** Sometime around 21:19 +0100 11/30/01, Thomas Gramstad sent everyone: >* J C Lawrence > > On Fri, 30 Nov 2001 Omar Thameen wrote: > >> If you have the capability, is there any reason not to place the > >> subscriber email address in the To: header of list messages... > > >> I can't see that much is lost when mailing list information can be > >> placed in other headers, such as those recommended by RFC2369 > >> (List-Help, List-Post, etc.). > > > Unfortunately many MUAs still don't support RFC 2369. > >RFC 2919 recommends List-Id:.
What I'm about to say is, I'm sure, exactly the point that Thomas was making; I just want to add some more color to the distinction between RFCs 2369 and 2919, particularly since not all of our members are up to date on their RFCs. To wit: List-ID: has a slightly different purpose than List-Subscribe, List-Post, etc.; specifically, List-ID: is intended to be a persistent and unique identifier for the mailing list. List-ID: should (ideally) never change, even if the domain in which the list resides changes; in contrast, most of the RFC2369 headers will tend to change if the list's domain changes (or if a different MLM is installed, etc.) In this sense, List-ID: is (or should be) preferred over the To: header as an invariant method of identifying a mailing list. For this reason, we have deployed List-ID: across all of our mailing lists. RFC2919 is merely a starting point, but I think it's a pretty good one. Meanwhile, RFC2369 headers remain a handy way to communicate specific (and potentially changeable) list information to subscribers. If the goal is to uniquely identify a mailing list to the subscribers, I agree that List-ID: is a good start. However, for those brane-ded MUAs that cannot filter on headers other than To:, From:, etc., List-ID: (alone) will not be useful; a quasi-invariant "standard header" would have to be used. __________________________________________________________________________ Vince Sabio [EMAIL PROTECTED]
