Network Admin Email description falsely claims e-mails will be sent from it

[iandunn]

The description for the Network Admin Email option on wp-admin/network/settings.php says, "Registration and support emails will come from this address. An address such as support@… is recommended."; but that's not true.

If the From name/address isn't set in wp_mail()'s $header argument, it gets set to "WordPress <wordpress@$sitename>".

What would a better description be? Maybe some like:

"Where you would like to be notified about new site creation and new user registration."

That would be consistent with the structure of the Network Name description just above it, which reads, "What you would like to call this network."

If that sounds good to others I'll go ahead and create a patch for it.

[iandunn]

Uploaded a patch for this.

[kovshenin]

Since you got rid of the placeholder, you don't really need printf anymore. See 23569.2.diff​.

[iandunn]

Good catch.

[johnbillion]

We're also going to be sending automatic update (success/failure/nag) emails to the network admin email address, so this text might need changing still. Related: #10787.

[Hanni]

Updated the text to reflect the new use of the network admin email (sending update notifications) in 3.7.

[westi]

In 26359:

Improve the description of the Network Admin Email option to better describe what the address will be used for. Fixes #23569 props hanni, iandunn, kovshenin.

[kpdesign]

There's a typo in the patch that was just committed (first instance of 'notifications'):

"...will send update notifcations" should be "...will send update notifications".

[Hanni]

Fewer notifcations, more notifications.

[Hanni]

I'm still learning to read, will get there one day. Updated.

[Hanni]

23569.6.diff should finally be at least vaguely correct.

[ocean90]

wpmu_signup_user_notification(), wpmu_signup_blog_notification() and wpmu_welcome_notification() are using the email address as the From address. So shouldn't it be:

This email address will receive update notifications, and also sent site creation and new user registration notifications.

[iandunn]

Good catch. I looked again and there's also wpmu_welcome_user_notification() and wp-admin/network/site-new.php. What's the reasoning behind those using a different From header than all the other e-mails Core sends out? I couldn't glean anything from the source or commit messages.

I'm guessing it's because with Multisite it's more important to distinguish between individual blogs in a network, but that's still relevant to multiple single-site installations, too, though. e.g., your inbox can have five different e-mails from five different websites, but they'll all show up as from "WordPress" because most mail clients only display the From name, not the From address.

Also, forging the header with the admin's e-mail is probably a bad idea because it'll make the e-mail look like spam, ​unless we also set the Sender header -- but even that will still cause problems with some hosts (#5007, #2532, #1532, #14888, etc).

Would it be better to do something like this instead?

• Remove the custom From header from these functions
• Set the default From name in wp_mail() as get_option( 'blogname' ), rather than "WordPress"
• Always leave the default From address as wordpress@$sitename.

[nacin]

What's the impetus for the change here? What about something simple like "This email address will receive notifications. Registration and support emails will also come from this address."? Drop the "support@%s" recommendation and KISS.

This ticket was opened for the text change, and now has a commit against it, so let's not get sidetracked with screwing with From addresses.

[westi]

Replying to nacin:

What's the impetus for the change here? What about something simple like "This email address will receive notifications. Registration and support emails will also come from this address."? Drop the "support@%s" recommendation and KISS.

This ticket was opened for the text change, and now has a commit against it, so let's not get sidetracked with screwing with From addresses.

Agreed.

I'll close this out in a bit.

[westi]

In 26640:

Improve the description of the Network Admin Email option to better describe what the address will be used for. Fixes #23569 props nacin.

[nacin]

In 26641:

westi forgot my full stop. see #23569.