On 16 Oct 1998 23:50 -0500, Winship <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > On Fri, 16 Oct 1998, Uzi Paz wrote: > > I consider it as a real bug. The bug is simply the default name for the > > return path. > > owner-<listname> is a very bad and misleading name for the return path. > > It is natually misleading people to think that it is the address of the > > list-owner. > > As long as I have had anything to do with listserv lists owner-listname@ > has been reserved for error messages, just as listserv@ is reserved > for commands. As long as the users are informed I don't see that it > is confusing; I have certainly never told any subscriber to send either > list postings, commands or for that matter questions about subscription > problems to owner-listname@ Except for the simple and yet important fact that the name "owner-<listname>" suggests otherwise. Of course, Cleo ([log in to unmask]) is right, and we should expect subscribers to read welcome messages, but it is totally clear to me what caused Randy Ryan to confuse owner-<listname> with the address of the owner of <listname> . The mistake is not too common but far from being too rare either, and in some situations (e.g. combination of Renewal=..,Probe, and Auto-Delete=Full-Auto) the user who made the confusion, will have nothing to correct him besides the fact that he does not get a response for his request. Historically the reasoning for the name is clear, as I assume that in the past, bounced messages were conventionally handled manually by the list owner. As a general claim, this is no longer true. The fact that it became a convention by L-SOFT (and perhaps others) to use owner-<listname> for bounced messages is not a problem, as I believe that no MUA or MTA _assumes_ this convention. According to Internet standards bounced messages should go to the "From" address of the SMTP envelop (or to address of the "Return-Path:" or Unix "From " fields that are extracted from it, when the message leaves the SMTP environment), so what harm can be caused by choosing the convention: errors-<listname> or bounces-<listname>, instead of owner-<listname> as a return address? > I do not see it as any more confusing than telling them that listserv@ > is for commands only, the list name is for posting items to the list, > never commands, and listname-request@ is for contacting a listowner if > one has a subscription problem and can't recall the owner's address. Except for the fact that the arguments mentioned above do not apply for the case of LISTSERV@.... (the name does not suggests anything missleading). > What I do see as confusing is that other MLMs use the same form of > userid's to mean something other that what they mean in LISTSERV. That > can be really confusing. Uzi