[Mailman-Users] Date for Posts - How is it decided?

[Brad Knowles]

At 10:05 AM -0400 2006-09-04, Drew Tenenholz wrote:

>  What is the 'official' date for a post?

Normally, the official date for a message in the archives is taken 
from the "Date:" header which is put on the message by the sending 
mail client (MUA) or the first mail server (MTA) to touch the 
message.  The Internet standards require that the "Date:" header be 
present on all messages, but some clients do not create them. 
Therefore, most mail servers will automatically add one if it is not 
already present.

The problem is that many clients have system dates that are seriously 
screwed up.  They should be running the Network Time Protocol (NTP), 
but most of them don't even bother to do any kind of monitoring or 
setting of the date information.

Now, recent versions of Mailman have a way to deal with this issue -- 
see FAQ 3.63.  However, this does require a change in the mm_cfg.py 
file, which has to be done by the site admin.  If you are using a 
hosted list service, you may not be able to get support from the site 
admin to perform functions like this -- see FAQ 1.32.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

  Founding Individual Sponsor of LOPSA.  See <http://www.lopsa.org/>.