--On 7 August 2006 20:44:07 -0500 Brad Knowles <brad@stop.mail-abuse.org> wrote:
At 4:26 PM -0400 2006-08-07, James Ralston wrote:
As a list owner, you shouldn't need to care. Mailman should just Do The Right Thing. My argument is that ignoring content-related bounces is the Right Thing.
The problem is determining, in a programmatic and systematic way, what really is a content-related bounce and what might mistakenly appear to be a content-related bounce, and the converse.
No, that isn't the problem. The RFC says how to do this, and we should trust the RFC. If people have broken servers then actually there's nothing that can go wrong which isn't already going wrong.
....> If you want to move this discussion beyond the theory stage, I'd suggest that you start collecting some data.
I can't see that data is required. There are two categories of error, and the consequences are neutral in both cases:
A message is labelled as a content bounce when it's really a recipient bounce. The consequence is that the recipient stays subscribed. This isn't a real problem. The worst that happens is a bit of extra traffic, or that the admin reverts to the old behaviour.
The message is labelled as a recipient bounce when it's really a content bounce. This is the status quo. People may already be incorrectly unsubscribed. This is a real problem when it occurs. It can happen because a server refuses messages with illegal (RFC non-compliant) headers, as well as when the content is offensive.
-- Ian Eiloart IT Services, University of Sussex