[Mailman-Users] How do I prevent subscribers from sending to -bounces address instead of list address?

[Mark Sapiro]

On 03/04/2016 10:33 AM, Hirayama, Pat wrote:
> Apparently, many of my subscribers must be using Outlook, so they see
> the mailto:listname-bounces at domain hypertext and are copying that to
> send new messages to the list. Aside from repeatedly telling the
> users that they need to send to listname at domain, have any of you
> found a better solution?


You can't control what MUA's your user's use. Attempting to educate
them, at least in most user populations, is futile.

And Pat added:
> Sorry, I should add this salient point.  Since the subscriber has
> sent to -bounces, it is going to the list admins, but there is no
> indication to the subscriber that this has happened.  As far as they
> know, their message has been posted to the list.  This seems bad, but
> it doesn't seem like a good idea to have the list admins forward the
> message, since that will change the sender.


It depends on how much work you want to do. If YOU have a decent MUA,
you can open the original attached "unrecognized bounce" message and
resend it to the list. It might be held for implicit destination, but
you can avoid that by adding the -bounces address to the list's
acceptable_aliases, at least in the non-verp case, but it's probably
better to edit the original To: before resending so other innocent
reply-all messages don't go to the bounces address. I.e., there are ways
to resend that message To: the list and From: the original sender; how
much work they are depends on what tools you have at your disposal.

But, this is the wrong answer because it puts all the effort on the list
owner. The right answer is to compose a nice helpful message explaining
the situation and what the correct list posting address is and keep that
handy on your desktop so when you get one of these you can just forward
it back to the original sender together with your message and put the
burden back on them. Maybe some will even learn. Others will just blame
your list because obviously their Microsoft software can't be doing
anything wrong.

Happy Fri Sep 8221 19:03:26 PST 1993

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