If a non-posting member sends an email to an announcement group what should
happen to the message? Some background may be required for this question ☺
An announcement group is used to allow a small number of people (posting
members) to send messages to a large number of people (non-posting, or normal,
members). When a posting member sends an email to the group the message is
forwarded on to all the members.
Any reply made to a post from an announcement group will come back to the
posting member. This is because the "Reply-to" header of the message is set to
the email address of the posting member.¹
What I am wondering about is the case where a non-posting member sends an email
directly to the group.
* Currently the message is bounced back to the
sender, with a note saying what the problem is.²
The sender can then decide what to do with the
message.
* The system could just as easily forward the
message on to the posting members. The recipients
could then figure out what to do with the message.
The sender should also be told what has happened.
Would the latter be a good idea? It would blur the line between a moderated
discussion group and an announcement group; the two are very close in
functionality anyway ☺
*Footnotes*
1. A discussion group (like GroupServer Development)
sets the Reply-to address to the email address of
the group. Ticket 402 discusses the structure of
an email message:
<https://projects.iopen.net/groupserver/ticket/402>.
2. The "canpost" code rejects the posts. The same
code also is used to check if the Add to Topic
interface should be shown on the Web, which is
why we are only considering posting from email.
