[db-wg] Notification message change

> Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:04:16 +0200
> From: Denis Walker <denis at ripe.net>
> To: Database WG <db-wg at ripe.net>,
> 	ncc-services-wg <ncc-services-wg at 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 at 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 at 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 at anta.net, PGP 0x327B7345
http://www.anta.net/