>Question the first: How does mail-archive.org act when a reply to one >mail is sent very much later, say one to five years? The message will >be a reply to the original message, with In-Reply-To headers and >everything else set correctly, and will be part of the mailing-list >that mail-archive.org is archiving.
If less than N messages have been archived in the 5 year period, then the reply will be threaded correctly on the thread index. If more than N messages have been archived in the 5 year period, there will be no record of the original message in the thread index. The reply will start a new thread. Both messages will always be available via the search engine interface, and N is roughly 3000. >[...] Then I asked myself what an archive might do if there is more >than ~1 month or so between the original statement and the >reply. Will the archive still thread that message or will the thread >be broken? For Mail-Archive, the thread index (and chronological index) only exists for the most recent N messages. As long as you are within N, it should thread ok. >I started to forward my copy of debate to mail-archive.org to create a >public archive in another jurisdiction. I would be much happier if the list administrator is the one who initiates the archival process for three reasons. First, forwarding (also known as tunneling) a list can cause technical problems with Mail-Archive's sorting engine. Second, I don't interact with list endusers if at all possible. I usually tell people to talk to their list administrator. That's works a lot better when the list admin is in the loop. Finally, Mail-Archive is for public lists desiring an archive - it's not for archiving lists against the list admin's wishes. >Question the second: Is it possible for a user of mail-archive.org to >determine which particular subscriber of a mailing-list is forwarding the >list to mail-archive.org? If the forwarding messes up Mail-Archive's sorting engine, such as what happened with WEDI, then it might be tracable. Otherwise I don't think so. >Also, what is the policy of mail-archive.org regarding inquiries in that >matter? That is, if asked, under what circumstances will mail-archive.org >produce original headers of the messages sent to it, and offer the name of >the submitter, that is, of the source that is feeding the archive? Case by case. It hasn't really come up much. I have worked in the past with a list administrator to resolve an abuse case, where mail was being tunnelled to Mail-Archive against their list's policy. Also, any header (or other) information ordered in a valid subpoena will be disclosed. >Question the third: Assuming that there are two subscribers to >[EMAIL PROTECTED] that forward their messages to mail-archive.org, will >the archive detect the duplicate submissions and drop the duplicate copies? Depends on what the Message-ID is. If it is identical, I think we'll drop the duplicate. At worst, we will store duplicate messages, possible in the wrong place due to the tunneling messing things up. Bottom line, please don't tunnel. Have your list admin add [EMAIL PROTECTED] to the subscription list. If they are unwilling, then please don't use Mail-Archive. Depending on how much problems tunneling causes, I may move from discouraging to explicitly banning them by policy in the future. -Jeff _______________________________________________ Gossip mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mail-archive.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gossip
