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Author Topic: A reminder about PM notifications  (Read 3521 times)

kitz

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A reminder about PM notifications
« on: May 12, 2016, 12:24:13 AM »

I've just had to check forum mail due to someone having difficulties signing up and it's come to my attention that there are quite a few emails for PM notifications that people have responded to by email sat on the server.

When you get a PM notification, please do not respond via email.  You need to log into the site to respond back via PM.

If you respond by email to a PM notification, it then sends that email to an unmonitored email address that is only used by SMF to send out notifications such as signup mails, or any other notifications you may have requested.  It should never receive any incoming mail

Notifications are marked
Quote
You have just been sent a personal message by xxxxx on Kitz Forum.

IMPORTANT: Remember, this is just a notification. Please do not reply to this email.

Reply to this Personal Message here: http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?action=pm

Anything you type back via email will never reach the person to whom you are wanting to send a PM... and instead will either sit on the server doing nothing, or get binned as spam.

Thanks.

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kitz

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Re: A reminder about PM notifications
« Reply #1 on: May 13, 2016, 08:42:45 PM »

Following a suggestion (thanks Tony!), Ive just added a filter so that in future anyone who does try and respond to PM notifications will get a bounce notification. 
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Chrysalis

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Re: A reminder about PM notifications
« Reply #2 on: May 13, 2016, 08:59:11 PM »

I was going to suggest to blackhole the emails, usually no reply emails are blackholed.  A bounce is ok but you open yourself to possible bounce attacks like backscatter.
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kitz

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Re: A reminder about PM notifications
« Reply #3 on: May 13, 2016, 10:10:59 PM »

Cheers for the feedback... this is the situation:

Normally any mail to that account just sits there and I clear them out every so often when I get a-round-tuit.   

The e-mail address is shared by the admin account and SMF notifications.  SMF needs a email to send out any forum notifications. 
SMF also uses it to send out the sign-up authorisation link.  Because it sends out (genuine) notifications it has ended up on some spam list or other and does get quite a bit of spam.   

However there may be times like the other day when someone was having difficulty signing up, it was useful to look at the account to see why the message had ended up not arriving (in this particular case email had been rejected due to a problem with their account).   

It was only because I checked it, that I noticed quite a few of the email responses to PMs... and mentioned it here, because there will be some people wont have gotten replies to PMs. 

Currently it should be sending out the following to any incoming mail via an auto-responder.

Quote
You just sent email to an unmonitored email address. 

This email account is used solely for the purpose of generating automated forum notifications and any incoming mail is deleted.

If you meant to respond to a PM, do not reply to the notification mail, instead you must log in to the forum to reply to Personal Messages.

The other option I have in CPanel is to drop mail with
Quote
:fail: No such person at this address

I could blackhole, but that wont advise people that they've responded via email to PM.
Any other suggestions about what I can do?  I get what you mean about Backscatter and how that email address could end up Blacklisted... normally I dont bounce spam mails for that reason. 
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Chrysalis

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Re: A reminder about PM notifications
« Reply #4 on: May 14, 2016, 02:31:45 AM »

its your choice.

bounce is more helpful to the people making a mistake, but carries with it a security risk.
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kitz

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Re: A reminder about PM notifications
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2016, 06:38:29 PM »

ok ta
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