On Mon, 3 Sep 90 20:27:18 O Eric Thomas said:
>          ... Mail from any user matching one of the patterns in the file
>would be subjected to a special  treatment, depending on the control word
>following  the pattern.  It could  be discarded  and forgotten  about, or
>transferred to  the postmaster without being  replied to, or result  in a
>nastygram back saying that we are  very sorry but your gateway is causing
>us problems so  you will not be  able to send commands until  you get the
>gatemaster to fix  his code. ...
>
>Does this sound like the right solution to the problem?
>
>  Eric
 
A fourth alternative is that if mail can be identified as being associated
with some list, process it according to the Errors-to: of that list.  If
the Errors-to: indicates the owners, then the load on the postmaster would
be reduced.  It would also allow owners to remove offending addresses if
the reject notice is a non-standard form of "no such user at this site" or
whatever.
 
As the owner of several lists, I would prefer this method.  If I start
getting too many useless messages from a gateway, then I would likely ask
my postmaster to take the "black hole" option for that address.
 
---Tom Reid