Home Original page

Gateway to python-list is generating bounce messages.

MRAB google at mrabarnett.plus.com
Fri Sep 12 20:54:21 EDT 2008 
On Sep 12, 11:15 pm, Matt Nordhoff <mnordh... at mattnordhoff.com> 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
>
> "python-list-bounces+user=example.... at python.org" (supposing the
> subscriber's email address is u... at example.com). 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... :-)
More information about the Python-list mailing list