Thanks for the detailed answer. I guess it makes sense, given the
plurality of tools, and I just need to keep on refining my list of
rules.
Although I may try to see if i can't file them into a newsreader such as
NetNewsWire. It may be able to do the filing for me at minimal effort
...
On 28 Mar 2021, at 23:15, Bill Cole wrote:
On 26 Mar 2021, at 5:28, Paul Atlan wrote:
I’m trying to sort my mailing lists into something halfway
manageable and readable.
If I use the “out of the box” Mailing List mailbox, with the
following settings:
Sort for unique values of List-id > description
And name mailboxes as:
${list-id.description:${subject.blob:?${subject.blob:/capitalize}:${list-id.identifier.final-level}}}
I get a baffling array of names such as:
* 420a598457b46e0aa26a7a673mc list
* 15marches.substack.com
* 245.44880.info.alternatives-economiques.fr
* 245.44922.info.alternatives-economiques.fr
It seems some people use the list-id to name their lists, others an
identifier, others yet a url ….
And basically, whatever item I choose to sort by, or rename by, I’m
never going to get a proper list of names.
I’ve tried to rename some of the lists, which would work except …
some list managers seem to change list-id’s every few mails, so I
have mailing lists spread over many separate mailboxes …
Yes, this is a problem. It's not so bad for discussion lists like this
one that use mature list managers designed for discussion lists and
generally following both standards and traditions. (e.g. GNU MailMan,
EzMLM, majordomo, etc.) but it is a mess for the the horde of bespoke
tools used by "email marketing" firms, a few score different WordPress
plugins, and random bits of desktop software. You cannot count on any
organizational strategy using solely generalized principles doing the
whole job for the whole universe of mail from sources that are called
"mailing lists."
You need at least some special casing...
I’ve started building rules to identify and tag each and every
newsletter, but this is brittle (the ux being what it is, it’s
difficult to have rules with more than 4 or 5 conditions, so I’ve
spread out the newsletters over multiple rules), any new newsletter
needs to go through a process….
That's the best one can do. Blame senders.
I can’t imagine, with the number of power users using MailMate,
that there aren’t some interesting solutions around …
"Interesting" is a complicated term...
I use an embarrassing mix of server-side and MailMate tactics,
including:
0. I run my own mail server and have been doing so for decades. This
has allowed for a sort of genetic/organic development over years.
1. Unique email addresses for every sort of sign-up I do. The only
time I use a simple address for anything is for friends and family.
2. My spam filtering on the server is good enough that I don't get
spam delivered anywhere most weeks, so most of the stuff which would
look like "mailing list" traffic that would be hard to sort out is
just not arriving.
3. I am ashamed to say that I still use procmail to deliver mail from
various mailing lists their own IMAP mailboxes, based on a mix of
target address (see (1) above) and other attributes, including
List-ID. I also have a general catchall mailbox for all of my "tagged"
addresses that lack their own unique mailboxes.
4. In some cases, without any particular pattern other than the age of
my subscription, I have MM rules that watch that catchall of tagged
addresses for particular list traffic and move those messages to their
own IMAP mailboxes.
If there is any pattern to all of that which is relevant to other MM
users, it is that I use the filing of mail into distinct IMAP
mailboxes rather than relying entirely on MM Smart Mailboxes. Maybe
I'm too much of a cynic, but I don't believe that email is or will
ever be as conformant to formal specs and/or informal norms as it
would need to be in order to rely on sweeping logical generalities to
sort how email is presented.
--
Bill Cole
b...@scconsult.com or billc...@apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Not Currently Available For Hire
_______________________________________________
mailmate mailing list
mailmate@lists.freron.com
https://lists.freron.com/listinfo/mailmate
_______________________________________________
mailmate mailing list
mailmate@lists.freron.com
https://lists.freron.com/listinfo/mailmate
