From: Lars Poulsen <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Out of Office Indication
At 03:53 PM 8/9/97 -0400, Victor L. Boersma wrote:
>To all those who operate automated messages saying that you
>ain't home this week, this month etc.
>I have experimented with a system that detects automated messages and
>returns an automated message saying that further automated messages
>will not be delivered. It works but tends to overload mail reflectors.
Warning: Irrelevancy alarm nearing threshold !!!!!
These "answering machine" messages can be quite useful, but it is true
that they can be a pain for listservers. The applicable standards
have indicators that can prevent these from causing pain if everyone
complies:
1) The answering machine must only return ONE automated response
to each correspondent. When correctly implemented, this is kept track
of by keeping a list of where such messages have already been sent,
and not sending a notification if the target has already been sent
one.
2) Messages from mailing lists should not be replied to.
a) It would be useful to have the listserv address pre-loaded as
not needing notification
b) All messages reflected through mailing lists should have a
header named "Precedence:" with a value of "list", "bulk" or
"junk", and the answering device should not reply to these.
3) Notification messages should not be forwarded by mailing lists.
For this reason, the notifications should carry a "Precedence: junk"
header, and the reflector should not forward such.
These conventions are largely ignored, since there is no compliance-
testing body for mail system components.
I guess there was a compliance engineering angle to this after all ... ;-)
/ Lars Poulsen [email protected] +1-805-562-3158
OSICOM Technologies (Internet Business Unit) Fax: 805-968-8256
7402 Hollister Avenue Manager of Remote Access Engineering
Goleta, CA 93117 Internets designed while you wait
