[plug] Mailing list messages

[John Summerfield]

> 
> Some weird things have been happening with me getting messages from 
> the mailing list.
> 
> I have messages that I have received, that were sent three hours into 
> the future, and a message that I posted, three hours ago, has not been 
> received.
> 
> I am wondering, whether it is possible for the mailing list to be 
> programmed, so that messages received and retransmitted by the mailing 
> list, have a message number allocated by the mailing list, inserted at 
> the start of the subject field.

The messages are capable of being sorted into the correct order aready: 
See this:
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 22 Jul 1999 09:27:34 GMT."
             <19990722.9273400 at bret.clearsol> 

And then there's the date field.

Adding further sequencing information would simply clutter the subject 
field in an effort to solve a problem better fixed elsewhere, perhaps in 
the choice of software,


> It is a bit weird, to read a message, then, a few, or, several, 
> messages later, to read the message that the first message was 
> responding to, when the messages are sorted in  order of the date/time 
> field.

Get used to it: happens all the time in lots of different lists. It's 
caused by varying delays in different parts of the Internet.

> 
> If the numbering of the messages could be done, this way, it would 
> make reading the messages a bit more meaningful, as the messages could 
> then be sorted in order of the subject field.

That would, at best, help with one list. Software that can recognise and 
use the existing sequencing information fixes it for every list.


It is, I think, an even worse idea than adding the list's name to the 
subject field.


-- 
Cheers
John Summerfield
http://os2.ami.com.au/os2/ for OS/2 support.
Configuration, networking, combined IBM ftpsites index.