sendmail, 4th Edition

Offer Subscription and Management Information

Each mailing to a list should contain clear information describing how a subscriber may be removed from the list and to whom to send questions or complaints.

As we illustrated earlier, some mailing list software inserts the information into custom X- headers on your behalf. For example:

X-Unsubscribe: [e-mail]
X-Owner: [e-mail]

Others arrange for standard headers to work. For example:

From: [e-mail]

Here, merely replying to this message will get the subscriber’s comments delivered directly to the list administrator (see RFC2142 Common Mailbox Names on page 474 for a -request suffix discussion).

Other mailing list software appends a standard footer to the body of every message. For example:

This list is brought to you by the power of mailing.list.domain.
To unsubscribe visit http://www.mailing.list.domain/unsubscribe
or send email to [e-mail]. To report
abuse or problems, send email to [e-mail]. In
the event email fails you may also telephone [phone] or send
surface mail to MailingList, Inc. P.O. Box 555, City, CA 12345

This footer solves most of a mailing list’s needs. It allows the recipient to unsubscribe either via a web site or by sending email to a clearly indicated email address. It also indicates to whom to send complaints and reports of problems. It is vital (and required) that if you send email from your site, you maintain ...