OT: redirection, a bad idea???

[Jeff A. Earickson]

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007, Denis Beauchemin wrote:

> Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 14:05:06 -0400
> From: Denis Beauchemin <Denis.Beauchemin at usherbrooke.ca>
> Reply-To: MailScanner discussion <mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info>
> To: MailScanner <mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info>
> Subject: OT: redirection, a bad idea???
> 
> Hello all,
>
> The PHB are talking about redirecting grad students' local email accounts to 
> some other external account they read more frequently. All students get a 
> @USherbrooke.ca email address in their first year.  PHB would like to 
> continue sending emails to grad students at their @USherbrooke.ca email 
> address after they left but instead of being stored on our servers, it would 
> be redirected (probably through a LDAP lookup) to some external email address 
> they would provide us.
>
> If implemented, will our servers risk getting blacklisted by others?  If so, 
> how could I still redirect the emails without too much trouble?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Denis

Denis,

Do you mean redirect or forward?  To me, a redirect means "bounce the
email back to the sender with new address information, eg
User has moved, please try <new address>".  A forward is a (silent)
retransmit of email to another address, which may or may not work.

Our policy is:

1) We will only redirect (for six months) emails for graduates and 
terminated employees.  We will NOT forward if you are gone for good.
We want to advertise your new address for you.

2) We will only forward on a temporary basis if you are off-campus
but otherwise still a student or faculty, eg semester abroad.  We
will NOT forward if you are on-campus, period.  We don't care how
much you like Gmail.  In general, I discourage off-campus forwards.

Forwarding for indefinite periods of time is a bad idea, IMHO.

Jeff Earickson
Colby College