Thank you - Suresh Ramasubramanian
>> still if our list wasn't polluted with loads of unroutable addresses
('AS
>> ABOVE' and 'a@???' you know the kind of thing).
>Then your list ISNT opt-in. You might want to see
>http://www.mail-abuse.org/rbl/manage.html a time or two (and more to the
>point, rub your marketing guy's nose in it a time or two)
FYI - we run a mailing list for a busy website with ca. 150k registered users. Most of those users have signed up for a regular newletter (i.e. opted in).
The 'specification' for the [laughs] system was produced by the client and
a firm of 'web designers' [spits] and required that copies of the newsletter
also be sent to 2ndary addresses (if supplied) ie home and work (they ass-umed but that's the kind of thing that gets you 'AS ABOVE'). They didn't specify validation for the 2ndary addresses - so, unsurprisingly, the people coding the site registration didn't put any validation on these addresses - "not in the spec.". If you can see the glaring error
here - good for you.
Although things have improved somewhat recently there are political and contractual complications - so in spite of my complaints - the list is unlikely to be completely 'fixed'... "no more effort required" "not in the spec" etc...
I am familiar with the guidelines set out at mail-abuse.org but it's not in my power to do anything about it.
I could take the moral high-ground and say that since a fraction of a % of of the list doesn't validate then the list is itself BAD and throw some kind of hissy-fit. I'm not sufficiently bothered by the situation to make myself look like that kind of f*ckwit.
It's a Real-World-Problem (tm). Welcome to it.
--
all the best to you and yours ...
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