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RE: Proper way to specify "Do Not Reply"?

1998-10-08 12:38:53
From RFC 822:

          In  all  cases, addresses in the "From" field
        must be machine-usable (addr-specs) and may not contain  named
        lists (groups).

What do you suggest a system which has no identifiable sender put in the
"from" field?  Bogus(_at_)bogus? 

My reading of 822 (4.4.2)  is far less clear, but my reading suggests group
notations would be inappropriate there as well since they should identify
the singular sender of a message when it is other than the sender.   

Greg V.

----------
From:         Chris Newman[SMTP:Chris(_dot_)Newman(_at_)innosoft(_dot_)com]
Sent:         Thursday, October 08, 1998 1:52 PM
To:   ietf-822(_at_)imc(_dot_)org
Subject:      RE: Proper way to specify "Do Not Reply"?

On Thu, 8 Oct 1998, Vaudreuil, Greg M (Greg) wrote:
VPIM, RFC 2421 suggests using:

    non-mail-user(_at_)domain

for unrepliable messages.  In this case, message originating from a
telephone-answering application cannot be replied to.
RFC 2421 prohibits replies to this special-case address by conforming
systems.

Hopefully most implementors will ignore that prohibition on the grounds it
violates the more important full-standard requirement (RFC 1123, 5.2.16)
that the local-part is uninterpreted except by the system named on the
right-hand-side. 

I definitely prefer the empty group address for this purpose:

Reply-To: Please Don't Reply:;

It fits RFC 822 syntax and has an obvious interpretation without any
layering violation.

              - Chris