Re: fernando: Mail delivery error
On Wed, Jul 31, 2002 at 05:35:46PM +0100, Richard Kimber wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Jul 2002 16:26:38 -0700
> Craig Dickson <crdic@pacbell.net> wrote:
> > ben wrote:
> > > is anyone else getting this, below, on any post to debian-user?
> >
> > Problem is, I don't think the list server is seeing these bounces;
> > they're being sent directly to the original sender of each message. The
> > list server, therefore, has no idea that there is a problem.
>
> OK I accept that I don't understand how these things work, but would this
> happen if the list server was configured so that, by default, we replied
> to the list and not to the originating individual, and if the server
> filtered out these messages so that they weren't sent on to members of the
> list?
That wouldn't necessarily help, and would be a pretty awful hack since
there's no way to automatically filter such messages. The list is
already configured so that bounces go to a special address on the list
server, as they should; it just happens that many badly-configured mail
systems ignore that. I say that it wouldn't necessarily help because it
isn't obvious to me whether they send bounces to From:, Reply-To:, or
Sender:, as opposed to the correct approach of bouncing to the SMTP
envelope sender.
> I've always thought it odd that many mailing lists are configured so that
> when you hit the reply button your reply goes to the individual and not
> the list. The idea of a mailing list is to share information among a
> group, so the logical default ought to be reply to the list, I should have
> thought. Some people even get upset if they receive messages by accident
> that should have gone to the list.
There have been many rants on this subject which I won't repeat:
googling for "reply-to munging considered harmful" will get you both
points of view among its hits.
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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