E-mails with empty text

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Wed, 19 Oct 2016 09:10:43 -0400, Sean Smyth <ssmyth@alumni.psu.edu> said:

> I've noticed that a few posters' e-mails come without text in the message.
> Always happens for me with Don A and Sir Waters' posts. I'll see the
> preview in my inbox, but nothing when I try to read it. I'm using
> off-the-shelf gmail via apps and the website. Any advice? Garrett? I swear
> I'm not this much of a Luddite.

Google "DMARC controversy".

Certain large email providers have set things up so that whenever any
of their users send mail to a mailing-list or other forwarder -- other
than the ones they themselves operate, of course -- other large email
providers will generate a bounce rather than accepting it.  The result
of this is that whenever any AOL or Yahoo! Mail user sends three
messages to a mailing-list, all of the GMail users get automatically
unsubscribed.

There are two defenses against this.  Either

1) the mailing-list can mangle the sender's address, or
2) the mailing-list can encapsulate the problem messages.

Either way the DMARC policy is not invoked and GMail doesn't send
bounces.  Since all right-thinking people abhor option (1), I have
configured option (2) instead.  This only happens for senders whose
email domain publishes a DMARC policy which would otherwise generate
bounces.

If you read this list via the digest, this issue does not come into
play, as the From: address of the digest is at a domain
(bostonradio.org) that does not publish a problematic DMARC policy.

-GAWollman