On 26/01/2026 2:42 pm, David wrote:

On Mon, 26 Jan 2026 at 03:18, Max Nikulin wrote:

On 26/01/2026 5:01 am, David wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jan 2026 at 18:01, D. R. Evans wrote:

(see my e-mail
<eca2ee9a-ae7c-46b1-ab6a-101365e2a73f@gmail.com> in another
sub-thread),

If you want to reference other list messages, can you please do that by
providing links into the list archive which can be found at for
example: https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2026/01/threads.html

David, if you wish to open that message in a browser then you may easily
do it:

https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/?m=MESSAGE_ID

Notice "?m=", it is important, "a bit broken" below is related to it.

Actually every message has a bit broken header with a link to the list
archive, see List-Archive.

Having Message-ID, it is more convenient to open that message inside
mailer or in another web mailing list archive. Instead, your are
suggesting to use a link that is local to the lists.debian.org web site.

Thanks for using a separate thread to discuss this.

It is not a separate thread, it is Gmail web UI workaround added since
users tend to use "reply" even starting unrelated discussion. This
message may start another Gmail conversation (but not traditional
thread) since Thunderbird follows "(was: ...)" convention.

Here's an example link that I wrote recently in another message: https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2026/01/msg00411.html

I believe, both links: Message-ID and HTTPS with internal message
number, have some disadvantages. On the other hand, I consider both are acceptable. What I did not like, is that you requested to use another
style of links.

If I click on that link, the Message-ID you prefer is provided in
line 7 of the served page. So the Message-ID is available there for anyone who needs it.

I am aware of it, but it works only if HTTP server with mail archive is available. I have seen enough broken links on the web. If a mail list
archive moved to other site or removed completely then "msg00411" is not
a helpful identifier. It can not be used for obtaining the same message
from another archive. I admit, Message-ID's usually have no hints
concerning date and mailing list name. Actually I prefer redundancy and references with sender, destination, and timestamp:

David to debian-user. Re: Referencing mail messages (was: Use
grub-rescue on a non-bootable RAID-formatted drive) Mon, 26 Jan 2026
07:42:56 +0000. <mid:CAMPXz=q3iTPMvy2nz8n0J5Epusnuo0MXY2icyhJ3qK9O1rasRA@mail.gmail.com>
(Or https://...)

So generic search may be used to obtain the message. I am realizing that almost nobody will use detailed links.

Here are the reasons why I am inclined to continue preferring the direct
link to the archive:
1) It is human-readable, so it is clear and safe to click on.
2) Its format and use is consistent with links to other web sources.

I believe, <https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/?m=CAMPXz=q3iTPMvy2nz8n0J5Epusnuo0MXY2icyhJ3qK9O1rasRA@mail.gmail.com>
is not really worse

3) It does not require special knowledge for any (eg newbie) reader to find
the information, because everyone knows how to follow https links.
4) It works for readers who are not using a dedicated mail client.
5) It works for readers who are reading the archive in a web browser.

I agree that some kind of trick (e.g. browser extension, boookmark with
search substitution) is necessary if Message-ID links are actively used.

5) Sometimes the Message-ID search of the Debian mail archives fails to
find messages, so I prefer to use a method that seems to always work.

See "?m=" above. Some effort is required to fix HTTP server
configuration or the script parsing URL (or both) and smartlist (to use Archived-At and safer URL). My knowledge of Perl is not enough to be
confident that changes I might suggest will be safe from security point
of view.

etiquette, while using the Gmail web interface. For example, I precompose
all my messages using Vim to properly reflow and clean up quoted text.

Thanks for doing it. I find Gmail web UI inconvenient for plain text
messages. Thunderbird has idiosyncrasy, but its editor is acceptable for
me. Whether flowed format or hard line breaks is preferred, likely
depends of mailers used by readers.

On 26/01/2026 12:17 pm, David Wright wrote:

Some Message-ID references are very long, anything up to about
160 characters, and are not easy to check when cut and pasted
into a browser due to their random nature.

It is positive feedback loop. Nobody cares that some soft generates excessively long or peculiar Message-ID's since they are rarely used in
links. More active usage of Message-ID will create some pressure to developers.

https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/Y/+tJdQluFDMC4Ci@use

"+" is more tricky, it is not enough to just insert "?m=". In my
opinion, mailers should use URL- and shell-safe Message-ID's even if the
price is a bit longer identifiers. I anticipate that some developers may
be upset because they follow RFC's, but I prefer to avoid exercising if
all Message-ID handlers are written in safe way.

David Wright, I have noticed that you sometimes skips explicit
"https://" prefix. At least Thunderbird does not make links active ones.

I do not see a point in insisting on HTTPS link when Message-ID is
provided. Any variant is better than mentioning messages without any identifier. Everybody has its own preferences concerning style of linking.

P.S. I did not respond immediately since primary topic of this thread
was active.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

As a kind of preface: I am not trying to convince that Message-ID as
link to a message is ideal. It is still useful however. I hope, it may
be made more convenient for users.

On 16/02/2026 12:23 pm, David Wright wrote:

On Sat 14 Feb 2026 at 11:19:27 (+0700), Max Nikulin wrote:

On 26/01/2026 2:42 pm, David wrote:

On Mon, 26 Jan 2026 at 03:18, Max Nikulin wrote:

On 26/01/2026 5:01 am, David wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jan 2026 at 18:01, D. R. Evans wrote:

(see my e-mail
<eca2ee9a-ae7c-46b1-ab6a-101365e2a73f@gmail.com> in another
sub-thread),

If you want to reference other list messages, can you please do that by >>>>> providing links into the list archive which can be found at for
example: https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2026/01/threads.html

David, if you wish to open that message in a browser then
you may easily do it:

?????? ?

Sorry, I can not figure out what caused your question.

Having Message-ID, it is more convenient to open that message inside
mailer

I think that way depends on the target message being in the
mailer's currently open mailbox.

At least Thunderbird and Gmail web UI maintain "global" index for the
profile. So one may open message from another mail folder (or even from another mail account in the case of Thunderbird).

or in another web mailing list archive.

Do you mean some site that carries debian-user, or are you broadening
this discussion to other mailing lists besides Debian's? If so, are
you saying that other mailing lists use ?/msgid-search/?m=MESSAGE_ID
URLs? I don't find that to be so.

DDOS (intentional or just caused by scraping bot crowd) is not something exceptional nowadays. So having Message-ID, it is possible to get the
same message from alternative sources, e.g.

<https://marc.info/?i=eca2ee9a-ae7c-46b1-ab6a-101365e2a73f@gmail.com> <https://mail-archive.com/search?l=mid&q=eca2ee9a-ae7c-46b1-ab6a-101365e2a73f@gmail.com>

In the case of public inbox instances (e.g. kernel.org archives),
Message-ID is primary identifier.

Message-ID itself is not a link, and I'll hazard a guess that many
people reading this list may not know how to turn a Message-ID into
a URL. Whatever writes the List-Archive URLs doesn't get this right
either.

Message-ID is an identifier that may be converted to various links.
Aren't we here to learn something new?

If a mail
list archive moved to other site or removed completely then "msg00411"
is not a helpful identifier. It can not be used for obtaining the same
message from another archive.

I wasn't aware that the list archive would be moved. I see that:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/1994/01/msg00000.html
is still where it always was.

I did not mean namely lists.debian.org, but net is full of old broken
links to gmane.org. Variants with Message-ID are a bit easier to fix
than article numbers.

I admit, Message-ID's usually have no
hints concerning date and mailing list name. Actually I prefer
redundancy and references with sender, destination, and timestamp:

David to debian-user. Re: Referencing mail messages (was: Use
grub-rescue on a non-bootable RAID-formatted drive) Mon, 26 Jan 2026
07:42:56 +0000. <mid:CAMPXz=q3iTPMvy2nz8n0J5Epusnuo0MXY2icyhJ3qK9O1rasRA@mail.gmail.com>
(Or https://...)

So generic search may be used to obtain the message. I am realizing
that almost nobody will use detailed links.

Wow, it's hard enough to get some people to attribute there quotes,
let alone persuade them to write references like that.

Do you see any value in references with redundancy? The problem is to
make tools for easy creation of them available for users.

I believe,
<https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/?m=CAMPXz=q3iTPMvy2nz8n0J5Epusnuo0MXY2icyhJ3qK9O1rasRA@mail.gmail.com>
is not really worse

It has to be whenever it doesn't work.

I have tried it in Firefox and

curl -I 'https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/?m=CAMPXz=q3iTPMvy2nz8n0J5Epusnuo0MXY2icyhJ3qK9O1rasRA@mail.gmail.com'
...
location: /debian-user/2026/01/msg00492.html

5) Sometimes the Message-ID search of the Debian mail archives fails to
find messages, so I prefer to use a method that seems to always work. >>

See "?m=" above.

The ?m= construction seems unnecessary for most Message-IDs,
yet it's insufficient make those like the ones at the end of
this post actually work without correcting them.

I expect that "?m=" may be made unnecessary even for "/" and "+", but
some effort (and an experienced Perl developer) is required.

AFAICT, the debian-user server can handle ?/msgid-search/?m=MESSAGE_ID
URLs perfectly correctly for all the Message-IDs that I've seen used
on the list, but you have to correct some of them manually yourself.

Percent encoding may be necessary for some characters. Ideally it should
be avoided, so copy-paste of Message-ID to URL should be enough.

On 26/01/2026 12:17 pm, David Wright wrote:

Some of the URLs I am sent in emails have hundreds of "random"
characters in them. I've just turned up a 1478-character URL just
for unsubscribing from PlutoTV marketing emails.

Private links may be long. For "public" links with Message-ID it is
better to constrain length and used characters to reasonable values.

"+" is more tricky, it is not enough to just insert "?m=".

I think RFC3986 implies that safe URLs should be generated from
such Message-IDs by the list remailer,

Certainly smartlist should be fixed, but identifiers without "/", "+",
"$", etc. are more convenient for humans since they do not require
escaping. My idea is that MUAs that send messages might be fixed.

David Wright, I have noticed that you sometimes skips explicit
"https://" prefix. At least Thunderbird does not make links active
ones.

[...]

I think most browsers will add http: or https: for you when you
paste one of my URLs lacking the protocol.

The issue is that neither active hyperlink nore "copy link location"
context menu option are available, so it is necessary to select link
text from the beginning to its end, it is not enough to just click on
the link.

BTW, the web archiver also appears unable to form these URLs when the Message-IDs look like Y/+tJdQluFDMC4Ci@use or ZPJmz/DZIqTk2Kol@wooledge.org As a result, the Message-ID is rendered as dead text, rather than as
an active link.

Fixing mhonarc template may be more difficult than e.g. smartlist.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)