Re: [apps-discuss] I-D Action: draft-ietf-appsawg-malformed-mail-02.txt

[Barry Leiba <[e-mail]>]

> Let's see, how about this as a new Section 1.3, "General Considerations" or something:
>
> Many deviations from what [MAIL] specifies are considered by some receivers to be
> strong indications that the message is undesirable, i.e., is spam or contains malware.
> Such receivers quickly decide that the best handling choice is simply to reject or discard
> the message.  This means malformations caused by innocent misunderstandings or
> ignorance of proper syntax can cause messages with no ill intent also to fail to be delivered.

This text looks good to me.
John says, "Maybe, depends on the filter," for the last sentence.
Well, sure, but that's why it says "can cause", and not "will cause"

> Senders that want to ensure message delivery are best advised to adhere strictly to
> [MAIL], as well as observe other industry best practices such as may be published either
> by the IETF or independently from time to time.

I think this is really a case where that terse method of reference
doesn't work well.  For one thing, it's not just RFC 5322, but also
RFC 2045.  And maybe RFC 6376 (by the way, please update the DKIM
reference to 6376 from 4871) and RFC 4408(bis).

So perhaps, "adhere strictly to the relevant standards (including, but
not limited to, [MAIL],
[MIME], and [DKIM]), as well as"....

Matching that, I might also go back and change the first sentence at
the top to this:
"Many deviations from the standards specifications are considered by
some receivers"....

Barry