Goeke@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (03/18/85)
I have a proposal to reduce the mailing list clutter. Suppose
User A wants to know how to framix his foo file. He sends a standard
note to info-unix with an added field: the subject id. The subject id
could be any alphanumeric string, but I propose it consist normally of
the date and the user and host id:
Subject: How do I framix a foo file?
Subject ID: Mar 19 09:40:02 EST 1985 UserA @ MIT-Multics.ARPA
Now comes the trick. Anyone responding to this message uses the original
Subject ID as a Reference ID, and has no Subject ID field:
Subject: A kludge for putting the framix on a foo
Reference ID: Mar 19 09:40:02 EST 1985 UserA @ MIT-Multics.ARPA
Your mailer now looks at the incoming mail stream. Any message
with a Subject ID field (or neither a Subject ID field nor a Reference ID
field, to maintain backward compatibility) gets passed to you. If, and
only if, you are interested in the subject, you store the Subject ID in
an subjects-of-interest file in your home directory. Any message in the
incoming mail stream with a Reference ID field cause a search through
your subjects-of-interest file; only a hit will let it through to you.
Periodically, you scan your subjects-of-interest file and purge the old
references which haven't been hit in a while; though that might be
automated, it probably isn't worth it.
Bob Goeke
[ Goeke @ MIT-Multics.ARPA ]
MIT Center for Space Research
617-253-1910