Scoring
Scoring allows the user to give an article a rating based on user-defined scoring rules. This rating can then be used by Pan to perform score-based actions.
When a group's article headers are first downloaded from the news server, all the articles have a score of 0. Then the list of scoring rules in the score file are applied to each article. The score file rules might give an article from John Smith a high score, while articles with a subject line containing the phrase "For Sale" a negative score.
Scoring Actions
Pan can perform two actions based on an article's score:
View an article by using . The default is to hide articles (by not matching) with a score of -9999. and view all other scores.
Change the background and text color of the score column in the Header Pane. This is defined in .
Adding Scoring Rules
There are several ways to add rules to the score file. Select an article in the Header Pane and then select . This rule sets the score of any post located in the thread of the selected article to 9999.
The opposite of the above rule is . This rule sets the score of any post located in the thread of the selected article to -9999.
Both of these scoring rules only work in the selected group and expire in one month.
Selecting an article and selecting will open the New Scoring Rule dialog.
The default of this scoring rule is to score all the posts of the author of the selected article -9999 for the next month in the selected group. By clicking on various fields and selecting different options in the New Scoring Rule dialog, you can customize the rule further. For instance, instead of having the rule expire in one month, you can have the rule last forever. Also note that you can make the rule add to the score of an article, making it a watch rule. So the name "Ignore Author" can be somewhat of a misnomer.
When finished, click to close the dialog box.
Selecting an article and selecting is very similar to the Ignore Author section described above as it opens the same New Scoring Rule dialog, just with different defaults. Construct a rule in the same fashion as described above.
Editing or Deleting Scoring Rules
Selecting an article that is currently being scored and choosing will open the Article's Scores dialog box. From this dialog you can manipulate the scoring rule for the currently selected article. Each rule will have its own row describing the scoring action (plus or minus points), locations and line number of this rule in the score file and the texts of the rule. Select the rule and click button to alter the rule or button to delete the rule from the score file. Click when finished.
Advanced Scoring
The scoring file is located at $HOME/.pan2/Scoring. Advanced users might want to edit this file directly with a text editor to create advanced scoring rules that are difficult or impossible to construct from the New Scoring Rule dialog. The format of the scoring rules is similar to the application slrn, but be aware that not all slrn scoring functions will work in Pan.
The slrn scoring functions are described in the document slrn - Scoring.