Re: please delete me from your mailing lists

[Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 12:04 PM Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 05:48:01PM +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
> > Perhaps, the List Administrators could find worthwhile, to add a footer to
> > the mailing list messages, something like
> >
> > "To unsubscribe, change your subscription mode, or view the list archive,
> > see https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/ "
> >
> > Simple, but (should be) effective.
>
> In the past the Debian list admins have stated they will not do this,
> for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is that altering the content
> of the message (which would also include any tags added to the subject
> line) would invalidate any DKIM signature present and make it harder for
> the message to be delivered.
>
> Most mailing lists that change the content by adding subject tags and/or
> footers also rewrite the From address to be from the list itself, e.g.
> in that configuration this list would have:
>
> From: Bret Busby via Debian User <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
>
> The mail would then be signed on behalf of lists.debian.org and would be
> treated as a new email.
>
> Myself I think this was a sad concession that had to be made in the name
> of user experience and I did change most of the lists I operate to work
> this way. I don't expect Debian ever would though.

Maybe the List-Unsubscribe header would help,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2369>. The list software can
add it without worrying about breaking DKIM signatures.

A good user agent would display a UI widget to act on List-Unsubscribe
to make it easy to unsubscribe.

Jeff