>Well, it seems to make more sense to have a well-defined place (like the
>start of the subject line rather than have it "in the headers".
I suggest you read RFC 822.
>I like precision.
Then purchase a vernier caliper.
>Causes less problems downstream.
For you perhaps.
>And the "If your mail client can't sort properly..." is a
>fatuous argument.
No it is not. As far as I know, there is *NO* defined email
header that is a standard place to put identifying information as
to which mailing list a particular mail comes from.
Therefore, it is up to the administrator of each mailing list to
deal with this inconvenient issue themselves, and in the best way
known to them.
The best nonintrusive way to do this, is to put a new header into
the mail message called "X-mailing-list" which is what a great
many mailing lists do. Other lists, have some other static
header.
Since there is no "standard way" to identify a mailing list
across the board, each list does it in their own way. Some do in
fact use the subject line, because their admin does not know any
better. Others do it the proper way, but choosing some other
header that does not negatively affect anything.
Since there is no standard way to put identify the mailing list
in the message headers, there is also no standard way for email
client software to "detect" which mailing list a mail comes from.
The identifying information is in _some_ header, but that could
be any one of many, or none at all. As such, the best way to
implement mail folder sorting is with some regular expression
based email filter that can search the header, and optionally the
body of each incoming mail message.
If you were to do a poll of all mailing lists out there, you
would very much find that a large majority of them do NOT use the
subject line for identification, and DO use an alternate header
of some sort, or no indentification at all. I am on about 30
mailing lists right now, and not ONE uses the subject line, thank
god.
As such, this is how the MAJORITY of mailing lists indentify
themselves to client software, and it is up to the end user to
run software that can properly filter mail based on defacto
standard procedures for identifying mailing lists. If you do
not, then your software isn't broken, but it isn't going to do
what you want either. As such, you can either upgrade your mail
client, or even better - use procmail as your mail filter. It is
free, and works as a front end to your mailbox, so you can use
ANY EMAIL CLIENT you wish.
>Taken to the other extreme, would it cause insurmountable
>problems to the other "several thousand" on the mailing list?
Yes it would. The subject line allready gets cut in half when
displaying the folder screen in practically any email client.
Thus you have about 3-4 inches of subject line showing at best.
Losing 2 more inches to put "[LINUX-KERNEL]" on every message
would make it extremely inconvenient to everyone on this list
that matters (and I'm not necessarily one of them).
>I think not.
That is your opinion. At any rate the discussion is completely
useless, and a waste of bandwidth because regardless of what you
think/want on the issue, the maintainer of the vger mailing
lists, as well as 99.9% of the subscribers of all the vger
mailing lists do not want the current method to change. You can
complain until you're purple if you like, but it is basically a
"I am GOD of this mailing list, and it will not change" issue, so
don't waste your breath. (Note: GOD - in the above context, is
not me. ;o) I believe David Miller is GOD in this particular
context. ;o)
Other than that, enjoy the mailing list, and check out the
procmail program:
man procmail
Use the following rule to sort linux-kernel:
# Store linux kernel messages into a different folder.
:0:
* ^TOlinux-kernel@vger
LINUX-KERNEL
Take care,
TTYL
-- Mike A. Harris Linux advocate GNU advocate Computer Consultant Open Source advocateTea, Earl Grey, Hot...
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/