditions, single : and, double :: or.
% Expires: immed. below score if present.
% Leading % indicates comment
% Leading whitespace and blank lines ignored.
% Regex and newsgroup matches case insensitive with
% keyword:, sensitive with keyword=.
% Newsgroup change delimits section,.
% Score delimits "rule", multiple rules per section allowed.
% Comment after score becomes rule "name".

% Score levels: <=-9999 kill, -9998 to -1 low,
%               0, 1 - 4999 med, 5000 - 9998 high, >=9999 watch

%#########################################################################
%#########################################################################
[alt.*]
Score:: =-9999 %Alt kill
        From: Seeking teens
        From: teens seeker
        From: BigMovies
        From: Honey-girls

        Subject: adult movies
        Subject: dupped
        Subject: ^\([-0-9/]*\)
        Subject: Use critical pack from Microsoft Corporation
        Subject: R/-\\PE
        Subject: R/-\|PE

%#########################################################################
%#########################################################################
[cox.*]
Score:: =9999 %Cox Watched (Cox employee)
        From: <address@hidden>$
        From: ^Jay XXXX <address@hidden>$
        From: ^Steven XXXX <address@hidden>$
        From: CoxTech1
        From: ^David  XXXX <address@hidden>$
Score:: 100 %Cox Med
        From: C.M. Brannon
        From: ^Conrad J\. Sabatier <address@hidden>$
        From: ^Jim Rusling <address@hidden>$
Score:: 5000 %Cox Hi
        From: ^Lenroc <address@hidden>$
        From: ^Mag® 2º.. <address@hidden>$
Score:: =-9999 %Cox Kill (repeat-kill)
        From: ^"John Smith" <address@hidden>$
        From: John Shocked

%#########################################################################

Score:: =-9999
        %Score created by Pan on Thu Apr 26 01:59:31 2007
        Expires: 10/29/2007
        From: ^"snake plisken" <address@hidden>$

        %Score created by Pan on Wed Jul 25 10:58:05 2007
        Expires: 1/27/2008
        From: ^common_ address@hidden

%#########################################################################
%#########################################################################

----snip----

You can see how I edited out all the extraneous comments that pan adds and 
combined sections and scores, as well as using nice formatting, etc.  I 
only left the pan-created dates on the scores with expires, since that 
info's useful for them.  Obviously, they ones with expiry have long since 
expired and I could remove them, but I've not edited that file in quite 
some time, so haven't done so.  (And leaving them there now could be 
useful the next time I end up posting the example.)  Meanwhile, it's worth 
noting that even tho the expiries are separate scores, and I have them 
demarced separately, they're part of the same "section", that is, they 
apply only to the cox.* hierarchy as set above, as there has been no 
section entry changing it since cox.* was set.

IOW, while there's a whole bunch of conditionals (I've only posted a 
sample here), there's only five actual scores in two sections, in my 
scorefile.  (Note that that last one is the same score, -9999/ignore, as 
the one above it, so apparently, pan doesn't count it, as it says five 
scores in two sections, not six scores in two sections.)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman