Developers of Sympa

[address@concealed]

    Jeff Abbott <address@concealed> recently wrote (in part):

> Sympa, according to my understanding, uses the
> $LISTNAME-request address to get in touch with the actual
> person or persons running the list, the list owners.

    Just as a point of reference, this is also the behavior of
    ListProc, and I'm reasonably sure LISTSERV as well.  I'm not
    saying this is right and proper, but I will note that both
    these MLMs predate the RFC by quite a while.

    Also I don't read the RFC to mean that the '-request' address
    is necessarily reaching a robot as verses a human.  In
    practice we've found that the '-request' is indeed used
    almost exclusively by subscribers sending free formed
    messages pleading to have their subscription removed.  :-)

> Logically, this is what I would expect $LISTNAME-owner to do,
> instead of $LISTNAME-owner being used for bounce management.

    Again, this is how both LISTSERV and ListProc work, although
    the address syntax they both use is actually:

            address@concealed

    From the LISTSERV manual:

       "What this message means is simply that LISTSERV has
        received mail sent to the owner-listname mailbox for your
        list. Mail sent to this special address is automatically
        forwarded by LISTSERV to the address(es) you have defined
        in the Errors-To= list header keyword."

             and

       "If you find that you have users trying to contact you (as
        list owner) at the owner-listname address, you should
        tell them that the correct generic address for contacting
        the list owner(s) is listname-request, not
        owner-listname."

    Again, this is just historical precedent, and is not
    necessarily a good argument for what *should be*.  (BTW, I
    didn't see any recommendation in RFC 2142 for 'owner' but I
    might have missed it.)

    As for allowing the meanings of the addresses to be site
    specific, the only problem I can think of is having a Sympa
    installation out there that doesn't work quite like all the
    others.  But if the problems that causes for that particular
    site's users is far outweighed by the benefits seen, then I
    guess that should be that site's choice.

    I can't speak to, however, to the additional work and
    complications it will cause in the overall development and
    maintenance of Sympa.

    Hope nobody minds my throwing in my 2 cents on this.

                                                      ...BC

--
+----------------------------[ address@concealed ]---+
| Bill Costa                                          |
| CIS/TCS -- 1 Leavitt Lane    PHONE: +1-603-862-3056 |   No good deed...
| University of New Hampshire                         |    goes unpunished.
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