Subscriber Header Options
                           Don Wiss, 5/6/98

Your Header Options.

What header option subscribers start out with depends on what is on the
Default-options= line in your header. If none is present, then it defaults
to FULLHDR when people subscribe. People can then change it if they'd
prefer something else. Most people prefer to start with SUBJECTHDR, and it
is recommended that you make this the list default. When subscribers set up
a filter to put the list mail in its own mailbox they can remove the
subject tag, as it takes up space in the subject field. Whichever you have
as your default, you should explain in your Welcome message how they can
change it to the other.

The Dual Header Option.

There are various other header options. The most important of them for
owners to know about is Dual Headers (DUALHDR). This is only needed on some
corporate LANs that go through a gateway. Without this turned on the
subscribers can't tell who wrote the messages, as the gateway will have put
something else in the From: field. If you have the Reply-To set to the
sender, then these people will still see that. What this does is put a
second set of headers in the body of the message. The downside to this is
the person has to strip this out when replying.

Can I set everyone to SUBJECTHDR?

You can, but you shouldn't. As explained above some people prefer other
settings for their headers. You should have an initial default in your
header and give people the option to pick which they prefer. Especially,
any subscriber that has set themselves to Dual Headers doesn't want to lose
this setting.

The Subject Tag.

By default the subject tag will be your list name. Some people prefer using
a shorter one, so not to take up as much space in the subject field. In
these cases you need to add this line to your header:

*  Subject-Tag= TAG

If you change this after the list has been started, the prior subject tags
will no longer be stripped from the subject lines of the messages, and will
make a mess of the subjects in the archives. But you can edit them out
after the period is over.

What are the advantages and disadvantages to SHORTHDR?

On the plus side the message will be smaller, and the subscriber will see
less lines at the top of the message than the other options. On the
negative side SHORTHDR strips out the encoding information and on some
messages you will get equal signs with a hex number. This isn't a big
problem, and all nomime digests have the same problem, as the encoding
information of each message is stripped out and a generic one appears once
in the digest header.

>From an owner's perspective SHORTHDR has another disadvantage. The
origination of the e-mail will be stripped. If you have a problem with a
forgery you won't be able to track it down. If you don't have SHORTHDR you
will have enough header information to ask the originating ISP who sent the
message.

Can I have SUBJECTHDR and SHORTHDR (or SUBJECTHDR and DUALHDR)?

No. Header types are mutually exclusive. A SUBJECTHDR is a FULLHDR with a
subject tag. Only one header option can be in effect for each subscriber.
If they want a SUBJECTHDR and see less header lines, and they are using
Eudora Lite (the Pro users have filters), they can eliminate seeing these
extra header lines. Send in the command GET OWNR-FAQ.EUDORA for an
explanation.

What should a subscriber filter on?

One should not use subject tags for filtering. One sets a filter on the
list's address (on either the To: or Sender: field). Setting a filter on a
subject tag would get a large number of false hits, when people send you
mail and keep the subject the same. And why waste subject line space to a
tag if the filters are putting them all in one mailbox?

For more information.

In the manual see section: 5.3.6. Options for mail headers of incoming
postings