Implementation
--------------
-public-inbox uses ssoma[1], Some Sort Of Mail Archiver which implements
-no policy of its own. By storing (and optionally) exposing an inbox
-via git, it is fast and efficient to host and mirror public-inboxes.
+public-inbox stores mail in a git repository keyed by Message-ID
+as documented in: https://ssoma.public-inbox.org/ssoma_repository.txt
-Traditional mailing lists use the "push" model. For readers, this
-requires commitment to subscribe and effort to unsubscribe. New readers
-may also have difficulty following existing discussions if archives do
-not expose Message-ID headers for responses. List server admins may be
-burdened with delivery failures.
+By storing (and optionally) exposing an inbox via git, it is
+fast and efficient to host and mirror public-inboxes.
-public-inbox uses the "pull" model. Casual readers may also follow
-the list via NNTP, Atom feed or HTML archives.
+Traditional mailing lists use the "push" model. For readers,
+that requires commitment to subscribe and effort to unsubscribe.
+New readers may also have difficulty following existing
+discussions if archives do not expose Message-ID and References
+headers. List server admins are also burdened with delivery
+failures.
-Users of the ssoma[1] command-line tool may import mail into an mbox,
-Maildir, or IMAP folder from git repositories periodically.
+public-inbox uses the "pull" model. Casual readers may also
+follow the list via NNTP, Atom feed or HTML archives.
If a reader loses interest, they simply stop syncing.
Since we use git, mirrors are easy-to-setup, and lists are
-easy-to-relocate to different mail addresses without losing/splitting
-archives.
+easy-to-relocate to different mail addresses without losing
+or splitting archives.
_Anybody_ may also setup a delivery-only mailing list server to
replay a public-inbox git archive to subscribers via SMTP.
-[1] https://ssoma.public-inbox.org/
-
Features
--------
Content Filtering
-----------------
-To discourage phishing, web bugs (tracking), viruses and other nuisances,
-only plain-text content is allowed and non-text content is stripped.
-This saves I/O bandwidth and storage, which is important as
-entire mail archives are shared between clients.
+To discourage phishing, trackers, exploits and other nuisances,
+only plain-text emails are allowed and HTML is rejected.
+This improves accessibility, and saves bandwidth and storage
+as mail is archived forever.
As of the 2010s, successful online social networks and forums are the
ones which heavily restrict users formatting options; so public-inbox