OFFTOPIC Re: [Mailman-Users] Archive URL in postings (2.1b3)

[Nigel Metheringham]

[Interesting to see that the Mail List Experts (presumably a mailman
list of this type could loosely be described as that) still suffer from
the 2000 threads under one unrelated subject problem :-) ]


On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 03:37, J C Lawrence wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 10:56:39 -0800 (PST) 
> alex wetmore <alex at phred.org> wrote:
> 
> > 1) You are using an email system which removes duplicates (based on
> > the Message-Id header).  Microsoft Exchange 2000 is one such system.
> > If Mailman is changing the headers so much perhaps it should stick a
> > new Message-Id on the message though.
> 
> We should start out admitting that such mail systems are broken and then
> decide how far we want to cater to such broken systems.

Accepting that it is broken to attempt to duplicate filter on message
id, its also broken to send out different messages with the same message
id - if only for the sake of the poor schmuck attempting to work through
his MTA logs where 1000 different (different injection, sender and
recipient) messages all have the same message id.   It can be done but
it gets much harder...

Oh rats - I guess that totally breaks threading then.... this is a
horrid morass.

To go back to the To header handling.  The basic reason I don't like it
is because I use the headers to mentally process a message's relevance
to me - along with various other things.  A message that has my name in
the To/Cc line I assume the sender had a reason for including me - ie I
was involved in the thread previously and so might be expected to
continue an interest.  Now I will have 2 copies of that mail - main
mailbox and list mailbox - but I generally always reply from the list
mailbox.  The To mangling breaks my mental processes (and I'm getting
too old to go and buy some more) without any real gain that I can see.
It looks too much like a spammers trick to persuade me its really a
personal message.

	Nigel.
-- 
[ Nigel Metheringham           Nigel.Metheringham at InTechnology.co.uk ]
[ - Comments in this message are my own and not ITO opinion/policy - ]