NYCkayaker Administrivia: misdirected mailing list traffic to -bounces address

[Rich Kulawiec]

A steady-and-slowly-increasing number of replies to list traffic
are being sent to:

	nyckayaker-bounces at rockandwater.net

instead of (or in addition to):

	nyckayaker at rockandwater.net

which is actually the mailing list's address.

There are two possible reasons for that: (1) misconfigured or broken
email software on your desktop, laptop, portable device, etc. or
(2) user error.  I think (1) is far more likely.

The -bounces address is set in the headers of every message like this:

	Sender: nyckayaker-bounces at rockandwater.net
and
	Errors-To: nyckayaker-bounces at rockandwater.net

It's not there for you humans.  It's there for mail system software
which is supposed to be smart enough to send notices of problems back
to that address instead of (a) the the person on the "From:" line or
(b) worse, the entire mailing list.  The mail client software you're
using to read this right now and possibly reply to it should not be
paying any attention to it.  If it is...then see (1) above.

This is a Bad Thing because not only do replies sent to the -bounces
address not go out to the list (which was probably the intention) but
those replies are tallied by the mailing list management software (Mailman)
and when it sees enough, it sometimes concludes that the sending address
is no longer working and automagically unsubscribes it from the list.

We can't control the software you use to read the list and send stuff
to it (we can barely control ourselves!) and in many cases, you probably
can't either, 'cause it's mandated by your employer or ISP and so on.
So the best that probably can be done is this: please LOOK CAREFULLY
at the addresses you're sending to before sending.   And if you see
"nyckayaker-bounces" in there where it should read "nyckayaker", please
fix it before hitting "send" so that it sidesteps this.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled discussion of how tiny
little human-powered boats can avoid being crushed to powder by huge
atomic-powered supertankers.

---Rsk