While I'm amused by the chum-in-shark-infested-waters philosophizing,
another part of Bill Schults' contribution caught my attention:

> I’m considering setting the affected subscribers to “NOMAIL” and notifying
> them (via a separate e-mail, since ListServ generated messages aren’t
> getting through to them….).  They would still be able to post, but would
> have to read posts via the website.  Or they could consider changing
> e-mail providers.

This shifts the definition of "affected subscribers" from those using the
service that screwed everything up, to those using services that do what the
standards--and the sender's email service--tell them to do. I realize it's a
natural list-owner's view of the situation, because those are the
subscribers who show up on error reports. But they aren't the problem--and
what happens if they switch from Hotmail to Yahoo! because they couldn't get
the list mail any more?

Bill describes exactly the way I treat error reports now: I set NOMAIL and
then take some time to send test messages and to let postmasters fix
problems. But if I know the sender caused the problem, I put up with errors
and go after the real source of the trouble.

I've notified all my Yahoo!-based subscribers that they're fine as long as
they're just receiving email, but they cannot send to the list and have any
confidence in the distribution. And I've suggested they change their
subscriptions to some other email service.

I'm pretty sure Yahoo! took this step because they've spent the last couple
years exposing their email users to unacceptable security risks. When they
let a file of usernames with passwords out, I heard about it and changed
passwords--but my subsequent spam history indicates they didn't notify all
affected users, even though they claimed to have done so. We're looking at a
case of locking the barn door after stealing the horses.

Comcast and Hotmail users shouldn't be regarded as the problem here.

Hal Keen


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