[Mailman-Developers] suggested improvement for Mailman's bounce processing

[Ian Eiloart]

--On 7 August 2006 20:44:07 -0500 Brad Knowles <brad at 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:

1. 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.

2. 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