Re: mailing list subject lines

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On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Fotios Nastos wrote:

>Can I request that the mailing list administrators set-up the mailing list so 
>that emails are sent with something like "[fedora]" prepended to the subject 
>line?

You can request it, but it almost certainly will be refused, 
because there is no good reason for that.

>I know, that I sound like I am whining (I guess I am), and that some people 
>use email programs that automatically filter incoming mail, but I suspect 
>that this is a high-volume list, and it would really help some list-members.

There are proper mail headers which are specifically intended for 
use for filtering on, in particular:

X-BeenThere:
X-Mailing-List:

and other headers.  I filter using X-BeenThere myself, however 
others are likely to recommend a different header.  It's largely 
personal preference and experimentation as to which one works 
best for an individual however, so try one of the above and see 
if it works for you, or try one of the other suggestions others 
will likely make.

Having crap added to subject headers though, is not necessary,
and it reduces the visible subject for no good reason.

>The other mailing lists I'm subscribed to prepend their subject
>lines with [mailing-list name] and it makes it much easier to
>get a handle on my inbox in the mornings.

That is because:

1) GNU mailman defaults to that braindead setting of putting 
   [listname] in the subject for some unknown reason.

2) A lot of people who want to filter email think that the only 
   way of doing it is if [listname] is in the subject, which is 
   incorrect.  Once they are made aware that this should be done 
   using X-BeenThere, X-Mailing-List or other headers, they can 
   filter mail into folders perfectly well without scuffing up 
   the subject line.

All Red Hat mailing lists have the [listname] stuff removed 
intentionally, because it is unnecessary and annoying to many 
people, and provides no really new functionality that doesn't 
already exist with existing headers.  For those who like the 
[listname] to appear in the subject anyway, such as if they file 
multiple mailing lists into one folder and want to visually 
differentiate between them, they can modify their mail filter 
rules to add [something] into the subject line for themselves 
using the "formail" program which comes with procmail.

Best of both worlds.


-- 
Mike A. Harris     ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer - XFree86 maintainer - Red Hat




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