[Mailman-Users] Topics and Keywords, Consolidation and Filtering

[Mark Sapiro]

Caylan Larson wrote:
>
>A list has been created that has multiple topics (in this case 
>operating-systems), each topic containing a half-dozen keywords (apple, 
>microsoft, linux, solaris, etc.).  This list is called 
>admins at example.com.  Our sys-admins subscribe to various topics; 
>delivery works great.
>
>To make it easy for our users to contact each team, we have setup the 
>following in /etc/postfix/aliases:
>=========SNIP=========
>apple:	| "/usr/local/sbin/subject-prefix.sh Apple admins"
>microsoft:	| "/usr/local/sbin/subject-prefix.sh Microsoft admins"
>linux:	| "/usr/local/sbin/subject-prefix.sh Linux admins"
>network:	| "/usr/local/sbin/subject-prefix.sh Network admins"
>=========SNAP
>
>The subject-prefix script contains a simple sed substitution, which 
>adds a "Keywords: " header, and passes of to the Mailman list:
>=========SNIP=========
>#!/bin/sh
>
>NEWLINE='\
>'
>/bin/sed "s/Subject:/Keywords:\ $1$NEWLINE\Subject:/" | 
>/usr/sbin/sendmail $2
>=========SNAP
>
>Note:  If they were multiple Mailman lists, (which they were at one 
>point), and I was subscribed to Apple/Linux/Network, I would end up 
>getting 3 separate emails if someone CCd an issue to all 3.  With 
>topics, we get one nice email.

I must be missing something here. The way you have it above, if someone
Ccd Apple, Linux and Network, wouldn't there ultimately be three
messages to the admins list, each with one of the Keywords:?


>Can Mailman add the "Keywords: " header, or similar, to leave an 
>audit-trail so clients can sort their mail based on topics that were 
>matched?  If not, how is a user able to identify (or debug) what a 
>particular piece of mail pertains to.


You might be able to add a new module to the pipeline to add a
Keywords: header, but based on what and how would the result be
different from what you're doing above? Ultimately, whatever Mailman
uses to assign a message to a topic is somewhere in the message
Mailman sees to begin with. The user/recipient can see whatever
Mailman saw.


>I do not want duplication or redundancy between 
>Mailman-topic-definitions and client-filter-rules.


I think this must be the crux of what you're trying to get at, but I
still don't understand.

--
Mark Sapiro <msapiro at value.net>       The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan