[ncc-services-wg] Notification message change

[Apologies for duplicates]

Dear Colleagues,

With most updates to the RIPE Database, notification messages are sent
out. Many of these notifications are hitting users' ticketing
systems or arriving in mailboxes with auto-responders. The "Reply-to:"
address in these notifications was <ripe-dbm at ripe.net>. Our help desk
ticketing system was receiving hundreds of e-mails a month from these
auto-responders. This was causing a serious operational problem for our
Customer Services Department.

To solve this problem, we have changed the e-mail header in the
notification messages we send out. They now have the "From:" and
"Reply-to:" addresses set to <unread at ripe.net>. As the name suggests,
any replies to this address are not read by anyone and they are just
dropped from our mail system.

We have also made a small change to the introductory text to make it
clear that these e-mails are auto-generated. We also clearly show users
the e-mail reply address to use if they have an issue with the notification.

This change was implemented today. It should not affect any users unless
they parse the mail headers or the introductory text in the
notification. Examples of the old and new notification messages are
shown below.

Regards,
Denis Walker
Business Analyst
RIPE NCC Database Group


Old notification message
____________________________________________________

To: user at somewhere.com
From: RIPE Database Notifications <bitbucket at ripe.net>
Subject: Notification of RIPE Database changes
Reply-To: ripe-dbm at ripe.net
Precedence: bulk
Auto-Submitted: auto-generated

Dear Colleague,

This is to notify you that some object(s) in RIPE database
which you either maintain or are listed as to-be-notified have
been added, deleted or changed.


The update causing these changes had the following mail headers:

> From:     user at somewhereelse.com
> Subject:
> Date:     Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:00:18 +0200 (CEST)
> Reply-To: user at somewhereelse.com
> MsgId:    <2008061622>


For assistance or clarification please contact:
RIPE Database Administration <ripe-dbm at ripe.net>


New notification message
____________________________________________________

To: user at somewhere.com
From: RIPE Database Notifications <unread at ripe.net>
Subject: Notification of RIPE Database changes
Reply-To: unread at ripe.net
Precedence: bulk
Auto-Submitted: auto-generated


Dear Colleague,

This is to notify you that some object(s) in RIPE database
which you either maintain or are listed as to-be-notified have
been added, deleted or changed.


This message is auto-generated.
Please DO NOT reply to this message.

If you do not understand why we sent you this message,
or for assistance or clarification please contact:
RIPE Database Administration <ripe-dbm at ripe.net>



The update causing these changes had the following mail headers:

> From:     user at somewhereelse.com
> Subject:
> Date:     Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:00:18 +0200 (CEST)
> Reply-To: user at somewhereelse.com
> MsgId:    <2008061622>