Re: groff Bounce List?

[Bob Proulx]

Jeff Conrad wrote:
> All of my messages from the groff list are directed to
> "address@hidden On Behalf Of" <whoever
> the poster is>.  Is this normal?

I don't see the "On Behalf Of" anywhere in your example or in any of
my own subscriptions.  However that string feels familiar and I am sure
I have seen it before.

> All of my messages from the groff group arrive as
> "address@hidden"; looking back, the first
> such message was in April 2016 (so I obviously haven’t been paying
> attention). Any suggestions?

That is the envelope address of the message but not the header
address.  For example in the message you quoted (thank you!):

> From: Ralph Corderoy <address@hidden>
> To: <address@hidden>
> Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2018 14:38:19 +0100
> Subject: Re: [groff] Creating a numbered list without macros
> List-Id: <groff.gnu.org>
> List-Post: <mailto:address@hidden>

Those are the abbreviated list of "interesting" headers as I see
them.  They look perfectly normal in your example.  Your mailer should
use the List-Id to know it is a mailing list and the List-Post to
generate a reply to the mailing list.  For those mail user agents that
are coded intelligently enough to Do-The-Right-Thing automatically.

Your mail user agent should display that the message is from Ralph
Corderoy <address@hidden> and it is To the address@hidden list
with that Date and Subject.  If it does not then something is wrong
but it would be wrong with your mail user agent.

Here are the only headers that mention the VERP address.

> Received: from localhost ([::1]:44435 helo=lists.gnu.org)
>       by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71)
>       (envelope-from <address@hidden>)
>       id 1fpZWu-0006vb-4j
>       for address@hidden; Tue, 14 Aug 2018 09:38:36 -0400
> Return-Path: address@hidden
> Errors-To: address@hidden
> Sender: groff <address@hidden>

The Received header lists the envelope-from address used at SMTP time.
And the Return-Path header corresponds to the same SMTP time envelope
address.

The Errors-To and Sender addresses are added by Mailman to direct any
errors back to Mailman rather than back to the From: address.  We
would not want Ralph Corderoy to get noise from a mail problem between
Mailman and yourself.  Therefore Errors-To and Sender redirect any
errors in the delivery back to mailman's groff-bounces at gnu.org
address.  That encodes +jeff_conrad=msn.com as the VERP part to
identify that it was your address that sent the message back to
Mailman.

Have you ever been on a mailing list where every posting to the list
generated a vacation reply back to the mailing list?  Or where every
posting to the mailing list generated a direct response back to the
poster address?  And where that list did NOT use verp and therefore no
one could figure out what subscriber address was doing this so that it
could be removed?  That is the problem that verp is trying to solve.
It watermarks the recipient address so that those very annoying
problems can identify the offending recipient address so that it can
be removed from the subscription list.  It doesn't affect the From or
To addresses.  It only affects the SMTP envelope addresses and a the
Errors-To and Sender addresses.  You shouldn't be able to notice! :-)

> I've attached the complete content of a recent message below

Thank you for attaching a complete set of message headers.  They look
perfectly perfect and normal.

Could you say a few words explaining how this is causing you problems?
I can't think of anything here that is unusual or would cause a mailer
any trouble at all.

And by the way...  It is okay if you are just trying to understand
what is happening here without it really causing any problems.  Happy
to discuss how things are working so that the machinery is
understood.  That's awesome too!

Bob