(I think this has been added to a list to which I don't subscribe,
so please be aware of that before trimming headers if you expect
me to see a response and reply.)
[me, Stan]
I've recently jumped into the role of a "list owner" and am wondering
if anyone has developed good filters for handling mail "bounces".
[Alan]
[lots of bounce cases omitted]
Please review SmartList, which is a mailing list management software on
top of procmail. It already has a mechanism for automatically dealing
with bounced e-mail addresses. This includes many, very heuristic rules
for recognizing bounced e-mail, and more importantly, recognizing the
one e-mail address of the usually many within which actually caused the
bounce.
Great idea, except I'm sort of stuck with an existing ISP who
(fortunately) has procmail/formail, but will not (I asked!) let
me maintain a mailing list here. So I am now maintaining
remotely a LISTSERV list in Turkey. Hence my question (which
I thought reaonable) about handling the bounces via procmail.
Would SmartList help here anyway, unless I converted the LISTSERV
list (about 75) to an entirely different address? There's
no way I can conceive of that happening, short of being tossed
off the Turkey server.
Of course, being a work of performance art, SmartList is still in need
of additional, special-case heuristics to handle the incredible variety
of wonderfuly strange bounced emails that are possible.
Well, if given something to start with, I'm willing to add whatever
I learn to the public knowledge on this subject.
So, rather than build yet another complete infrastructure for handling
bounced emails, why not convert to SmartList and build upon its existing
ruleset, and become a "contributing artist" to that body of work.
"Convert" what to SmartList? The mailing list? Virtually impossible,
I think, given the number of people and the other stuff that goes
along with being there.
Don't want to reinvent the wheel (as I said originally). But not
sure how in my existing situation I could be a useful "contributing
artist" though I would love to contribute to the existing ruleset
if I knew that I could actually improve it. Plus, as I said
originally, I wanted two categories: "probably ignore" and
"look at this".
If the above makes no sense, I apologize... I'm falling asleep,
it's that time of night.
Cheers,
Stan Ryckman (stanr(_at_)tiac(_dot_)net)
and a big "meow" from Amber and Sneakers....