Brion Vibber <[email protected]> wrote some months ago:

>> If "reject" from the mailing list means the sender gets a 5xx error
>> during his SMTP session that is trying to deliver the message to "us",
>> then "reject" is the better action.

>> If "reject" from the mailing list means that the sender's SMTP session
>> succeeds (possibly before the mailing list manager even sees the
>> message) and later a bounce message is sent to the purported sender,
>> then "discard" is the better action for exactly the reason brion states.


>> If I had to guess, I'd guess the latter case is the situation for this
>> list because I trust the Wikimedia employees know what they're doing.

> :) Correct.

> SMTP delivery succeeds. The message then gets passed into Mailman, who
> decides "oh I don't really want this" and sends back a "Dear so-and-so
> you're not allowed to post to this list, here's a copy of the spam
> message that was sent with your spoofed address" to fill up random
> peoples' inboxes.

> Thus... we turn off rejection to save you spam debris and to save our
> servers from having to send out the spam debris.

> If we could have it only send "sorry" mails on non-spam mails, that
> probably would be nice. Hopefully some day we can get there. :)

As spam is the current topic of another thread, I'll warm
that up once again.

  As I had mentioned, e. g. KDE balances spam debris vs.
usability in a different way and they survive socially as
well as technically.

  But, to be more productive: If Wikimedia mailing lists
were set up so that mails from non-members would need (si-
lent) moderators' approval, I'd volunteer for those queues.

Tim


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