Dragaera

Using Outlook (meta/OT) (was RE: A request for a list tag in the subject)

Casey Rousseau casey at the-bat.net
Tue Mar 15 09:30:15 PST 2005

Scott Schultz wrote: 
> If my email client allowed me to sort on random headers I'd 
> certainly do that. Alas, it's an imperfect world and what's
> correct seldom coincides with what's practical. 

Hmm. I'm thinking perhaps the word 'sort' is the problem here.  You're using
Outlook, right?  Which version? What I do is set up a folder for the list,
and then set up a rule to _move_ list mail to the folder in question (and
then stop processing other rules).  This is one of about 20 rules I have set
up.  For specifics, contact me directly at casey_at_the-bat.net making the
obvious change.
 
> In any case, the problem is not entirely with my email client.
> My spam filter is also involved in the problem and it doesn't
> know anything about "optional" headers. The only rules I can
> set there are based on the "standard" from, to, and subject
> headers. 

I'm not sure the above will help here.  Nor will it help those who use web
based mail clients that do not support applying this level of organization
to incoming email.
 
> As for sorting based on the To: field, I already do this. If
> it was sufficient, well, I wouldn't have made the original
> request.  No solution involving headers is going to catch
> off-list replies and these happen frequently given that the
> list messages use the sender's email address as the Reply-To
> header.

Granted.  For this, I simply add rules to handle messages sent to me from
list members the same way as those sent to the list.  In this manner, the
system "learns" to put mail in the "right" place.  This is fairly automated
>from the context menu when I right-click on the message in my general inbox
(or actually, my personal account folder, since mail sent to this account is
moved into a personal folder if it doesn't get moved otherwise by an earlier
rule). 

> If it's a religious issue then there's little point in 
> discussing it. I'm sure the list owners have their reasons for
> wanting things a certain way.

I was going to offer advice offline, but this raises a reason to post to the
list, and a reason to discuss it.  David, et al. have their reasons for
setting things up this way.  I don't claim to grok them all, but I can live
with them with minimal effort.  I suspect those reasons have much to do with
efficient handling of list traffic by the software running on the list
server.

BTW, as I posted a few days back an email to dragaera-help at dragaera.info
will tell you all sorts of helpful things about the using the list.
Included is an email address to contact the unseen list owner
(dragaera-owner at dragaera.info) or to get the list FAQ
(dragaera-faq at dragaera.info).  Also, it looks like some of this was updated
as a result of our conversations about list volume, and digest vs standard
subscription, etc.  Some of this same info is available from the mailing
lists page on dragaera.info http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/, including
especially http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/dragaera-list/rules.html.

Casey