Subject: Re: [port-mac] or [68k] in subject line?
To: Don Hamilton <infoactive@earthlink.net>
From: Monroe Williams <monroe@teleport.com>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 11/07/1996 20:53:49
Don Hamilton wrote:
>Would anyone else appreciate the mail server pre-pending [port-mac] or
>[68k] or something before the subject of each message?
>
>It sure would help me sort through the 150+ messages I get a day... and
>help keep me from missing private email subjects that  are interspersed
>with the port-mac subjects...

If you examine the headers of the messages that come through the list,
you'll see that each one contains a "Sender:" header that tells which
list it came from.  This message (assuming I send it to the right list :)
will have one like:


Most reasonable mail programs can filter messages based on these headers.
I have seperate mailboxes for incoming mail from port-mac68k, current-users, 
and several other lists I subscribe to.  All of the netbsd lists (and 
many others as well) also have a "Precedence:" header, which usually has 
the value "list" or "bulk" (although this varies widely).  The existence
of this header is a pretty good way to sift out mail from mailing lists 
so that personal messages aren't lost in the noise.

As long as I'm going slightly off-topic, I should mention that sending
mail to the "owner-*@NetBSD.org" address found in the "Sender:" header 
is not suggested.  While messages sent to these addresses will go out 
to list subscribers, bounce messages will to go to the sender instead 
of the list maintainers, and the mailing list's headers will NOT be 
added to the message, which makes these mail sorting methods fail.  
I've seen a number of messages sent to these addresses lately (since 
they show up in my personal mail), and it's a little annoying.  

Perhaps the list maintainers could be persuaded to make it so that the
"owner" addresses were only valid for messages coming from the list 
server, or return a "don't send mail to this address" message for
outside mail...

-- monroe
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Monroe Williams                                     monroe@teleport.com