Re: [despammed] Re: Why does Gnus generates Lines: header in mail?

[Clemens Fischer <ino@despammed.com>]

prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc) writes:

> My previous message was addressed as:
> To: Clemens Fischer <ino@despammed.com>
> Cc: ding@gnus.org
>
> So you're saying you started to compose a reply to that message, and
> the initial message buffer had only:
> To: ding@gnus.org
> Is that what happened?  That seems fine to me.

... unless you aren't subscribed.  never mind:  to my astonishment
ding is bold enough to let non-members post.

> Anyway, this has to do
> with how Gnus handles MFT in incoming messages, which is completely
> separate from generating MFT for outgoing messages.

yes, i think this is true (but i have the strong feeling i forgot
something important...).

> Why don't you add "ding@gnus.org" to message-subscribed-addresses?

then i need another file or some mechanism that distinguishes between
lists i'm really subscribed to and those which i can read, but maybe
not post to.  but i just did, messages honouring the MFT thus
generated will appear on gmane, so i get to see them.

i have the addresses of the lists i'm subscribed to in one place,
which is also used in the filtering stage (procmail) to add a header
tagging a message as coming from a list.  these addresses used to be
regular expressions, but it seems generally better to have the
addresses spelled out.

> I just don't see the point.  What information are you really looking
> for?  If you want to know what the contents of the generated MFT will
> be, you can just look at To and Cc.  If you want to know whether MFT
> will be generated at all, then that might be useful information that
> could be added to the initial message buffer, but it could be done in
> a different way that would not cause a wrong MFT to be sent.  E.g., a
> field could be added like:
> X-Gnus-Make-MFT-For: ding@gnus.org

this is what i proposed a few sentences later, only i called the field
X-Gnus-MFT.

>> the MFT would have to be changed if To or Cc had changed.  let it be
>> configurable:
>> (i) generate MFT like it is now, calculated on the To/Cc and a list of
>>     subscribed email-lists,
>> (ii) always use the MFT as set by the user.
>
> Neither of those does what I want.  I want the current behavior: use
> my MFT if I add one myself; otherwise generate one based on To/Cc if
> I'm subscribed to one of those addresses.

(i) _is_ the current behaviour!

> AFAICT, what you want is not different behavior, but just more
> information during message editing.  So let's provide that information
> without changing the behavior.

ok.

> [two cases:  replying and starting a new thread]
> The behavior is supposed to be the same for both cases: MFT for
> outgoing messages (if autogenerated at all) is copied from To/Cc.
> So if X-Gnus-MFT were to be generated, it would be based on the
> initial To/Cc list.  But that list can be set in many different
> ways; MFT on an incoming message is just one of them.  The only
> interaction between incoming MFT and outgoing MFT is that the
> incoming MFT, if present, specifies the initial To/Cc list.

only when starting a thread, there is no information in the To/Cc, so
what do we put into X-Gnus-MFT?  if the user doesn't split lists into
separate groups, we couldn't even look at the To address of the group
parameters.

>> if X-Gnus-MFT is left blank by the user, gnus is to generate the
>> MFT as usual, if it isn't blank, override the magic.
>
> That's how MFT works now (if by "blank" you mean "nonexistent").

basically, yes.  i'm beginning to think that this entire business
could be simplified.  C-c C-f C-a (init unsubscribed-mft) or C-c C-f
C-m (move to mft) could have their semantics changed in that they
re-generate the header value according to the current contents of
To/Cc.  together with editing header fields, this would be enough for
me.

>> i wish RFC-2822 had a mandatory field with envelope information in
>> it.
>
> It wouldn't be trustworthy if it were set by the sender.  As long as
> your own receiving MTA adds those fields (e.g., Return-Path and
> Delivered-To for qmail), does it really matter whether they're
> required?

it would be ideal if the headers could be made trustworthy by yet
unknown magic, but for me it would suffice if i at least knew their
names ;)  reading through a batch of emails it seems that senders are
commonly stored in Return-Path, Delivered-To and maybe you can look at
the leading "From_...@..." if all else fails, but regarding receivers,
it's much worse.  with some mail-providers, i'm forced to scan the
received lines, because they are the only places i can see that darned
envelope receiver.  so yes, i would very much like them to be
mandatory.  envelope info is needed so many places, why does it have
to be a mythical experience to see it?

clemens