ietf-smtp
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [ietf-smtp] IETF Policy on dogfood consumption or avoidance - SMTP version

2019-12-23 22:37:54
On 12/23/19 6:24 PM, Sam Varshavchik wrote:

The reason you see various places doing this is because it works for them. As simple that. They've reached the conclusion that this check blocks a bunch of crap with negligible, if any at all, impact on their non-spam mail traffic.

I would not draw that conclusion, at least without additional information.   My conclusion would be that you see such practices because a site believed that it worked for them at sometime in the (perhaps distant) past.   But something I've seen across many different organizations is that fixes tend to be seen as necessary indefinitely, even long after they've outlived their usefulness or caused more problems than they solved.

Another thing I've often seen is that measurement of the effectiveness of such measures is poor to nonexistent.

Another thing I've often seen is that "running code", however badly running, is often taken as the ultimate authority for how things "should" work, no matter what the rules or policies or business interests are, because the people who are maintaining such code don't want to take the risk of disrupting operations. (often because operations is understaffed)

But perhaps the fundamental problem is that too many people actually don't consider reliable email delivery as an essential service, and that's why they justify throwing away messages for dubious reasons.

Keith


_______________________________________________
ietf-smtp mailing list
ietf-smtp(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-smtp

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>