From: Kee Hinckley <nazgul(_at_)somewhere(_dot_)com>
...
I'm not so worried about mailing lists. What worries me is what
happens when Amazon sends me an out-of-stock notice and I send a C/R
to the envelope from. What are the odds that it's going to be
treated as a bounce, and I get taken off their list?
From what list would Amazon remove your address? Why would they do
anything but ignore an apparent bounce or an SMTP rejection status
for an out-of-stock, shipping, or other routine transaction notice?
On the other hand, if mailing list software recognizes a challenge at
all, you must expect it to be treated like a non-delivery notice.
There are too many idiosyncratic, "nationalized," customized, and
"improved" forms of bounces for mailing list software to do anything
else for the foreseeable future.
Commercial "transactional" email worries me more than mailing lists.
It's not just that the mail's more critical, but updating it to some
new standard is harder. Those systems are largely homegrown, whereas
lists tend to use standard software and/or services. Lists are
easier to change to a new standard.
I think that's backwards. Those largely homegrown transactional
systems have paid tenders who continually maintain it. While mailing
list software is usually installed by people who barely (if at all)
read the manual and forgotten. You might change next versions of the
most 3 most common mailing list packages, but that won't get them
installed. Even people who read the manuals are reluctant to touch
working software.
For example, I'm using version 2.0.5 of Mailman. It is distinctly
older than the current 2.0 version, not to mention the current 2.1
version. (See http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mailman/ ) I'm reluctant to
switch to because I'd lose or have to port some of the tweaks I've
made, and because I'd have to worry about new problems. Before worrying
about Mailman, I should deal with a bunch of other things. I'm probably
unusual because I not only read the documentation, but spent time
trying to understand some of the code and even checked some of the
release notices of new versions to see if I'm wrong. Most users of
Mailman probably have no idea how many new releases they've ignored.
Like me, but unlike those transactional system tenders, they have more
urgent business.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com
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