Re: Automating Unsubscription (was unsubscribe ding)

[larsi@ifi.uio.no (Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen)]

steve@miranova.com (Steven L. Baur) writes:

> I almost forgot.  We need to add atoms to the group structure to
> contain information on unsubscription to mailing lists.  If
> unsubscription can be automated, I'm sure we could get cooperation
> from mailing list owners.  :-)
> 
> The mostly manual steps right now are:
> 1.  Initial subscription to list
>     There are already standard formats for this.  Something that
>     nearly always works is to put ``subscribe list-name address'' in
>     both the Subject: and body (suppressing .signature).
> 
>     At this point, a foreign group can be created and the
>     to-address/to-list atom can be filled in.

Yes, this would be easy enough to do...  A command (`G s' or whatever)
that prompts for the list name, the address, and the select method to
use to read the group.

> 2.  Receive confirmation of subscription back
>     These usually (should be always) contain instructions on how to
>     unsubscribe to the list.

But we don't really need that information, do we?  We know the name of
the list and the admin address, and sending "UNSUBSCRIBE list" to the
list address works on most list servers...

> 2b. Receive first message from list
>     (To have a complete set of headers)
> 
> 3.  Define the split method
>     Given a header to split on (either obtained manually from 2b, or
>     automatically in 2), the .procmailrc/nnmail-split-methods/etc. can
>     be updated with the new list.

This is the tricky part.  

Although when I look at the mail I receive, I notice that most of the
mail I get from list servers have a nice "From " envelope header:

    From ding-request  Sat Dec 16 22:49:33 1995

Perhaps we could just stick this into the split methods when we create
the group?  (Although I'm not sure where we'd put this split rule -- I
don't want to touch `nnmail-split-methods'; that variable should be
reserved the user.  Perhaps we could have an additional variable of
this type that's saved in the .newsrc.eld file?  Or we could use group
parameters, but that might be too inefficient...)

> Further Gnus processing can occur when/if a ``You are now
> unsubscribed'' message comes back, and can be triggered by an
> appropriate mail splitting hook.  If no unsubscription messages are
> received within a certain amount of time, the unsubscribe message
> could even be resent.
> 
> Is this worth it?

No.  :-)

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