Why is nnimap expire not \Deleted?

Why is nnimap expire not \Deleted?

[Joel Reicher]

Sorry if this has already been discussed, but it seems to me that the
gnus model of expiring mail messages is exactly the same as the IMAP
model of delete and then expunge, so I don't see why one is not
straightforwardly mapped to the other.

What I'm thinking is that the expiry mark should be the \Deleted flag,
and that deleting should in fact be expunging, and that
\Deleted messages *should* be visible.

If this is done then I think what expiring and deleting does for a
local mail back end will correspond exactly to what happens on disk at
the IMAP server.

Thanks,

        - Joel

Re: Why is nnimap expire not \Deleted?

[Joel Reicher]

Joel Reicher <joel@panacea.null.org> writes:

> Sorry if this has already been discussed, but it seems to me that the
> gnus model of expiring mail messages is exactly the same as the IMAP
> model of delete and then expunge, so I don't see why one is not
> straightforwardly mapped to the other.

I just realised this isn't quite true; IMAP's EXPUNGE command will
remove all \Deleted messages, whereas gnus deletion usually depends on
an expirable mark but also some other criteria, so it will often leave
articles that have nonetheless been marked expirable. Is this the gap
between the two models and the reason for the current implementation?

Cheers,

        - Joel