RFE: provide option to email displayed message to email address

[Aaron Whitehouse]

Very often, I will come across a new piece of information on a topic that has previously been discussed on the list. I will then search through my email accounts to try and find a copy of an email in that thread and reply to it, so that the message is correctly archived in the list manager etc.

Quite a lot of times, I will have deleted the relevant message. I then have to find it on the list, which is not a problem. Because I don't have a copy of the email to reply to, I can't reply to the thread and make it come up as part of the thread. At best, I can create a new email and add a permalink to the original thread. This would not, however, allow people browsing the old thread in the archives to see the newer information.

What would be ideal (and which I have seen implemented in other list managers, but cannot remember where) would be if, after finding a post in the archives, one could click a button and enter an email address to have that message (with all thread headers etc.) emailed to that email address again. Then the user could simply reply to the new email to have the threading properly maintained.

A second, related use-case is for people who aren't on the list and find a "hanging" thread in the archives. I often Google and find threads that end with something like "I will provide an update on this soon" with no following update. It would be nice, even if I wasn't on the mailing list, to have that one email sent to me so that I could reply and maintain threads.

[Mark Sapiro (msapiro)]

This ability already exists. If the site is configured with ARCHIVER_OBSCURES_EMAILADDRS = Yes (the default), the poster's obscured email address is a mailto: link with the list posting address and appropriate Subject= and In-Reply-To= fragments. Of course, it is up to the MUA that handles the mailto: to understand these.

The other issue is that archive threading is by archive index period, so if the archive is indexed by month, a reply in January to a December post will be indexed in January and (in pipermail at least) can't be threaded to the December thread.

For your second use-case, you can use the same mailto: link to reply, and if your non-member post arrives in the same index period and is accepted, it will be threaded with the post you replied to. Is there some other reason why you would want an archived post to be mailed to you?

Archiving will be enhanced in MM3, and we will keep this request in mind.

[Aaron Whitehouse (aaron-whitehouse)]

Thanks Mark for the very quick and helpful response!

I hadn't realised that. Perhaps this could be made clearer with an
identical link next to the email address saying "(reply to this
message)", or something.

I also hadn't realised that the threading was limited to single
months. That seems a bit of a limitation to me and I hadn't realised
it. Perhaps there are a few threads that I haven't seen the end of
for this reason and hadn't thought to look at the next month's threads
(as there were no more "next in this thread"s). It would be excellent
if this could be kept in mind through the MM3 enhancements. If
nothing else, having complete threads (including those in following
months) prevents threads being reopened by people finding them in the
archives.

The one use-case that the current method does not work for, and an
"email this to me" link would, is actually one that I face at the
moment: I am away (and so don't have the originals of the emails) and
am using webmail to clear my messages. The machine is set up for
somebody else's email (the people I am staying with), so "mailto"
links don't work. If it emailed me the message, I could reply to it
with webmail. Probably not an uncommon use-case when so many people
are using GMail etc. instead of an email client.

Please feel free to alter the subject etc. to better fit what remains
to be enhanced.