de5@de5.ctd.ornl.gov (Dave Sill) (09/26/90)
I'm planning on starting a mailing list. Has anyone got a list of Do's and Don'ts, or any documentation at all on the process? -- Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov) Martin Marietta Energy Systems Workstation Support
lear@turbo.bio.net (Eliot) (09/26/90)
The dos and don'ts of mailing lists: *DO* create the following aliases for your list: list-request: to point at you or a group of people who administer the list. owner-list: some people / mailers use this address, if it exists, to report errors. Sendmail is one such mailer, if I recall. *DO* make an attempt to set the return-path of mail sent to that list to list-request. Note that the return path is an address kept in the ENVELOPE of a message, a part that should not be viewed by the everyday user. With sendmail, you would probably have to do something like the following in your aliases file: list: "|/usr/lib/sendmail -flist-request real-list" real-list: :include:/usr/local/mlists/list The benefit is that many bounces involving the list that would otherwise go to the original sender will now be redirected to the administrators (who can presumably do something about the error). One caveat: In the above example, messages sent from the machine that contains the list will not get their return path set correctly. This has to do with sendmail's security mechanisms. *DON'T* muck with the From:, Sender:, or Reply-to: lines. Each of these lines has specific purposes, as mentioned in RFCs 822 and 1123. -- Eliot Lear [lear@turbo.bio.net]