--Phil Howard <phil-spf-discuss(_at_)ipal(_dot_)net> wrote:
On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 11:50:17AM -0800, Greg Connor wrote:
| Another option is to do what mailing lists do - mark the envelope with
| their own address (mail from: in SMTP transaction and Return-Path: of
| <bounces(_at_)website(_dot_)com>) and leave the From: in the message as the
| supposed user. That way the receiver can click Reply to reply to the
| sender, but the website owner gets to deal with the bounces.
Not all mailing lists do that, though I believe they should.
Conceptually, to me, a mailing list is an automated delivery of a forum
content, which may, or may not, contain the actual email address of who
posted. Being able to reply to that poster is a convenience, not a
necessity to the protocol. It would be nice if mail user agents better
understood the distinction between sending only to the poster and sending
to the whole group. It works on some (for example 'g' instead of 'r' in
my "mutt" MUA), but not all, mailing lists.
I think I'm in agreement with Phil. What I meant to say what "mechanisms
that send mail on your behalf should consider doing what (most) mailing
lists do: alter the envelope so bounces come back to them".
Not all mailing lists leave the From: address so that people can reply.
For some mailing lists that's less important, but for services like "A
friend wanted you to see this article" it would be more important to get
the reply behavior right... but that is secondary to what I meant to say.
The historical first mailing lists, which were long lines in /etc/aliases,
were really terribly bad hacks, but they worked. I think it is sad that
so many people do a hack like that and think it is such a clever and
simple solution, and don't realize the future consequences of locking
people into a limited, and often brain-dead, facility.
True, and I think majordomo still works by altering aliases for you, though
it may not any more. Also, a lot of people don't know that sendmail has
this feature: if you define "mylist" and "owner-mylist" as aliases, then
mail to mylist will have its envelope sender changed to the rhs of
owner-mylist on the way through. (Not surprising that people don't know
this, since the popular use of sendmail far outstrips what the existing
documentation available can support :)
--
Greg Connor <gconnor(_at_)nekodojo(_dot_)org>
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