Since Duc is off on v*cation and has asked me to keep an eye on the list, I figure
that it's time to mention something related to mail list etiquette.
Please do not *ever* ask for a Return Receipt when posting to a mailing list. You've
seen what happens; multiple return receipts get posted to the list.
The same goes for v*cation responders or "*ut *f the *ffice" messages. If your email
program is not smart enough to send such auto-responses once, and only once, to each
address from which you receive email, you probably shouldn't even be using that
feature. At least unsubscribe from any mailing lists you're on to prevent mailing list
loops. This has happened in the past when someone's "I'm unavailable until... "
message was posted to the list and responded to itself each time it was received by
this particular list subscriber. Veterans of this list may remember receiving 200-300
such postings.
The list server looks for text commonly used in auto-responses (which is why I use
asterisks to avoid matching those phrases) and "disappears" such messages into
/dev/null, so to speak. It is currently doing so -- and has for days -- for one
subscriber's auto-responses which state that he'll be gone until 6/8/01.
Oh, and spammers love those automatic return receipts. Return Receipts, along with web
bugs and people who are suckered into replying to spam with "remove" in the subject,
are how spammers confirm that an email address is valid.
Before this is over I suspect that we'll see many more "Putting ECBs on/off line
without using System Monitor" posts to the list. If it gets out of hand, I'll have to
filter it out. The problem comes in that I may just lose valuable postings in the
process so let's hope it burns itself out without admin intervention.
Automation is a wonderful thing -- when properly applied.
Your List Server host,
Warren Michelsen
--
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