Gateway to python-list is generating bounce messages.

[Ben Finney]

Grant Edwards <grante at visi.com> writes:

> On 2008-09-10, Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> > Grant Edwards <grante at visi.com> writes:
> >
> >> Could whoever is responsible for the gateway that is grabbing
> >> my postings off of Usenet and e-mailing them out please fix the
> >> headers in the mail messages so that I don't get the bounce
> >> messages?  
> >
> > The bounce messages are sent to you because you sent the
> > original.
> 
> Wrong.  I didn't send _any_ e-mail.  Why should I get bounce
> messages?

You asked for email to be sent, by sending a Usenet post to
comp.lang.python. That's what a news-to-mail gateway does.

> Isn't sending e-mails pretending they're from somebody else
> considered unethical (if not illegal)?

No, since it's clearly the function of a news-to-mail gateway to make
this forum operate as a single pool of communication, seamlessly
passing the messages between two distinct media. That happens by
preserving the messages as intact as feasible in both media.

> > Indeed it is rude, and the person subscribed to the mailing list
> > whose software is sending these bounce messages is the one
> > responsible for making it stop.
> 
> No, the one who's sending e-mail with forged headers is the one who
> ought to make it stop. That e-mail was not from me. It was from
> somebody who grabbed the article off a usenet server and mailed it
> to a bunch of people.

You seem to be arguing that the news-to-mail gateway of this forum
should stop functioning.

I don't know if you're claiming to be ignorant of the news-to-mail
gateway before now; if so, I hope you'll agree that having a large
body of mostly well-behaved contributors on this joint forum is worth
effort to keep it operational.

> I think the list administrator ought to stop putting other people's
> e-mail addresses in the From: headers of e-mails he's sending.

(Note that an email message has exactly one header, by definition; it
consists of separate fields, of which the From field is one.)

It's unfortunate that you don't like how the news-to-mail gateway
functions, but I'm not convinced that one person's surprise at how it
operates should be reason to break its primary function.

I sympathise completely with your irritation at receiving bounce
messages from poorly-configured software, but the solution is not to
break the news-to-mail gateway.

The correct solution is to unsubscribe the badly-behaving address from
the mailing list, and refuse re-subscription from that address without
assurance that the bad behaviour has ceased.

-- 
 \         “A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of |
  `\                                              five.” —Groucho Marx |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney