[geeks] ADMINISTRIVIA: Changes to mail delivery policies

[Bill Bradford]

Another note from the list/web admin:

just thought i'd let everyone know of some changes I've made to the MTA
setup (Postfix 1.1.4, if you're interested) on the machine that hosts all
the lists.

1.  If my end cant contact a host to hand a mail off to (either a primary/
    secondary MX, or the desired host itself), it will drop it, instead of
    trying for four days.  In other words, messages expire after 24 hours if
    they're not delivered in that time frame.  Four days was fine back in the
    era of UUCP and non-24-7 connections, but this is 2002, and if you dont 
    have a fulltime net connection, you should at least have a primary or 
    secondary MX host that does.

2.  If I get more than two or three "Delivery Status Notification", "Message
    Delayed", etc, "status" messages from overloaded Exchange servers (or
    other MTAs, whatever you may be using), the destination address will be
    unsubscribed.  Once your mail server is fixed, you can resubscribe.

    (this is to keep me from getting 200-300, and yes, it *HAS* happened, 
     multiple times, "Message Undeliverable" emails after four or five days,
     during which my machine keeps trying to send mail to that host.. then I
     end up getting undeliverable mails for 2-3 days *after* I unsub someone).

3.  If you go on vacation, make sure that your "Joe Smith is out of the office
    until February 31st" messages DO NOT RESPOND TO THE MAILING LISTS.  If I
    see this, you'll get unsubscribed and can resubscribe manually when you
    get back.

These changes are mostly intended to affect the Sun-Managers mailing list, 
which has around 4300 subscribers, but they will affect the SunHELP lists as
well, since I cant make the changes on a per-list basis.

Yes, I'm turning into a mail BOFH.  If you dont like it, you can unsubscribe,
or start paying for my bandwidth.  8-)

Thoughts and suggestions appreciated, please send in private mail.

Bill

-- 
Bill Bradford
mrbill at mrbill.net
Austin, TX