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bouncing emails without real names

2003-03-02 11:01:59
Thanks, all, for the suggestions. A database is indeed a reasonable
idea. I have CGI software that the students log in to anyway to check
their grades and so on, so I think I'll just add a feature to that
software so that they can send me an e-mail through it. That would
give me control over the From: field.

A couple of comments regarding the social/etiquette aspects:

Alan Clifford wrote:
Ben Crowell is attempting use a technological solution for a problem of
bad manners.  If his pupils are sending him emails such that he cannot
identify the originator, then he should be teaching them manners.  This is
not technical problem and is not one that can be solved with procmail.

Good grief, what is happening in our education system?

My job is to teach them physics, not manners. Teenagers tend not to
respond well when you correct their manners. Also, many of them know
it's rude not to sign an email, but just don't remember to do it.

Anyhow, my goal is to avoid using up time and energy on this kind of nagging.

Professional Software Engineering wrote:
Whatever the reason, I think it is rather presumptuous to declare that 
people can't send you mail unless their name appears in some syntax _you_ 
recognize 

I don't think it's at all presumptuous to make a decision about what kind
of e-mail I'm willing to receive. If people don't like my criteria,
they don't have to send me e-mail.

- you're likely to hammer some hapless user who _does_ have their 
name in the From:, but just in some format you overlooked.

That's why I want to be conservative about it. Right now, I'm simply
bouncing addresses of the form xxx(_at_)aol(_dot_)com(_dot_) If it's true that 
AOL
makes it completely impossible to put your name in the From: field,
then so be it -- I guess I'm blocking e-mail from AOL completely.

Some people _sign_ their emails.  You could simply elect to post a policy 
of refusing to respond to messages which fail to provide any form of 
personal identification (be it in the From:, or in the body).

I've done this. The problem is that students ignore the policy, then
complain that I didn't respond to their e-mail. It takes up my time
and energy.





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