Re: [ietf-smtp] EHLO domain validation requirement in RFC 5321

[Sam Varshavchik <[e-mail]>]

Keith Moore writes:

>> Any "degradation due to spam filtering" is only due to the spam's existence  
>> itself. If there were no spam, there wouldn't be any spam filtering to  
>> degrade anything. Spam filtering is not a problem, it's a reaction to a  
>> problem.
>
> Emphatically disagree.   Anytime a legitimate message isn't delivered due to  
> spam filtering, the spam filtering IS the problem.
>
>>
>> Furthermore, nobody has any real standing to complain about anyone else's  
>> spam filtering.
>
> Emphatically disagree.  Users should have a reasonable expectation of having  
> their mail delivered without having to stand on their heads and beat a  
> syncopated rhythm with a walrus appendage on a skin drum during a full moon.

Anyone around here been on Usenet in the late 1990s, and remember this on- 
going flamewar, how spam filtering is detrimental, how everyone has an  
entitled right to have their email delivered, yadda yadda yadda?

That's what this reminds me of. I'm really getting a sense of deja vu here.

>> they object to. They won't have any effect. People will continue to use  
>> spam filtering methods that work for them, and not the ones that some other  
>> third party approves of, in some way.
>
> Irrelevant.   For the most part, "people" don't choose their spam filtering;  
> they have it imposed on them and often have zero control over it except to  
> try a different email address.

That was another frequent theme on news.admin.net-abuse.email, circa  
1990s – how people are suffering victims of their administrators' draconian  
spam filtering policies.

Well, those arguments weren't exactly widely accepted back then, and I don't  
think they're widely accepted now, either.