Email title format is different from the current ML for messages sent through web interface

[Lastique]

This may sound like a nitpick, but it may affect email filters configured by users, and it also caught my eye.

The current ML sends emails with titles starting with "Re: [boost]". With the mailman3 ML, when messages are sent from the web interface, the email title is starting with "[Boost] Re:". Notice:

• The "Boost" tag starts with a capital B,
• "Re:" is positioned inside the title rather than on the left.

Besides the filters, tags are typically typed in lower case and the following topic usually starts with a capital. For example, in "[boost] [container] Draft development plan for Boost.Container", the first capital "D" makes the beginning of the topic visually more apparent after all the preceding tags.

[sdarwin]

@Lastique thank you for these issues.

There may be different categories of tasks. Some can be handled in the list admin panel: https://lists.preview.boost.org/mailman3/lists/boost.lists.preview.boost.org/settings/

I don't know your level of interest, or available time, but in any case I have added you as an owner of the boost list, which should provide access to the "settings" page. Let me know if you can't view that.

Any changes on the settings page will need to be replicated again in the future on the production server. To that end, I created a file https://github.com/cppalliance/boost-mailman/blob/master/golive-runbook.md with a section "Configure Lists". Anything that can be solved via the settings panel, probably corresponds to a series of documentable steps like "Settings -> Alter messages -> Filter Content -> Yes".

If you are fairly confident about a particular settings change, then you are welcome to make that change to the list, and also submit a pull request to this repository updating golive-runbook.md .

Another category of issue may ultimately need to generate a ticket at https://gitlab.com/mailman/hyperkitty or the other gitlab repositories where they develop mailman. Over the course of time I actually have been participating there also. Also, their own ML https://lists.mailman3.org/ .

[Lastique]

Sorry, I'm not going to take administration responsibilities for the mailing lists. My issues are simply my experience with the new lists, which you asked for on the current Boost ML. Please remove me from the ML admins.

[sdarwin]

@Lastique sure, no problem. removed from admins. The issues feedback is valuable.

[sdarwin]

• The "Boost" tag starts with a capital B. FIXED
• "Re:" is positioned inside the title rather than on the left. SEE MAILMAN3 DOCUMENTATION:

https://docs.mailman3.org/projects/mailman/en/latest/src/mailman/handlers/docs/subject-munging.html

"If a Subject header already has a prefix, usually following a Re: marker, another one will not be added but the prefix will be moved to the front of the header text."

Subject: Re: [XTest] Something important -> [XTest] Re: Something important

So, it appears the functionality of "subject prefixes" is different in mailman3. It's working as intended.

[Lastique]

This may be what mailman documentation says, but every mailing list I've been subscribed to, including Boost's, places "Re:" before the tags. I think, this should be fixed, if possible. Is it not configurable?

[sdarwin]

From the web, 10 yrs ago, https://rohhie.net/open-mailing-list-with-ubuntu-12-04-mailman/

# Where to put subject prefix for 'Re:' messages:
#
#     old style: Re: [prefix] test
#     new style: [prefix 123] Re: test ... (number is optional)
#
# Old style is default for backward compatibility.  New style is forced if a
# list owner set %d (numbering) in prefix.  If the site owner had applied new
# style patch (from SF patch area) before, he/she may want to set this No in
# mm_cfg.py.
OLD_STYLE_PREFIXING = No

From the mailman3 list today.

This is to support prefixes that contain %d for the message number.
Suppose the prefix is [List #%d] and a post to the list has prefixed subject

[List #501] A Subject.

With old style, a reply a few posts later might have subject

Re: [List #504] A Subject.

But it is not a reply to [List #504], it is message [List #504] replying
to A Subject. so the appropriate subject is

[List #504] Re: A Subject.

Can this be customized with a Setting?

In mailman 2.1 this was called OLD_STYLE_PREFIXING and prefixes without
%d could optionally do it the old way or the new way , but prefixes with
%d always did it the new way.

For Mailman 3 we always do it the new way even if the prefix does not
contain %d.

--
Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan