Date   : Fri, 06 Aug 2004 11:41:21 +0100 (BST)
From   : gARetH baBB <hick.bbc@...>
Subject: Re: Andrew Marlow's full mailbox...

On Fri, 6 Aug 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:

> Has anyone tried contacting the mail admin responsible for Andrew 
> Marlow's email account at the OU?

I've indirectly mentioned the brokenness of the OU's FirstClass system 
elsewhere to some OU type people but I notice I'm still getting bounce 
attempts - though I've just resorted to rejecting all stuff from 
open.ac.uk.

2004-08-06 09:13:03 H=venus.open.ac.uk [194.66.147.160] F=<> rejected RCPT
<hick.bbc@...>: Rejected HELO
2004-08-06 09:13:03 H=venus.open.ac.uk [194.66.147.160] incomplete transaction
(RSET) from <>

> round the head with a wet fish if he's just lazy and get him to delete 
> some mail :-)

Or dump their completely broken mail system and replace it with something 
more compliant.

> That, or can the list mail headers & software be sorted so that replies 
> go to the mail list software rather than individuals, and the mail 
> software configured to silently eat any bounce messages? I assume that's 
> the way it's usually done on mailing lists...

The OU mail system is broken, or rather FirstClass is - it doesn't 
understand the concept that an email may have two addresses, ie. the 
address in From: may be different from MAIL FROM so the SMTP gateway just 
gives it the FROM: address and it bounces to that when it gets an error.

It's very broken.