All we really know about our users is their email addresses. If an email address disappears, the user effectively disappears with it.

Anyone who has run a mailing list knows this is a constant problem. Mailing list managers like Listserv and Ecartis have built-in options which human managers can use to detect or remove accounts with dead email addresses, eg: regular probes, automatic deletion after a unbroken sequence of failed deliveries.

Something like that would be a welcome addition to the GComm repertoire.

This has been a bugaboo of mine for a long while.

Someone registers with a valid email. Then cancells it, and moves to another email address. The system is never updated, and they effectively "disappear".

One way is to do a monthly test mailing.

If the email bounces, the account is "restricted" until a new email validation is successfully implemented. Unlike Ebays, it should allow the user to enter the _same_ email address, (in case their account was just suspended, or full, or otherwise compromised, but not deleted).

I've been looking over GList and GMail, as well as a few other programs, to find an all encompassing solution for this. I have not gotten a look at the GT Newsletter plugin, but that should be part of the same user-management system. From my point of view, it's been a lot of work trying to figure out the new logic flow with community, and the web-based log on is annoying to deal with in development mode :(

This is high on my list to do, and is essential to a system we are working on for deployment later on this year.

With GT hosting, I can see some simpler solutions than I can with other types of hosting I've encountered. By Giving the mailing list access to an account of it's own, or several accounts, using the 'bounce' headers effectively, it would be possible to automate the restriction and/or deletion of invalid accounts.


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