On Thu, 20 Jul 89 13:42:05 GMT Niall O'Reilly - EARN OSI Nwk Op Centre said:
>Can anyone out there remind me why LISTSERV sets the SENDER field to
>point to the list, please?  It's not unknown for this to cause loops,
>as RFC822 prescribes that error reports be directed to the address
>given in the SENDER field.  I am aware that LISTSERV has some heuristics
>to filter "obvious" error reports, but that can only work for those
>(categories of) reports already identified.
 
It's to cut down on problems like the one Bill Sklar mentioned recently,
where the non-delivery messages go back to the poster (who cannot do
anything about them) instead of the list owner (who can).  Now, that
could be done by setting Sender: to some other address, such as that
of the list owner or a special error mailbox, but neither carries the
information that the mail is associated with the list (which some of
us want to have).
 
As I said to Bill offlist, the problem is that RFC822 never envisioned
a system like LISTSERV, so LISTSERV has to make the best of a hostile
environment.
 
--Mark