[CentOS] Threading and CentOS mailing list digest

Sat Apr 18 15:00:46 UTC 2009
Kai Schaetzl <maillists at conactive.com>

David G. Miller wrote on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:39:50 -0600:

> What is happening is I get the CentOS mailing list in digest form.

Ah, that explains it. Other people usually just reply to the digest (which 
then creates a new thread with "Digest" in the subject) or add a note that 
they replied to a digest.

> Giving up 
> getting the list traffic in digest form is not acceptable.

I'm trying to understand what you mean by this statement. I've never used 
digests and I've never understood why one would want to use them. I imagine 
it may have been helpful in the past to cut down on the byte flow, so that 
one didn't exceed the monthly traffic allowance or so. But nowadays? Maybe 
if you are receiving mail on a mobile device and still pay by the byte.
Then I read Robert's reply "I avoid the problem" (which problem? I thought) 
and "the only time a message shows up in my email inbox". 
I'm coming to the conclusion that you are simply not utilizing the assets 
of your mail program very well? All modern mail programs allow you to 
create your own folder structure and create "rules" that filter the in- and 
out-going mail to a folder of your choice. You do not have to have one 
"inbox" at all. I filter all incoming mail to the folder it belongs to. 
There is a "general" folder that gets everything that falls thru - which is 
rare.
I have my own folder substructure for mailing lists. All mail from or to 
the centos-users mailing list goes to a folder named "CentOS" in this 
structure, where I also have "CentOS-Announce", "CentOS-Virt" and, for 
instance, "Dovecot" or "Xen".
When I have some time I open the folder and look thru the mails, if I don't 
have time I don't. At times I didn't look in it for months. I don't even 
recognize that mail is coming in until I want to see it. 
I surely wouldn't want to mix these mails with my private or business mail 
(which is also organized in dozens of folders).
And I surely don't want to skim a long digest for the very few postings 
that are of interest to me. The advantage of getting mail in single mail 
format is that you can easily set flags for deletion or ignoring or keeping 
(!) and that you can distinguish by the subject if you are interested in it 
or not. Reading thru the whole digest for interesting content occurs like a 
big waste of time to me.

Anyway, do as you like, but it might be helpful, if you somehow indicate 
you reply to a digest. Then one doesn't have to guess why you reply to the 
wrong message.

Kai

-- 
Kai Schätzl, Berlin, Germany
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