[Elecraft] Filtering list traffic properly

[Rick Tavan]

Thank you, Mike, for the solution to the problem, at least in my 
environment!

For readers who may not know how to apply your insight, here are some 
hints. (Experts may delete this message now.)

I use Mozilla V1.6 as my mail user interface program. In this program, 
Message Filters management is accessible through the Tools menu in the 
main list display (not in a message display window).  Each filter is 
defined as a set of criteria and actions. The criteria compare a message 
header field to a value. The message header field comes from a pull-down 
list of things like "To" or "Subject" and this is where the novice might 
get blocked because the field type "List-Id" does not appear in the 
default list of field types. However, there is a selection called 
"Customize" which you can click to request a dialog box that lets you 
Add a new field name. You type in List-Id (no colon) and then it appears 
in the field name pull-down list. Now you can create a filter item that 
says essentially "If List-Id contains Elecraft, then Move Message to My 
Elecraft Folder." If someone replies both to you and the list, then one 
copy will get filtered to your Elecraft folder and the other to your 
favored destination for personal email. Note that Mozilla processes 
filters in the order they are listed until one is successful. It takes 
the specified action and ignores further filter specs. You can reorder 
the list with Move Up / Move Down buttons next to the list.

If you care: Mozilla has some quirks that made the discovery process for 
the above a little tricky. There are lots of headers in typical email. 
You have to turn on View/Headers/All in order to view all but the most 
common headers. List-Id appears pretty far down the display of All 
Headers and Mozilla 1.6 truncates header display to a fixed length, too 
short to for List-Id to be displayed. File/Save As a text file doesn't 
help because it doen't save any headers. However, if you forward the 
message to yourself while viewing All Headers, the copy you receive will 
show all the headers from the original, albeit in an unnecessarily fancy 
format. You don't need to know this to apply the technique in the 
previous paragraph but if you want to do similar research into headers 
it might help.

GL & 73,

/Rick N6XI

Mike S wrote:

>There is a unique header which is present on all messages coming from the list server used by Elecraft, which has been available since at least 2001:
>
> "List-Id: Elecraft Discussion List <elecraft.mailman.qth.net>"
>
>Depending upon your MUA, "Elecraft" in header "List-Id: or "List-Id: Elecraft" in headers should be sufficient to unambiguously identify a message as coming from this discussion list. 
>