At 10:10 AM -0500 12/3/01, Irwin Lazar is rumored to have typed:
How do I stop smartlist from automatically removing users since the bounces aren't their own fault?
Slow down a sec...if the address really _is_ bouncing, it doesn't matter who's "fault" it is, it's putting unnecessary load on your server, and wasting bandwidth since the mail _will_ come back to you anyway. If someone changes their email address without unsubscribing to your list (like _that's_ never happened before!), you WANT SmartList to remove the bad address, don't you?
What you should be looking at instead of disabling SmartList's bounce handling altogether is setting a reasonable value for minbounce - that's the number SmartList uses to determine how many bounces calls for being unsubscribed. And this requires a little bit of thought.
If you have a list that goes out once a day or so, like a digested list, you might think about setting that value to four, figuring the address would have to be consistantly dead for four days before SmartList removed the address. If you have a list that goes out once a week or less frequently (like an advertising newsletter), you'd probably want to set it to two instead. And if you have a really popular discussion list, you might want to set the value to 20, 30, or even more.
You need to set this value to "match" your list usage; the idea is that you really _want_ to unsubscribe consistantly dead addresses, without unsubscribing transient fatal errors (a name server is set up wrong and mail bounces for a couple of hours or a even a day, a router goes down 'twix you and it, and a hundred other temporary problems that show up every day on the Net). Each list is going to be different, so you need to adjust it carefully until you find the right value for _your_ list.
Charlie