Dave Crocker <dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> wrote:
The difference is that there are practicalities of implementation and
use that we have to anticipate. This falls under the unfortunate
reality that the real-world is not conducted so carefully.
I have great respect for Dave's viewpoint on that issue.
But I do think there's a principle here that doesn't depend upon the
implementation: that silently dropping a false-positive _does_ create
problems as perceived by the end users -- and that those problems would
be significantly reduced if the innocent sender of the false-positive
email were notified of the failure to deliver.
On the average, user-level Internet mechanisms need to be pretty
simple and straightforward, if they are to be successful.
Omigosh yes! I've taken far too many support calls: "Is the Internet
down?" to think otherwise...
But I, at least, am thinking in terms of an implementation where we
notify the SMTP-sending-server during the SMTP session, with a message
including a URL for more information. IMHO, this would tend to converge
to a situation where end-users understood the issue -- and learned to
route around it. ;^)
--
John Leslie <john(_at_)jlc(_dot_)net>