🚀 go-pugleaf

|>|Lack of a bounce message tells me nothing useful:
|>|	the message might have been delivered successfully to the
|>|		intended destination
|>
|>By far the most likely of the possibilities.
|
|On what mathematical analysis or statistical evidence do you base that assertion?

None, of course.  I base it on quite a lot of personal experience.
Email has been getting better every year, ever since I've been using
it; more of my mail gets through, and I get bounces almost all the
time it doesn't.  Your mileage may vary, but I doubt it varies by much.

|I never claimed that that other information, mentioned in a sidebar, was
|useful as an indication of receipt.  Why are you trying to put words into my
|mouth?

I certainly did not intend to, and if you think I was, I apologize.  I
assumed that since you brought up that information in a discussion
about the value of receipts as delivery indicators, you felt it was
somehow relevant.  Again my apologies if you knew it was irrelevant.

|Sounds more like you were trying to twist the previous poster's wording
|around to suit your own preconceived notions.

I already discussed this with Steve, but that was not my intent.  The
intent was to point out the preconceived notions people have about
these receipts, that is, that they represent proof.  I think we all
agree that this is not the case, but plenty of naive users do not know
this.  Strong words, such as proof, encourage this belief.

|As long as you're going to be pedantic, ``failure to receive a bounce'' is no
|indication (of successful delivery) at all.

Sure it is.  If mail is as unreliable as you seem to think, it's not a
very good indication, but if it's as reliable as I think it is, it's
not a bad indication.

We can continue to bicker about this indefinitely, but I'm afraid it
won't get either of us anywhere; this argument has been going on for
as long as I've used email, and I'm getting rather tired of it.  Make
you a deal, you can continue to use Return-Receipt-To, and I'll
continue to drop all mail with non-standard headers. :-)

Seriously, I've said all I can say on the topic.  Good night, Gracie.