[sf-lug] How to deal with a high volume of email from a mailing list.

[Bill Kendrick]

On Fri, Jan 13, 2006 at 10:02:24AM -0800, Adrien Lamothe wrote:
> For those new to mailing lists, there is a technique for dealing with the
> sometimes lengthy discussions: create a separate email account, at 
> someplace like Yahoo, and use the account for participating in one or
> more mailing lists.

Personally, I use "procmail" and the "Mutt" mail client on my
Sonic.net shell account.

For example, in my ~/.procmail file, I have:

  :0
  * ^TO_(.*\<)?sf-lug at linuxmafia.com
  in-lugs

Which means anything sent directly (or in-directly) to the address
"sf-lug at linuxmafia.com" should go into my "in-lugs" mailing list.
(Which I get to in Mutt by either hitting [C] (change folder) and typing
"=in-lugs", or using the [Y] key, which calls upon some Mutt code to bring
up a list of my various procmail-constructed inboxes. [*].)

Additionally, in my ~/.mutt/muttrc file, I have the following:

  folder-hook in-lugs "bind pager 'r' list-reply"
  folder-hook in-lugs "bind index 'r' list-reply"

Which causes the [R] (reply) command to _actually_ invoke a list reply
(normally accessed via [L]).  This lets me continue my bad habit of hitting
[R] to reply to messages, but still have them go back to the list on those
lists which do not munge the Reply-To header.  (i.e., lists which, if you
merely hit "reply" in your mail client, you'll be replying directly to the
sender, rather than back to the list.)  (Note: If I _do_ want to reply
to the sender, rather than the list, I simply tell Mutt "no, I don't
want to reply to the list" ([N]) after hitting list-reply ([R] or [L])).


[*] Here's the muttrc options to activate this "[Y]ank" command, allowing me
    to see the various mailboxes I've saved, or which are cobbled together
    by procmail recipies, and that live in my ~/Mail/ directory on my
    shell account:

  # Macros: make 'y' go to mailbox screen from index and browser
  macro index "y" "c?\t"
  macro browser "y" "\t\t"

Thanks to Mike Simons for sharing that trick, and convincing me to ditch
Elm and switch to Mutt.  Only took him a coupla years, and I can't thank
him enough.  Best.  Mail User Agent.  Ever!

-- 
-bill!                          Now available!  Tux Paint 2006 wall calendar,
bill at newbreedsoftware.com                        bumper sticker, and apparel!
http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/         http://www.cafepress.com/newbreedsw/