For those of us that feel strongly that email should be a reliable transport medium.

[Dan Farmer]

On Feb 10, 2004, at 2:33 PM, Julian Field wrote:

> How about yet another configuration option:
> This would just apply to the spam "bounce" action. It would be a
> configuration option called something like "Enable Spam Bounces".
>
> Maybe the default configuration should point to a ruleset that
> defaults to
> no but has a sample line in it which switches it on for
> *@yourcustomer.com.
> The ruleset would have a strongly worded header at the top explaining
> why
> you shouldn't use it. But I would have to document the "bounce" action
> to
> make it clear why this extra configuration option existed.
>
> That way an administrator has to get an idea about rulesets before
> they can
> make this work. People wouldn't be able to turn it on by mistake.
>
> What do you think?

*If* you put the bounce option back, this sounds good. (I don't use it,
and I totally agreed with your decision to remove it and the reasons
why it was removed, so I'm not voting for it to come back by any means,
but...)

Make it harder to enable than just adding 'bounce' to the options: very
good idea. I think the extra bounce header would also be a good thing
to add, either way. Having the footer/sender be auto-magically
populated with the local postmaster address (and web address?) as the
email address for complaints sounds like a real winner.

If it returns, I think you should make this option only work on 'Spam
Actions', but not on 'High Scoring Spam Actions'. As one of the people
who wants the bounce option back said, they only use it on the lower
level, as they *never* would bounce something they know is definitely
spam (although it contradicts their earlier claims that they either
deliver or bounce *every* message they get, for "reliable" &
"guaranteed" email service).

Of all the options, having the bounces reference the local
postmaster/site and coming from the local postmaster will turn many of
the joe-job psychos on the admins who use the bounce feature, so it has
to be my favorite. You just know that it would probably cause many of
those who use the bounce option to figure out a way to not use it
pretty quick....

Of course, I still don't see a good enough reason to put it back in the
first place as I believe it will always cause more harm than good -
same reason I use All-Viruses in my silent list, there's not much point
in bouncing them anymore (at least until we can get the whole automated
flag from the virus checkers that tells us when a virus doesn't spoof,
and should be bounced).

dan