Reply to post: Re: Exchange is featureless?

Re: Exchange is featureless?

"There's no reason a mailserver couldn't limit [...]"

There's no reason it couldn't, but several why it shouldn't. Let's look at your suggestions:

"limit the number of "to" addressees after list expansion to some reasonable number,"

What reasonable number? What if I have a list that has more people on it because I want to reach them all? The right answer is to limit who can send mail to that list, but we're discussing automatic methods the server can take when I've forgotten to set that, and this particular one blocks me from sending an all-company email at all. Maybe you just meant replies, but there are times when I might want to send a message and have someone reply to it. Maybe I'm replying to it to send out an update. Maybe someone else on my team is replying with the update. Maybe it's a company-wide congratulatory email and we're letting some senior managers reply with their congratulations as well as a morale method (while they're composing their congratulations, they're not affecting others' work).

"forcibly move any lists containing more than 'x' addresses to the bcc line with a dummy 'to' address substituted (all-employees --> all-employees-noreply)"

That makes a list unsuccessful if it's intended to let people discuss things. This could be a public list for any employees who are interested, and they're allowed to talk on the list too. Once enough interested parties join, the list breaks for everyone.

There is a clear right way to do this. When you create lists, limit who can send messages to them. If you need to receive replies, redirect the emails sent to the list from people who don't have rights to send to the list to a different address from which you can read them. If the mailserver can do that, and they nearly all can, you don't need to do much more. Except remember to turn it on.