[Mailman-Users] Retention of Message-Id:

[J C Lawrence]

On Thu, 27 Jun 2002 09:09:40 -0400 
Kevin McCann <kmccann at bellanet.org> wrote:

> Hi there, I am using a web forum to send messages to a gated Mailman
> list. I send a custom Message-Id: header and Mailman seems to retain
> that. In other words, when I receive the message in my inbox (I'm a
> member of the list), it has the same Message-Id: that was generated by
> the forum script. Which is great - I can achieve true threading in the
> forum using these IDs when processing email replies. When I send a
> message from a forum to a Lyris list, however, Lyris does not retain
> the Message-Id:, it replaces the one I sent with it's own.

> Can someone tell me which behaviour is correct? 

Simply: BOTH.

> Is the behaviour of Lyris contrary to an RFC stipulation? If so, can
> someone point me to which RFC and which rule? If they're not being
> RFC-compliant I'd like to bring it to their attention.

Its an ambiguous situation.  Is the message sent by the list server a
new message or a mere forwarded copy of the original message?  There are
good reasons for both sides.  But, one gets a new Message-ID under the
RFC and the other doesn't.

Mailman and Lyris call on opposite sides of the split.

> Ideally, I'd like to gate my forums to any type of list - Mailman,
> Lyris, Yahoogroups. Majordomo, ezmlm, you name it. I just need to know
> whether I can *usually* depend on Message-Id: retention. 

Usually you can.  Most list servers retain Message-IDs.  A few offer it
as a config option.

-- 
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.