On Jul 13, 2007, at 9:54 AM, Ken Raeburn wrote:
On Jul 13, 2007, at 09:05, John C Klensin wrote:
However, I think the IETF benefits from policies whose effect is
to keep the clueless and inconsiderate off our mailing list until
they can be educated.
I think most organizations or lists would benefit from such
policies. But where does the education come from, if not us? Are
we expecting them to attain a certain level of clue at some
unspecified "elsewhere", before they can join up to discuss the
GSSAPI or CALSIFY or something else pretty well removed from
needing an understanding of the workings of the mail systems of the
Internet at large? We certainly aren't giving them any help in
that regard with our list "welcome" message.
I'd be okay (not happy) with a policy of "unsubscribe and send a
friendly form letter explaining why and how to fix it", though I
don't think it's as good as keeping delivery going when that's easy
and doesn't impact the rest of the list membership. But a policy
of simply unsubscribing would likely lead them to the conclusion
that the IETF mail system is broken (and if you consider policies a
part of the system I'd say they'd be right), and that by
association, the IETF is as lame and clueless as we're claiming the
subscriber and his sysadmins are.
Why write code to _accommodate_ auto-response senders? Mailman
already has a mechanism in place for bounces. This mechanism will
not "unsubscribe" the account, but instead disables messages from
being delivered. At some point, recipients will become aware of a
problem. The archives will contain messages missed, and confirm a
cessation. Suspending delivery ensures auto-responses are not made
to other list posters as well. Everyone will be happier except those
sending auto-replies. TT.
In the case of ongoing bounces, it is not possible to notify
recipients of an altered status or how they might reinstate
delivery. However, it will be far more educational to _not_ issue
notifications in the auto-response case as well. Disabling delivery
of messages without notification require the clueless to
investigate. This lesson may be shared with IT staff when they
becoming part of a really clueless recipient's investigation. The IT
staff are also best able to ensure future notifications are curtailed.
In the Mailman management page, indicate the repeated sending of
messages like "I'm on vacation" may be a reason for delivery to
become disabled. Problem solved with an effective educational
component included.
-Doug
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