Handling mailing lists

Handling mailing lists

[Jérôme Marant]

Hi,

  Currently, if you want to handle mailing lists as speficic recipients,
  i.e. make as if a reply-to contained the mailing list address in mails
  you receive from that list, you have to edit to-address and to-list
  variables in group parameters.

  However I've seen in other MUA more practical ways of implementing
  this: a list contains all mailing list addresses you subscribed to
  and whenever you reply to a mail, the MUA try to find one of
  these addresses within To: or Cc: and if so, it fills the To: field
  of your reply with the mailing list address.

  Could such a feature be implemented in Gnus?

  Thanks.

-- 
Jérôme Marant

Re: Handling mailing lists

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Thu, 4 Apr 2002, jerome.marant@fr.thalesgroup.com wrote:
>   However I've seen in other MUA more practical ways of implementing
>   this: a list contains all mailing list addresses you subscribed to
>   and whenever you reply to a mail, the MUA try to find one of these
>   addresses within To: or Cc: and if so, it fills the To: field of
>   your reply with the mailing list address.
> 
>   Could such a feature be implemented in Gnus?

I'm sure it can, but think about the implications: if I specifically
CC someone who is not on the list, your reply will eliminate their
address from the recipient list.  Or am I misunderstanding what you're
asking?

The Mail-Followup-To header makes a lot more sense to me.

Ted

Re: Handling mailing lists

[Nevin Kapur]

Jérôme Marant <jerome.marant@fr.thalesgroup.com> writes:

>   this: a list contains all mailing list addresses you subscribed to
>   and whenever you reply to a mail, the MUA try to find one of
>   these addresses within To: or Cc: and if so, it fills the To: field
>   of your reply with the mailing list address.
>
>   Could such a feature be implemented in Gnus?

Perhaps the variables message-subscribed-addresses and
message-subscribed-regexps can help you.

-- 
		     :: Nevin :: nevin@jhu.edu ::

Re: Handling mailing lists

[Josh Huber]

Jérôme Marant <jerome.marant@fr.thalesgroup.com> writes:

>   However I've seen in other MUA more practical ways of implementing
>   this: a list contains all mailing list addresses you subscribed to
>   and whenever you reply to a mail, the MUA try to find one of these
>   addresses within To: or Cc: and if so, it fills the To: field of
>   your reply with the mailing list address.

Well, it's almost there.

The code for handling the Mail-Followup-To header builds a list of
addresses to check to subscription.  There are a few different ways to
do this right now.  This is how I use the MFT generation code:

(setq gnus-parameters
      '(("^mail\\.lists\\." (subscribed . t))))

(setq message-subscribed-address-functions
      '(gnus-find-subscribed-addresses))

gnus-find-subscribed-addresses makes a list of to-address and to-list
addresses from all groups which are (subscribed . t).

There is also message-subscribed-addresses:

(setq message-subscribed-addresses
      '("list1@foo.com" "list2@foo.com" ...))

oh, and don't forget message-subscribe-regexps and
message-subscribed-address-file...

(phew!)

Now, just make some function which consults these variables and call
it gnus-list-reply?

Of course, there is supposed to be some separation between gnus and
message.el, so doing this "properly" might be tricky... ;)

ttyl,

-- 
Josh Huber

Re: Handling mailing lists

[Josh Huber]

Josh Huber <huber@alum.wpi.edu> writes:

> Now, just make some function which consults these variables and call
> it gnus-list-reply?

Right, and as Ted mentioned, this will ignore MFT, so I wonder if it's
such a good idea?

Perhaps it still would be good, but as an extra keybinding.  Is this
what list-reply (L) does in mutt?  Does it consult the "lists" and
"subscribed" variables when making the decision?

Does it ignore Mail-Followup-To when you do a list-reply?

ttyl,

-- 
Josh Huber

Re: Handling mailing lists

[Paul Jarc]

Jérôme Marant <jerome.marant@fr.thalesgroup.com> wrote:
>   Currently, if you want to handle mailing lists as speficic recipients,
>   i.e. make as if a reply-to contained the mailing list address in mails
>   you receive from that list, you have to edit to-address and to-list
>   variables in group parameters.

to-address is sufficient.

>   However I've seen in other MUA more practical ways of implementing
>   this: a list contains all mailing list addresses you subscribed to
>   and whenever you reply to a mail, the MUA try to find one of
>   these addresses within To: or Cc: and if so, it fills the To: field
>   of your reply with the mailing list address.

I think the way to do this would be:
if Mail-Followup-T is set in the original message
  use it
else
  build a list of recipient addresses from the original message that
  match message-subscribed-*;
  if the list is not empty
    use it as the recipient list for the response
  else
    use the current behavior

I guess this could be wedged into message-get-reply-headers.  I'm not
sure it would be a good idea, though: a thread crossposted to multiple
lists will get silently limited to just whichever list(s) you happen
to be subscribed to.  (to-address is just as bad (or worse) in this
way.)  But you'd still have to edit group parameters to set to-list
for new messages, so I don't see how this saves you any work.

The Right Way is for all MUAs to support MFT.  Effort spent on kluges
to work around the lack of MFT could instead be spent working toward
the real solution, by promoting MFT to MUA maintainers and the other
posters on lists you're subscribed to.


paul

Re: Handling mailing lists

[Reiner Steib]

On Thu, Apr 04 2002, Paul Jarc wrote:

> if Mail-Followup-T is set in the original message
>   use it
> else
>   build a list of recipient addresses from the original message that
>   match message-subscribed-*;
>   if the list is not empty
>     use it as the recipient list for the response
>   else
>     use the current behavior

> I guess this could be wedged into message-get-reply-headers.  

In some mailing list headers I saw "List-Post:", e.g.:

| List-Post: <mailto:ticker@cert.uni-stuttgart.de>

It is mentioned in RFC 2369, so maybe it should be used if there's no
Mail-Followup-To?

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo--- PGP key available via WWW   http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: Handling mailing lists

[Paul Jarc]

Reiner Steib <4uce.02.r.steib@gmx.net> wrote:
> | List-Post: <mailto:ticker@cert.uni-stuttgart.de>
>
> It is mentioned in RFC 2369, so maybe it should be used if there's no
> Mail-Followup-To?

Instead of what?  This is still generated by something that has no
knowledge of which other recipient addresses are other lists, or which
are individuals who aren't subscribed but want to follow this thread;
it only tells us which recpient address was the one that relayed a
copy to us.


paul

Re: Handling mailing lists

[Jérôme Marant]

Hi,

  Thank you for your replies.

  I'm sorry for the delay: I was just browsing randomly the list archives
  and I discovered that I got replies for my question althought I did
  not receive anything in my mailbox.

  It happens that the mail server I'm using at work breaks sometimes
  and bounces mail.
  Does the ding@gnus.org mailing list server automatically unsubscribe
  a given address when it receives too many bounces? If so, I'm a bit
  disappointed I've not been warned of my unsubscription.

  Regards,

-- 
Jérôme Marant

http://marant.org
              

Re: Handling mailing lists

[Jesper Harder]

jmarant@free.fr (Jérôme Marant) writes:

>   Does the ding@gnus.org mailing list server automatically unsubscribe
>   a given address when it receives too many bounces?

I don't know about that.  But you can read the ding list as a newsgroup
from news.gnus.org to avoid problems like that.

Re: Handling mailing lists

[Jérôme Marant]

Jesper Harder <harder@ifa.au.dk> writes:

> jmarant@free.fr (Jérôme Marant) writes:
>
>>   Does the ding@gnus.org mailing list server automatically unsubscribe
>>   a given address when it receives too many bounces?
>
> I don't know about that.  But you can read the ding list as a newsgroup
> from news.gnus.org to avoid problems like that.

  Yes, but unfortunately newsgroups are read-only at work :-(

-- 
Jérôme Marant

http://marant.org
              

Re: Handling mailing lists

[Jesper Harder]

jmarant@nerim.net (Jérôme Marant) writes:

> Jesper Harder <harder@ifa.au.dk> writes:
>
>> jmarant@free.fr (Jérôme Marant) writes:
>>
>>>   Does the ding@gnus.org mailing list server automatically unsubscribe
>>>   a given address when it receives too many bounces?
>>
>> I don't know about that.  But you can read the ding list as a newsgroup
>> from news.gnus.org to avoid problems like that.
>
>   Yes, but unfortunately newsgroups are read-only at work :-(

Just set to-address to "ding@gnus.org" in the group parameters, then
your replies to the list will be sent via email even if you read it via
nntp.  

(That's what I'm doing because the news2mail gateway at sunsite.dk was
broken at some point).

Re: Handling mailing lists

[Kai Großjohann]

jmarant@nerim.net (Jérôme Marant) writes:

>   Yes, but unfortunately newsgroups are read-only at work :-(

For reading the answers to your questions, write is not necessary :-)

You might also wish to set the to-address or to-list parameter of
that group in Gnus to the ding email address.  Then you can do `a'
from the group.

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Handling mailing lists

[Jérôme Marant]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> jmarant@nerim.net (Jérôme Marant) writes:
>
>>   Yes, but unfortunately newsgroups are read-only at work :-(
>
> For reading the answers to your questions, write is not necessary :-)

  True.

>
> You might also wish to set the to-address or to-list parameter of
> that group in Gnus to the ding email address.  Then you can do `a'
> from the group.

  Ok. Thanks.

-- 
Jérôme Marant

http://marant.org
              

Re: Handling mailing lists

[Jérôme Marant]

Jesper Harder <harder@ifa.au.dk> writes:


> Just set to-address to "ding@gnus.org" in the group parameters, then
> your replies to the list will be sent via email even if you read it via
> nntp.  
>
> (That's what I'm doing because the news2mail gateway at sunsite.dk was
> broken at some point).

  Thanks.

-- 
Jérôme Marant

http://marant.org
              

Re: Handling mailing lists

[David Kågedal]

Jérôme Marant <jerome.marant@fr.thalesgroup.com> writes:

> Hi,
> 
>   Currently, if you want to handle mailing lists as speficic recipients,
>   i.e. make as if a reply-to contained the mailing list address in mails
>   you receive from that list, you have to edit to-address and to-list
>   variables in group parameters.
> 
>   However I've seen in other MUA more practical ways of implementing
>   this: a list contains all mailing list addresses you subscribed to
>   and whenever you reply to a mail, the MUA try to find one of
>   these addresses within To: or Cc: and if so, it fills the To: field
>   of your reply with the mailing list address.
> 
>   Could such a feature be implemented in Gnus?

You can easily implement your own by creating a function and set
message-wide-reply-to-function (or message-followup-to-function) to
point to it.

-- 
David Kågedal

Handling mailing lists

[Jérôme Marant]

Hi,

  Currently, if you want to handle mailing lists as speficic recipients,
  i.e. make as if a reply-to contained the mailing list address in mails
  you receive from that list, you have to edit to-address and to-list
  variables in group parameters.

  However I've seen in other MUA more practical ways of implementing
  this: a list contains all mailing list addresses you subscribed to
  and whenever you reply to a mail, the MUA try to find one of
  these addresses within To: or Cc: and if so, it fills the To: field
  of your reply with the mailing list address.

  Could such a feature be implemented in Gnus?

  Thanks.

-- 
Jérôme Marant