Can Twitter please pick a From: and stick with it?

[TjL]

The email notifications for new followers used to come from (From:)

Twitter <nor...@twitter.com>

then it changed to

Twitter <twitter-follow-emailname=domai...@postmaster.twitter.com>

then it changed to

Twitter <nor...@twitter.com>

again.

Every time you do this, every single person using TwitReport has to
change their filters, and I spend 2 weeks, at least, explaining to
people why it stopped working, and some number of people probably
assume that things are broken on my end and stop using it altogether.

I'm not making a dime off of this project (nor do I want to), it's
something that I'm doing to make Twitter a bit nicer to use, but
having something as basic as this change twice and break the entire
thing is a bit of a pain in the ass and a not-insignificant waste of
time.

So I hope that y'all will keep this one, since you've liked it enough
to use it twice now :-)

THAT SAID, I'm glad that the *format* of the notifications has
improved. I certainly think that is the right way to go.

- TjL

[John Adams]

This is a bug introduced in the last deploy. We've all agreed on the
VERP format,

twitter-follow-emailname=domai...@postmaster.twitter.com

I'll follow up with engineering and file a bug. Sorry about this.

-john

---
John Adams
Twitter Operations
j...@twitter.com
http://twitter.com/netik

[Matt Sanford]

Hi there,

We had changed the from address to try and improve bounce
reporting and prevent being marked as spam by major ISPs. When we
added the HTML formatting we found that we needed a consistent address
for the 'always display images' option in many clients so we changed
things around again. Hopefully this will be the last change as it
causes us a bunch of work as well. I'll keep an eye out for future
changes and try and let people know.

Thanks;
– Matt Sanford / @mzsanford
Twitter Dev

On May 6, 2009, at 2:53 PM, TjL wrote:

[TjL]

FWIW I think "nor...@twitter.com" is the right choice, it's certainly
a lot easier for image display, etc.

But it sounds like John Adams thinks this is going to change back. I
hope this will be clarified.

[Matt Sanford]

Don't touch that dial …

We're (John and I) discussing bounce processing and spam
detection and may have to revert the from address change to help with
people's spam filters. I'll update once I know more.

Thanks;
– Matt Sanford / @mzsanford
Twitter Dev

[John Adams]

nor...@twitter.com isn't the best choice because many mailers on the
Internet refuse to acknowledge Errors-To: headers.

Right now, because there is little industry consensus on how to
properly handle a bounce (aside from send a message back to the Return-
Path:) our VERP methodology on address is the best way that we can
ensure our bounce processing mechanism is fired.

If we don't process bounces, major ISPs will start to block us for
excessive bad addresses, and then no one gets mail.

Matt and I are working to push out proper addressing changes today,
and we'll have this sorted shortly.

-john

On May 6, 2009, at 3:13 PM, TjL wrote:

---

[Matt Sanford]

Hi all,

The change in from address was meant to fix the 'allow images'
but in the process broke some ISP spam filters, some spam reporting,
and a great many people's mail filters. We're working on rolling that
back now. Sorry for the disruption.

Thanks;
– Matt Sanford / @mzsanford
Twitter Dev

[Matt Sanford]

It seems John and I cannot help but write mails at the same time :)

— Matt

On May 6, 2009, at 3:54 PM, John Adams wrote:

>
> nor...@twitter.com isn't the best choice because many mailers on
> the Internet refuse to acknowledge Errors-To: headers.
>
> Right now, because there is little industry consensus on how to
> properly handle a bounce (aside from send a message back to the

> Return-Path:) our VERP methodology on address is the best way that

[TjL]

*sigh*

Seriously? I've already started telling people to change their filters
and now they're going to break *again*.

This is why daddy drinks.

All kidding aside, I don't understand how a change like this gets
pushed out without the left hand knowing WTF the right hand is doing —
which is what it looks like (from an outsider's perspective) happened.

IMO/FWIW: You've gotten too big to make these sorts of changes without
more consideration and communication. It makes me look bad as a
developer, and it makes Twitter look bad.

The irony is that you're a company built around communication.

TjL

[Chad Etzel]

Hi Matt,

When you decide on the final format and deploy, will you let us know,
please? I'm leaving my email filters in limbo until then.

Thanks,
-Chad

[Matt Sanford]

Hi all,

I left last night while they were rolling this back to the old
long format addresses. Re-reading the logs this morning it seems like
there was some sort of problem and it was rolled back. Waiting for the
engineer in question so I can find out more details but based on what
I'm seeing it looks like an unrelated problem. I expect the long-style
addresses to be re-deployed with our first deploy today.

As far as poor communication: that's fair. I made this change
after talking with the mail processing folks (ok, the guy) and product
folks and I broke your filters. I'm sorry about that and when you
brought it up I fixed the issue, wrote the tests, replied to the mails
and begged the deploy engineer to make it an emergency. I tried to
communicate things.

I should have told the list (and probably posted to
blog.twitter.com) this user-facing email change was coming … surprise
is overrated. I definitely should have thought more about how it would
effect filtering. Totally my bad … you can send flaming sacks of dog
poop to REDACTED.

Thanks;
– Matt "Can do no right" Sanford

[Ed Finkler]

You do a ton of great things, Matt. We all make mistakes, but you and
the rest of the crew there do a bang-up job.

--
Ed Finkler
http://funkatron.com
Twitter:@funkatron
AIM: funka7ron
ICQ: 3922133
XMPP:funk...@gmail.com

> >> On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 6:55 PM, Matt Sanford <m...@twitter.com>  

> >> wrote:
>
> >>> Hi all,
>
> >>>   The change in from address was meant to fix the 'allow images'  
> >>> but in the
> >>> process broke some ISP spam filters, some spam reporting, and a  
> >>> great many
> >>> people's mail filters. We're working on rolling that back now.  
> >>> Sorry for the
> >>> disruption.
>
> >>> Thanks;
> >>> – Matt Sanford / @mzsanford
> >>>    Twitter Dev
>
> >>> On May 6, 2009, at 3:13 PM, TjL wrote:
>

> >>>> FWIW I think "nore...@twitter.com" is the right choice, it's  

> >>>> certainly
> >>>> a lot easier for image display, etc.
>
> >>>> But it sounds like John Adams thinks this is going to change  
> >>>> back. I
> >>>> hope this will be clarified.
>

> >>>> On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Matt Sanford <m...@twitter.com>  

> >>>> wrote:
>
> >>>>> Hi there,
>
> >>>>>  We had changed the from address to try and improve bounce  
> >>>>> reporting and
> >>>>> prevent being marked as spam by major ISPs. When we added the HTML
> >>>>> formatting we found that we needed a consistent address for the  
> >>>>> 'always
> >>>>> display images' option in many clients so we changed things  
> >>>>> around again.
> >>>>> Hopefully this will be the last change as it causes us a bunch  
> >>>>> of work as
> >>>>> well. I'll keep an eye out for future changes and try and let  
> >>>>> people
> >>>>> know.
>
> >>>>> Thanks;
> >>>>> – Matt Sanford / @mzsanford
> >>>>>   Twitter Dev
>
> >>>>> On May 6, 2009, at 2:53 PM, TjL wrote:
>
> >>>>>> The email notifications for new followers used to come from  
> >>>>>> (From:)
>

> >>>>>> Twitter <nore...@twitter.com>
>
> >>>>>> then it changed to
>
> >>>>>> Twitter <twitter-follow-emailname=domain....@postmaster.twitter.com
>
> >>>>>> then it changed to
>
> >>>>>> Twitter <nore...@twitter.com>

[Nick Arnett]

On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 8:15 AM, Chad Etzel <jazz...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Matt,

When you decide on the final format and deploy, will you let us know,
please?  I'm leaving my email filters in limbo until then.

I've dealt with this by leaving my old filters in place.  If Twitter switches back to something older, I'm covered.

Nick