Gmail and mailing list (was Re: Regarding Linux kernel vs Android

[Yubin Ruan]

On Thu, Jan 18, 2018 at 11:11:45PM +0800, Yubin Ruan wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 04:24:41PM -0500, valdis.kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
> > On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 22:15:39 +0530, inventsekar said:
> > 
> > > PS - when I send mail to this DL, I thought I would receive my own
> > > mail(similar to Google groups DL), as I am already member of the DL, but I
> > > am not getting my own mail, so I get confusion whether my mail was sent or
> > > not. On the subscription page, I looked for any options, but no luck.
> > > Please suggest
> 
> I am using gmail but never notice the behaviors you stated. Thanks for your
> information. See below:
>  
> > The tl;dr: If you really care, you can have the list send you a "Your message was posted"
> > confirmation. Go here: https://lists.kernelnewbies.org/mailman/listinfo/kernelnewbies
> > and login (you'll need the password the list has for you - if you don't have it, it's
> > in the monthly reminder or you can ask it to send you a copy).
> > 
> > The gory details:
> > 
> > A long known issue with GMail.  Basically, what should happen is this:
> > 
> > 1) You send e-mail. At some point, a Message-ID header gets added, usually by
> > the "Mail submission server". For the one I'm replying to, the server was one
> > of Gmail's so it tacked on:
> > 
> > Message-id: <CAJd9=037m-jHxR-Yz4DkQvukahPE3cK1LV_HcWJRk31+=Vc-pw at mail.gmail.com>
> > 
> > The important thing here is that it's supposed to be (a) netwise unique and (b)
> > remains the same across the lifetime of the message.
> > 
> > 2) So say your mail was to the list, and a cc: to several people directly (the
> > usual state of affairs for Linux kernel development - as "reply all" is the
> > preferred way of doing things.  If I was listed directly, then I'll get two
> > copies - once for the direct copy and once from the list. (And yes, a mailing
> > list is supposed to preserve the value in most cases - those interested in the
> > gory details are referred to RFC 5322, section 3.6.4)
> > 
> > 3) And that same Message-ID should be on both copies that I receive, which
> > means I can do duplicate suppression by simply saying "Have I seen this
> > Message-ID before?"
> > 
> > Works great, except....
> > 
> > When GMail sends your *outbound* mail, it remembers that Message-ID - which means
> > that when your own copy comes back from the posting to the list, GMail says "Hey,
> > I've seen this one before" and duplicate suppresses it. So one outbound copy
> > goes by and you don't see it, and then the other one gets munched, so you don't
> > see that one either. Whoops.
> 
> By "gets munched" you mean "get deleted", right? But why would the other one
> gets deleted if Gmail suppress the duplicate message? Is this your
> configuration fault?
>  
> > And yes, they know about it - me and some other email experts gave Google grief
> > about it when it was still in alpha/beta.  But they didn't listen, for reasons only they
> > understand(*)
> > 
> > To make life even *more* complicated, even though my copy of posts to the list gets
> > auto-deduped by GMail as it comes back, I still get a copy - because some AI in there
> > has figured out "Oh, he's a list subscriber, so when he posts, we'll remember the message-ID,
> > but also generate a copy right back into his inbox so he gets his list copy anyhow even
> > though we already know we're going to auto-dedup it".   Of course, this isn't a
> > settable, nor is it very obvious what causes GMail's AI to realize this - so I have
> > some lists that I get back a GMail-looped courtesy copy and some I don't.
> 
> Hmm... I didn't noticed which list works and which not yet (I was not aware of
> the situation where duplicate message with same Message-ID get suppressed by
> Gmail previously). Is kernel newbie affected, or any other lists?

Oh now I observe the behavior on std-discussion (hosted on isocpp.org). Gmail
seems to automatically delete mails from the mailing list server if I Cc/Bcc
myself a copy (if the server has ever sent me a copy, which I am not sure).
But I still get a copy, and things still work smoothly.

        Yubin