[Zope] Zope Mailing List Software is hugely inconsistent!

Martijn Pieters mj@antraciet.nl
Fri, 03 Sep 1999 21:55:19 +0200


>More to the point, however, Outlook is the one program that I've found that
>has both filters, AND the ability to have it leave my mail on the server for
>"x" number of days, so that I have the chance to download it at home AND
>does not restrict you to using only one window at a time (beat that! ;-).

My Eudora does this just fine, and does a fine job filtering... uhoh, not a 
'my software is better' war...


>That said, it does not at all surprise me that M$ regexes can't *always*
>seem to pick out [Zope] from the subject line, although it DOES always
>succeed in determining who the message is from, as long as the list server
>writes the headers the same way every time (as does Lyris, for example).

Again. no problem here. 'Any recipient == zope@zope.org ==> into mailbox 
zope/zope' except where mj@antraciet.nl, so's I see direct replies to my 
postings in my Inbox...


>And as soon as I start thinking about that, I begin to wonder why on earth
>the server would NOT write the headers the same way every time?!?! It just
>doesn't make sense! After all, the whole beauty of server-side processing is
>a.) control, and b.) consistency, because you are not dependant upon the
>client! (Which is why JavaScript sucks! -- Because you're at the mercy of
>the client!)

The headers are consistent.. just not the once you think. There are certain 
rules to adhere to when using mailing list software, and unfortunately not 
all mailing list managers do a good job. From, To, CC, BCC and Reply-To are 
not to be touched, for various reasons. Headers that are added by MailMan 
(the package used for all but one Zope related lists I know) adds the 
following headers:

Sender: zope-admin@zope.org
Errors-To: zope-admin@zope.org
X-Mailman-Version: 1.0b8
Precedence: bulk
List-Id: Users of the Z Object Publishing Environment <zope.zope.org>
X-BeenThere: zope@zope.org

Sender, Errors-To, List-ID and X-BeenThere will all do nicely for your 
purposes. Let's hope that Outlooks overly 
hiding-the-tecnique-for-your-own-good interface will let you add a rule 
that selects on either of these.

>So, at any rate, I hope I don't lead too many down the wrong path to any
>bigger arguments with this thread, so I'll just close with saying that IMHO
>that wonderfully configurable, flexible, *nix server should do The Right
>Thing.
>
>If we disagree -- Then, well, I guess I'll just agree to disagree, and I'll
>create another filter that deletes the stragglers that get mixed up in the
>Inbox.

Hmmm.. I think that we would go down the totaly wrong pathway here if we 
try to accomodate erroneous Microsoft software all the time. =)
--
Martijn Pieters, Web Developer
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