Dear mailing list admin, while I still received emails from the mailing list, I couldn't log in. After (re-)subscribing I can log in again. Please add "[arch-general] " to the subject. Some mailing lists don't use such an identifier in the subject, but a lot of mailing lists for good reasons do. It's apparently possible to prepend the list name and to keep the DKIM signature intact or they break it, but it doesn't matter. I don't know. Why is this identifier useful? For example, if you have got a virtual search folder with a filter, that searches the email bodies for "x11" in folders for different mailing lists, it can be very helpful, if the subject lines mention "[arch- general] ", "[Alsa-user] ", "[Evolution] ", "[lubuntu-users] " etc. to get a first overview. For several reasons such an identifier can be useful. For each of those reasons somebody probably has got an objection, how to do things different, so that the identifier is unneeded. Yes, it's not needed, but it's useful/helpful for some people, in some cases, while there's unlikely a good reason to be annoyed by "[arch-general] ". Regards, Ralf
PS: My apologies, I didn't notice that "For managing your subscriptions a new mailman3 account [must be registered]".
On Sun, Sep 18, 2022 at 11:21:05AM +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
Dear mailing list admin, Please add "[arch-general] " to the subject.
Please don't. Removing that and keeping the dkim signature intact is a good thing. The goal should be that we can reject any dkim failing messages and the only thing that stands in the way there are maling lists which are still misconfigured.
Some mailing lists don't use such an identifier in the subject, but a lot of mailing lists for good reasons do. It's apparently possible to prepend the list name and to keep the DKIM signature intact
It is not. Assuming the dkim signature covers the subject, which is always the case for any reasonable setup, it being a somewhat sensitive header.
For example, if you have got a virtual search folder with a filter, that searches the email bodies for "x11" in folders for different mailing lists, it can be very helpful, if the subject lines mention "[arch- general] ", "[Alsa-user] ", "[Evolution] ", "[lubuntu-users] " etc. to get a first overview.
Filter on the List-Id: header, that's what it is meant for. Any email that arrives in your inbox from the list, also has the list address on its recipient list, so it's easy enough to filter based on that as well if you don't have a MUA that can read headers.
FYI for list administrators
Now that mail list is properly DKIM & DMARC friendly I was a bit
surprised to see these 2 DMARC rejections in mail logs today;
one from 5:21 EDT and same thing again at 5:31:
Perhaps its helpful.
...
client=lists.archlinux.org[95.217.236.249]
message-id=<4f840dc060de2a62be16c19b23723bdc07d7ca86.camel@zoho.com>
5.7.1 rejected by DMARC policy for zoho.com; from=
On Sun, 2022-09-18 at 11:46 +0200, Reto wrote:
For example, if you have got a virtual search folder with a filter, that searches the email bodies for "x11" in folders for different mailing lists, it can be very helpful, if the subject lines mention "[arch- general] ", "[Alsa-user] ", "[Evolution] ", "[lubuntu-users] " etc. to get a first overview.
Filter on the List-Id: header, that's what it is meant for. Any email that arrives in your inbox from the list, also has the list address on its recipient list, so it's easy enough to filter based on that as well if you don't have a MUA that can read headers.
Hi, it's Ok, if there are valid reasons to remove the identifier from the subject to keep this DKIM thingy intact, but please don't try to explain how to filter. First of all you hide an important part, by partial quoting: "For several reasons such an identifier can be useful. For each of those reasons somebody probably has got an objection, how to do things different, so that the identifier is unneeded. Yes, it's not needed, but it's useful/helpful for some people, in some cases, while there's unlikely a good reason to be annoyed by "[arch-general] "." If the filter criteria should be "x11" and an overview is wanted, but not a separation by mailing lists, it makes a difference. Now you can argue that still the "To" header can provide this overview, even without filtering/separating by mailing list and I can argue against it, that the subject could show the mailing list + an important headline in one and so on... If the identifier in the subject is that unneeded and useless and can be replaced by something that is meant for something, then why was it used for such a long time, by so many mailing lists? IOW I accept it, if DKIM requires that the identifier must be dropped. But please don't pretend that it isn't a loss and using something else is anyway better. It is a loss, maybe not for you, but probably for other users, it's a loss, too. Regards, Ralf
On Sun, 2022-09-18 at 11:46 +0200, Reto wrote:
For example, if you have got a virtual search folder with a filter, that searches the email bodies for "x11" in folders for different mailing lists, it can be very helpful, if the subject lines mention "[arch- general] ", "[Alsa-user] ", "[Evolution] ", "[lubuntu-users] " etc. to get a first overview.
Filter on the List-Id: header, that's what it is meant for. Any email that arrives in your inbox from the list, also has the list address on its recipient list, so it's easy enough to filter based on that as well if you don't have a MUA that can read headers.
Hi,
it's Ok, if there are valid reasons to remove the identifier from the subject to keep this DKIM thingy intact, but please don't try to explain how to filter. I second the DKIM importance. I was dropped from the Alsa mailing list as my strict mailserver marked most of the mails as rejected as DKIM kept failing and this bounced too hard against
On maandag 19 september 2022 22:16:10 CEST Ralf Mardorf wrote: the mailserver. Yes I have a big enough spam issue that I keep the setup of my mailserver as I hope eventually all "no such email" will eventually purge my email from the spam lists I don't want to be on.
First of all you hide an important part, by partial quoting:
"For several reasons such an identifier can be useful. For each of those reasons somebody probably has got an objection, how to do things different, so that the identifier is unneeded. Yes, it's not needed, but it's useful/helpful for some people, in some cases, while there's unlikely a good reason to be annoyed by "[arch-general] "."
If the filter criteria should be "x11" and an overview is wanted, but not a separation by mailing lists, it makes a difference. Now you can argue that still the "To" header can provide this overview, even without filtering/separating by mailing list and I can argue against it, that the subject could show the mailing list + an important headline in one and so on...
Just wanted to point out, to those that also read the mailing list, some MUAs or mailservers allow setting up filters that update headers. So in both KMail and Dovecot sieve it would be possible to prepend "[arch-general] " to the To: header based on the List-Id.
If the identifier in the subject is that unneeded and useless and can be replaced by something that is meant for something, then why was it used for such a long time, by so many mailing lists?
Personally, I think this is due to legacy. And of course there are those with more primitive mail servers (ISP provided ones) that would not handle this sieve stuff. And MUA support depends on which you want to use, I imagine more have this ability but I don't know.
IOW I accept it, if DKIM requires that the identifier must be dropped. But please don't pretend that it isn't a loss and using something else is anyway better. It is a loss, maybe not for you, but probably for other users, it's a loss, too.
Regards, Ralf
participants (4)
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Daniel Sonck
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Genes Lists
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Ralf Mardorf
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Reto