I know, this has been in the list too many times...

Anyway, I have reeded some of the threads with discussion about this.
They all start with someone who want to change the content of the bounce
message.

The arguments used to not change the bounce message is that it will
probably broke the QSBMF format. And there is a lot of people who say
they can not se any reason to change the content in these messages. Well
there is a good reason, there is not only english speaking people in the
world.

I have readed about the QSBMF format and here are some thoughts:

First of all, the start in this message is not good for a automatic
sended message. A message starting with "Hi" looks like an mail written
by a human person and can be confusing for them who just know a little
english.
A much better way to start this kind of message is "This is a automatic
generated failure message from qmail bla bla bla"
But I realise this is to late to change now. So I hope noone will,
because it will make a lot of trubble for mailing list servers.

Changing the first paragraph, will not break the QSBMF format as long it
start with "Hi. This is the" because that is what identifies these
messages.

After the first paragraph in this message there is a paragraph with the
recipient adress that failed. The fisrt line of this paragraph begins
whit "<" and it ends with ">:" The remaing lines in this paragraph can
be changed to whatever you want.

I think there should be no problem to add paragraphs in diffrent
languages between the first paragraph and the one with the recipient
address that failed without break the QSBMF format so it not works. Here
is the reason why: "Paragraphs beginning with other characters are
reserved for future extensions". Paragraphes what not begin with "Hi.
This is the", "<" and "-" is reserved for future use. So if a program
handling QSBMF do not work because of adding a paragraph in another
langue that not begins on those ways, that program do not follow the
QSBMF program and is broken.

And because of many has requested to write this message in diffrent
languages, I think a paragraph for language independent messages should
be considered into the QSBMF format. I mean there is paragraphes
reserved for future use. And maybe the future is here now.

For them who want to change the message, I think you can go ahead and do
it. As long the first paragraph start with "Hi. This is the" and the
recipient paragraph first line is not changed. And the end with the
break paragraph with starting with "-" is still where and the original
message after that.

If someone add paragraphes in diffrent languages there could be a good
idea to start it with a alpha-character so there still can be other
paragraphes added in the future starting with other characters. But I
think a good idea could be to have all text in the message in english to
because of that is the most used language on the internet.

Program using bounce message for any reason, that not can handle a
bounce message that is like this is broken and should be fixed.

Andreas

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