Re: Plans for automated bapc?

[Ken Olum <kdo cosmos phy tufts edu>]

   From: Benjamin Lehmann <benvlehmann gmail com>
   Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:37:39 -0500

   Can I just see the calendar of events?

   Yes. The link I sent before was the subcription link, but [1]this
   link should allow anyone to view the calendar, with or without a Google
   account.

Very good, thanks.

   Right now, Date, Time, Location, and Title are parsed by the script.

Speaker is very important.  I don't think we want to send out weekly
emails without speaker names.  Also the weekly calendar should have the
information necessary to attend to talk, which includes the Zoom link
(or how to obtain it) if the talk is online.

   Everything else is retained in the calendar event, just in the "note"
   field. (You can see this by clicking on the single event currently in
   the calendar.) The easiest thing to do would be to include all of this
   information in the weekly email, but we could do further parsing.

I don't think we want to put everything in the weekly email.  In
particular, I think we don't want abstracts, because they are long and
make it hard to scan through the listings.

   Here's an [2]example link for a single event listing. (Note that if
   you are signed into a Google calendar that has the event added, it   
   will just load your calendar and highlight the event. If you're not
   logged in, or aren't subscribed, then it will show you a standalone
   page with the details of this single event.)

I guess if you are logged into Google at all, you "are signed into a
Google calendar", even if you have never used Google calendar.  So it
shows a blank calendar without the event on it, but then a pop-up with
the event details.  But the info is there, so I don't know if it
matters.

   I don't know whether anyone should be able to submit.

   Suggestion: it would be trivial to restrict to .edu addresses (or a
   particular set of domains), and that would probably protect against
   almost all abuse. What do you think?

I think this is too narrow, and may also be too broad.  Not everyone
with legitimate postings will have a .edu address.  Also some people
have .edu addresses but never use them.  I guess it might work to allow
all .edu addresses and have some other system for people who have other
addresses.  But also, anyone who has ever gone to university probably
has a .edu address.  So at least certain kinds of targeted abuse would
not be stopped.  On the other hand, an abuser could subscribe to the
bapc now and then send abusive emails, I don't think this has ever
happened.

I guess we could allow anyone who is subscribed to the bapc mailing list
to post notices, though that would require exporting the notices
subscriptions from Tufts to Google.  (Or maintaining the whole list at
Google, I suppose.)

   I found a good way of labeling events with the submitter's email
   address without making it public. The system now supports event
   creation from any .edu email address, and allows the creator of an
   event to replace, delete, or cancel it. (Cancellation just modifies
   the title from "Title" to "CANCELLED: Title".)

   Upon submission, the confirmation email includes an ID (e.g.
   "BAPC-mm12ex5n-zx4r") that can be used to make changes later. For
   example, to cancel the event, the submitter just needs to send an email
   with subject line "Cancel BAPC-mm12ex5n-zx4r".

This seems very useful.  I think this message should be accepted from
any email address, since abusers will not have the ID.  You should
probably send an email back to the person who cancels saying that they
should also send an email to the bapc list announcing the cancellation.
Or else send all cancellations to the list.  

This brings up the question that John raised about what notifications
one should get.  I think it should be possible to not interact directly
with the calendar at all, but just get the weekly emails.  This means
that cancellations and changes of location or time need to be sent to
the mailing list, either by the poster or by the system.  What about
late postings?  Currently people send them to the list, but they don't
have any other way to announce them.  Maybe in the new system, they
should go on the calendar but people who are only getting email
shouldn't get notified.  For sure, people should not be notified about
changes of title, additions of abstracts and other links, and so on.

   Thanks, John—that's a much better strategy. I've implemented it and now
   the digest looks much cleaner in a rich email viewer...

This looks good except that the example needs to look more like an
example, without any specific details that could be confused with an
actual posting.

Thanks again for all the work that you are putting into this.

                                        Ken