At 3:36 PM -0800 2/16/2000, Joe Smith wrote:
>What really burns me up is mailing list software that refuses to
>recognize unsub requests for forwarded mail. Too many MLM packages
>do not honor requests when the From: address does not exactly match
>the mailing list entry.
It's a big problem, something I've been working over recently myself.
My plan is for my -unsubscribe script to look at the From, the
reply-to, and the X-Sender headers, and then allow the user to add
"Remove: address" lines to the body. That will take care of all of
the cases where a user knows his address, and many cases where they
don't -- it's really rather amazing the number of times I get
postmaster mail to have some address unsubscribed, when it's the
wrong one, and the correct address is in the X-sender address instead.
The piece I've been working on this weekend is the unsubscribe logic
for the new web site. Since my new server is fully SQL based, I've
got lots of flexibility to do whatever it takes to make it work right
-- if I can only figure out what "right" is. The unsubscribe CGI does
lots of stuff behind the curtains to try to figure out what the
subscribed address is from what it's given, without ever disclosing
subscription addresses unless it's convinced there's a match.
>It's not unusual to have ten different e-mail
>addresses all forwarding into a single inbox.
Define unusual. I'd say it is -- but two or three is pretty common.
This, by the way, is a great reason to go to a fully VERPed MLM that
puts the subscribed address in the To: field where it belongs. Which
'll be doing (I hope) in late march or early april.
>Worse yet is the case where an employee leaves and the mailing list software
>does not process the "no such user" bounce message.
(cringe) -- yup. That's an issue. And a growing one, given the
growing use of virtual domains where the entire domain is forwarded
to someone's account (such as, for instance,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]). Trying to help the administrator get
their domain off has been something I've been working into my cgi. My
final lookup is on the domainname itself, with no user piece, and if
it matches a single subscribed address, I assume that this is what
they're looking for.
--
Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'"
