[Mailman-Users] Subject Prefixing - was: The "right" way to reply to a mailing list / Re:

[Mark Sapiro]

On 03/20/2015 05:27 AM, A.K. Eyma wrote:
> While in the topic of replying, why does mailman put the
> "Re:" before the [listname]? Or rather inserts the list
> name after the Re: ? (For you send it out as "Re: The right way")
> 
>> Subject: Re: [Mailman-Users] The "right" way to reply to a mailing
>>     list


Actually, this is not Mailman in many cases. Consider that you receive a
list post. Mailman has prepended the subject_prefix so it come to you with

Subject: [Mailman-Users] The "right" way to reply to a mailing list

You reply and your mail client adds Re: to the beginning of the Subject:
so your reply is sent to Mailman with

Subject: Re: [Mailman-Users] The "right" way to reply to a mailing list

Now Mailman sees the Subject: already contains the prefix and does no
further modification.

Actually, that's a simplification of what Mailman does, but the result
is the same.

However, since Mailman 2.1.6 there is a site option to manipulate the
prefix so it always comes first and optionally contains a sequence
number. The site can set OLD_STYLE_PREFIXING to No in mm_cfg.py and
subject prefixes will always be added/moved to at the beginning of the
subject.

Additionally, and regardless of the site option, a list admin can
include a %d replacement in subject_prefix, e.g., set it to

[Listname %d]

and this will both force the prefix to the beginning and add a sequence
number to the prefix.

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