Asking for permission to archive mail

Asking for permission to archive mail

[Gerald Pfeifer]

You all are surely aware of those "Please remove my postings A, B, C"
from your mailing list archives.

Now I just came across what I think is incredibly nice a feature to
proactively handle such cases.  Here is how w3.org handles this.  When
you send a mail to one of their lists, you get a friendly reply to visit
a web page which looks as follows:

==== snip ====

                      W3C Mail Permission to archive mail

   You sent a message to www-validator@w3.org. This is a mailing list with 
   a Web archive that is readable by the general public; before you may 
   post to the list, you need to agree to have your message made available 
   in these archives, forever.

   Therefore, please choose one of the four options below:

     * [ ] YES, W3C may archive this message on its Web site.
     * [X] YES, W3C may archive this message and any further messages I 
           send to www-validator@w3.org on its Web site.
     * [ ] YES, W3C may archive this message and any further messages I 
           send to any W3C list on its Web site.
     * [ ] NO, do not archive my message online or distribute it to the 
           list; I will find another route for my feedback.

   If you do not choose one of these options by Wed Aug 1 10:37:21 UTC 
   2007, your message will not be archived online or distributed to the 
   list; it will be removed from our systems.

   Please be aware that having a message available in our archives runs 
   the risk that your email address will be harvested by spammers. This is 
   one of the risks of participating in a public forum.

==== snip ====

Cute, isn't it?  I'm afraid this won't be straightforward to implement, 
but I thought I'd at least share the concept.

Gerald