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Re: Mailpush automatic notification




Yuval,

I agree with you that the mailpush thread should be stopped, so this
is my last one, and sorry everybody who is bored. At least I didn't
start it. It is very annoying to get 2, sometimes 4 (in my case)
stupid notifications after sending a message to a mailing list. You
were lucky to avoid it.

About standards. RFC's have different levels of "standartization".  If
you look at RFC 822, its status is "Standard". To me, this means, in
particular, that if you offer your clients a piece of software that is
supposed to process their email, it should handle all email that
conforms to this standard. You cannot demand that all the email they
get should have [Nu] in the beginning of the Subject, or that there
should be a Subject, or that there should be a To field. Imagine
Linux-Il only accepting your emails only if you type [LINUX-il] in
subject, preserving the case, and that only if you sent it using pine.

Yes, you can write code that is not standard. You can write C code
that will compile under gcc but not with other compilers. Anyone who
doesn't use gcc won't be able to use the code. It is widely known (and
resented) that you can create a "Netscape-enhanced" web page that won't
confirm to the http standard and anyone who uses another browser won't
be able to see it. In those cases, not conforming to standards is
mostly your problem. If you write a piece of code that sends silly
emails to anybody who doesn't put [Nu] in the subjects of his emails,
you create problems to a lot of people.

It is not a matter of standards but of conventions, too. Mailing list
postings should have "Precedence: bulk", but I am not sure it is
_standard_. If Mailpush said, "We don't send notifications to bulk
email, your mailing list does not put the 'bulk' or 'list' keyword
where it should appear, and this is not our problem," they would be
right. Linux-il does use "Precedence: bulk". Saying, "This optional
header is obligatory and it must have this particular form, otherwise
you'll get lots of annoying useless mail," they are wrong. That is why
my pointing to the standard of email headers is not, as you say,
"naive".

Solemn pledge: no more mailpush mail-pushing.

-- 
Oleg Goldshmidt          goldshmt@netvision.net.il   
BLOOMBERG L.P. (BFM)     oleg@bfr.co.il