On Tue, 16 Jun 1998 21:11:20 -0500 Ken Hooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
>Eric, I have a question. Your reason for outright refusing to implement
>this standard (if we assume the RFC dictates that the MLM sw reside at
>the -request address) is that it would rob a Listserv list of its "human
>contact" address, is that not correct?
Yes, and the fact that the -request address has traditionally always led
to a human, or at least to instructions about contacting a human.
>But if I remember right, Listserv also uses listname-owner as a human
>contact address
It's owner-listname, and it's the address used for bounces! Anything sent
to that address has limited chances of survival, depending on how the
list is configured. Nowadays many people set their lists for fully
automated bounce processing, and they would never see anything sent to
that address.
>At least, is it not simple to make it configurable, such that -request
>can point either to a human or the MLM at the administrator's
>discretion?
The administrator is free to define the -request as:
xxx-request: listserv
instead of the recommended setting, but this is not the point. To comply
with the RFC, this would have to be the default action.
I do agree that -request is a very bad choice, but I was not involved in
choosing it. It was already a de facto standard when I wrote LISTSERV,
and I just had to implement it even though I had not been able to give my
opinion, because it was well-established.
Eric
