[Mailman-Users] Mailman's solution to DMARC makes List-Id useless

Mark Sapiro mark at msapiro.net
Fri Aug 21 16:37:52 CEST 2015


On 08/20/2015 10:13 AM, Richard wrote:
> 
> However, what is really annoying is that it takes the original From:
> line and puts it on the Reply-To: line and there's no way to turn this
> off.
> 
> I can't seem to find any explanation of why anyone thinks this is a
> good idea.  Maybe someone here can explain it to me.


It is there to make a "reply" and "reply-all" actions on posts with
munged From: be as consistent as possible with the same action on a
non-munged post, and to expose the poster's address in a header which is
normally displayed by MUAs.


> Below is why I think it's a bad idea.  Why can't we encode the original
> email address in a comment or quoted token on the From: line instead of
> jamming it onto Reply-To?
> 
> This is how I'm seeing mailing list messages now:
> 
>       To: Hal Finkel <hfinkel at anl.gov>
>       cc: cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org,
>           Commit Messages and Patches for LLVM <llvm-commits at lists.llvm.org>
>     From: Lang Hames via cfe-dev <cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org>
> Reply-To: Lang Hames <lhames at gmail.com>
> 
> The reply-to is going to the sender instead of the list, which is
> making people cc the mailing list in order to get things to go back to
> the list.


And without munging, the same post would be

>       To: Hal Finkel <hfinkel at anl.gov>
>       cc: cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org,
>           Commit Messages and Patches for LLVM
<llvm-commits at lists.llvm.org>
>     From: Lang Hames <lhames at gmail.com>

and reply would still go to the sender in From:


> From what I read of DMARC, it's the munging of the From:
> line that is needed in order to have messages pass the DMARC checks.
> To me this makes sense -- the mailing list domain is sending the message
> to the list and the appropriate domain checks need to be made against
> the mailing list's domain, not the original author of the mailing list
> message.


And if you used dmarc_moderation_action instead of from_is_list to munge
the from, only posts From: domains which publish DMARC reject (or
optionally, quarantine) policies would be munged. The policy for
gmail.com in 'none'.


> What I'm not understanding is how DMARC is mandating that Reply-To: go
> back to the original author, and not the mailing list, as is the
> usualy convention: public conversations from a mailing list cycle back
> to the mailing list by default and only fork into a private
> conversation when specifically requested.


If you want this behavior, set the list's reply_goes_to_list to "This
list", then with current Mailman, the above becomes

>       To: Hal Finkel <hfinkel at anl.gov>
>       cc: cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org,
>           Commit Messages and Patches for LLVM
<llvm-commits at lists.llvm.org>,
>           Lang Hames <lhames at gmail.com>
>     From: Lang Hames via cfe-dev <cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org>
> Reply-To: <cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org>

Whether or not to munge Reply-To: to the list address is controversial
and has been argued and flamed multiple times for years. See
<http://marc.merlins.org/netrants/listreplyto.html>.

-- 
Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan


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