On Sep 12, 11:15 pm, Matt Nordhoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Steven D'Aprano wrote: > > On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:27:33 +0200, Sjoerd Mullender wrote: > > >> When mail messages bounce, the MTA (Message Transfer Agent--the program > >> that handles mail) *should* send the bounce message to whatever is in > >> the Sender header, and only if that header does not exist, should it use > >> the From header. > > > Who makes up these rules, and why should we pay the least bit of > > attention to them? > > > It's one thing to say "right or wrong, that's what list admins do and you > > have to deal with their behaviour whatever way you can". It's another > > thing altogether to take the legalistic attitude of "never mind the > > consequences, the standard is the standard and must be unthinkingly > > obeyed". If the standard does more harm than good, then ignoring the > > standard is the right thing to do. (Better would be to change the > > standard, but that probably won't happen until there's a critical mass of > > people who ignore the existing broken standard and form their own de > > facto standard.) > > > A standard isn't "correct" just because it's a standard, it's merely > > something that a committee has agreed to do. In other words, it's a > > compromise. Now, such compromises might be good and useful, or they might > > combine the worst of all opinions. Just because something is standardized > > doesn't make it the right thing to do. If you want proof of this, I give > > you the recently approved ISO standard for Microsoft's so-called "Office > > Open XML" OOXML file format. > > > The standard behaviour of sending bounce and out-of-office messages to > > the sender works well when sending email to individuals, but for mailing > > lists it is pointless and counter-productive. Pointless, because the > > sender can't do anything to fix the problem he's being notified about. > > And counter-productive, because it is an anti-feature, something that > > makes the mailing list more unpleasant and less useful. Anyone who has > > regularly emailed to a large mailing list has surely experienced the > > frustration of receiving bounce messages from perfect strangers. > > > To anyone who wishes to defend the process of sending mailing list > > bounces back the sender, ask yourself this: what do YOU do with such > > bounces when you receive them? If you ignore them or delete them (whether > > manually or via a procmail recipe or some other automatic system) then > > what benefit does the standard behaviour offer? > > I think you misunderstand. He's referring to the Sender header, not the>From > header. The messages the listbot sends out have a Sender header of > > "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" (supposing the > subscriber's email address is [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Bounces should be > directed to the bitbucket or list admin or whatever, not the user in > the>>From header. kring.com just has a broken mail server. > Ah, kring.com. I've been receiving bounces from there as well since Wednesday. I just added it to my spam blacklist and forgot about it.
I'm just wondering what would happen if someone posted from there... :-) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
