Subject:
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Re: Out-of-office replies, mail header suggestion
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.nntp
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Date:
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Sat, 6 Jan 2001 10:42:31 GMT
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Viewed:
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116 times
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In lugnet.admin.nntp, Todd Lehman writes:
> In lugnet.admin.nntp, Frank Buiting writes:
> > I received an Out-of-office reply from someone who is subscribed via
> > LUGNET's newsgroups per mail feature.
>
> Eeek, what brain-dead mail delivery agent sent that? (By any chance was it
> MS Exchange?)
Yup, you're right:
"X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service
Version 5.5.2650.21)"
>
> > This isn't really a problem but I
> > noticed that the header generated by LUGNET contains the following line:
> > "Precedence: list"
> > however for this to work I think it should be
> > "Precedence: bulk"
>
> Well, a cursory scan of various mailing list software shows that some use
> "bulk" and some use "list" -- i.e., they don't all use "bulk". More seem
> to use "list" today than 5 years ago, although it looks like "bulk" is still
> more common (unfortunately).
My guess that it should be "bulk" was shaped by other mailing list I have
compared the headers from and the info I found at those webpages. LUGNET was
the only list I found that used "list".
> A vacation program certainly should _not_ reply to "Precedence: list" even
> if "list" isn't offically part of the SMTP mail RFC -- "list" has been in
> widespread use for a long time.
"list" sounds also very sensible to me. I have seen one header directive
like this:
"Precedence: (list/bulk)"
But I'm not sure if this is a notation that most software would understand.
My guess here is that if software ignores 'list' it will just check if the
value==bulk and ingnore the rest.
> The theory goes that "list" tells a mail delivery agent that a message comes
> from a mailing list and that it should be processed only after more important
> mail has been processed, and "bulk" tells the delivery agent that a message
> is a broadcast -- like a mailing list message, only less important, and if a
> bulk message can't be delivered, the delivery agent is advised to throw it
> away instead of bouncing it.
At first I thought "bulk" was linked to mass/junk-mail, but then it showed
up in all the mailinglists I've seen.
> Thus, the problem with "bulk" is that the sender never learns of bounces,
> which are important for unsubscribing defunct email addresses.
Aaah, this makes sense not to use the "bulk" precedence.
I was wondering, since the person whom posts receives the "out-of-office"
reply, wouldn't the poster also receive the "delivery failure" replies? So
how would LUGNET receive the bounced message or am I missing something here
(not sure if messages are bounced to the 'reply to' header?). This is just a
question out of curiosity ;-)
> (Because
> there is an exception to every rule, I wouldn't be surprised if there were
> broken MDA's out there that actually did bounce bulk mail. :-)
:-)
> > See also RFC 2076:
> > http://www.dsv.su.se/jpalme/ietf/ietf-mail-attributes.html
> > paragraph 3.9 section 'precedence' however it is mentioned that it is not a
> > standard header but most common value is 'bulk'.
>
> Maybe "bulk" is the most common value because the largest percentage of
> e-mail today is bulk e-mail. :-)
I'm afraid you're right :-/
> > It is also mentioned here:
> > http://www.landfield.com/faqs/mail/list-admin/software-faq/ (second
> > paragraph of the section "2.08 Loop detection and elimination")
>
> Hrmm, a section on loop detection and elimination and it doesn't even mention
> the X-Loop header?
Good question...
Oh well, since we are all dependant of other parties when delivering mail,
and it's not to be expected that all parties play by the same rules, I'm
afraid that "bulk" and "list" both have their own problems.
Like I already mentioned, it's not really a problem to receive an
'out-of-office' reply once in a while.
-Frank
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Out-of-office replies, mail header suggestion
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| (...) The real problem is mail servers which send the "out-of-office" to the list, which on some list software which hasn't been fixed to deal with it generates a cascade of bad messages (when in addition, the mail server doesn't just send one (...) (24 years ago, 6-Jan-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Out-of-office replies, mail header suggestion
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| (...) Eeek, what brain-dead mail delivery agent sent that? (By any chance was it MS Exchange?) (...) Well, a cursory scan of various mailing list software shows that some use "bulk" and some use "list" -- i.e., they don't all use "bulk". More seem (...) (24 years ago, 6-Jan-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
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