Re: Wrong address unsubscribed

On Mon, Jan 06, 2003 at  1:57:01PM -0600, Don Doumakes wrote:
> Clearly, though, A is somehow returning an error return to the
> MTA...

No, B is returning the error; see below.

> The bounce message from the AOL mailer daemon to the
> list-request address (addresses munged) says:
> 
>  From [email protected]  Fri Jan  3 07:58:09 2003
>  Return-Path: <[email protected]>
>  Received: from omr-d03.mx.aol.com (omr-d03.mx.aol.com [205.188.159.1])
> 	by mymachine.mydomain.net (8.11.6/8.11.2) with ESMTP id h03Dw4602881
> 	for <[email protected]>; Fri, 3 Jan 2003 07:58:04 -0600
>  Received: from  air-xi03.mail.aol.com (air-xi03.mail.aol.com 
> 	[172.20.116.3]) by omr-d03.mx.aol.com (v86_r1.15) with ESMTP id 
> 	RELAYIN10-0103085745; Fri, 03 Jan 2003 08:57:45 -0500
> 	from: Mail Delivery Subsystem <[email protected]> [sic]
>  Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 08:55:58 EST
>  To: <[email protected]>
>  Subject: Mail Delivery Problem
>  Mailer: AIRmail [v90.10]
>  Message-ID: <[email protected]>
> 
>    Your mail to the following recipients could not be delivered 
>  because they are not accepting mail from [email protected]:
>  	B

That's a standard AOL reject-all-mail-from-blahblahblah notice.
It looks like ones I see all the time to my list server.  The
final line of the body indicates the (aol) recipient that's
rejecting the mail.


> Mr. A is an AOL subscriber.

Yes, as it happens.  But so is Mr. B, and it's B that's generating
the bounce.  B (@aol.com) is "not accepting mail from [email protected]".


> I don't have an informed opinion on whether this is a malformed 
> bounce.  (Do you?)

Well, it's kind of nasty in that the offending party, [email protected], is not
listed as an RFC822 address, but simply as "B" and the recipient is
supposed to devine the @aol.com part from context.  So, you might
say it's "malformed" but it's the way AOL has chosen to do it.
At least the header is formed correctly, assuming that "from: "
line was really a "From: " line. :)


>  In any case, B was eventually told:
> 
>   Your mail address B has been removed
>   from the [email protected] mailinglist.
>   It generated an excessive amount of bounced mails.

Then SmartList did the right thing.  Bravo!

You're probably using a much more recent version of SL than I
am; my ISP is still on procmail3.10 and its SL version (I forget
which).  I seem to recall that these things get delivered straight
to me as maintainer unprocessed, and I get to remove B myself.


> The suggestion at a social solution is well taken, and I have indeed 
> replaced A with B.
> 
> Still, I'm guessing that as an AOL subscriber, A lacks the kind of 
> tools that would make it possible to bounce more politely.  Sooner or 
> later this problem will be back, with a different cast of characters, 
> and it would be nice to solve it technically. 

I'm totally confused by the statement "I have indeed replaced A with B".
Nevertheless, it sounds as though your version of SmartList is
handling these lame bounces correctly.  Your job as maintainer
should be to explain to B, if/when he requests renewal of his subscription,
that he risks losing his subscription to your list repeatedly if
he insists on using AOL's brain-dead reject system, and maybe he'd
like to complain to the caring folks at AOL to smarten up their
mailer so that it doesn't send refusal notices to mailing list
admin addresses, but rather to the parties being rejected.  On
the other hand, sending delivery status notices to From: addrs
is generally not a good idea either.  Maybe just reject them
silently.

Jim