Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:04:16 +0200 From: Denis Walker <denis@ripe.net> To: Database WG <db-wg@ripe.net>, ncc-services-wg <ncc-services-wg@ripe.net>
With most updates to the RIPE Database, notification messages are sent out. Many of these notifications are hitting users' ticketing systems or arriving in mailboxes with auto-responders. The "Reply-to:" address in these notifications was <ripe-dbm@ripe.net>. Our help desk ticketing system was receiving hundreds of e-mails a month from these auto-responders. This was causing a serious operational problem for our Customer Services Department.
To solve this problem, we have changed the e-mail header in the notification messages we send out. They now have the "From:" and "Reply-to:" addresses set to <unread@ripe.net>. As the name suggests, any replies to this address are not read by anyone and they are just dropped from our mail system.
Hello Denis, The local-part "unread" gives such a suggestion--at most--in English, and not because of any standard or other convention. The "Reply-To:" line, on the other hand, unequivocally (RFC 2822) states that replies are expected at the address it shows. As you probably know, localized mail clients often use it to display something along the lines of "your replies are invited to". While you are to thank for the heads-up, I would have expected RIPE NCC, of all organizations, to come up with a more stylish and exemplary solution to the problem. Also, assuming that "hundreds" stands for e.g. nine hundred, that would mean 900 / 30 = approximately 30 surplus messages per day. Does such a volume really cause serious operational issues on a departmental level? Some of us (tinu) receive hundreds of spurious messages every *day* into (or intended for) *personal* mailboxes, and are easily able to handle that noise, perhaps with a little help from filtering software. With regards, -- Thor Kottelin CISM, CISSP fax +358 102 961 064 thor@anta.net, PGP 0x327B7345 http://www.anta.net/