Re: Autoreply

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On Jul 13, 2007, at 9:54 AM, Ken Raeburn wrote:

On Jul 13, 2007, at 09:05, John C Klensin wrote:
However, I think the IETF benefits from policies whose effect is to keep the clueless and inconsiderate off our mailing list until they can be educated.

I think most organizations or lists would benefit from such policies. But where does the education come from, if not us? Are we expecting them to attain a certain level of clue at some unspecified "elsewhere", before they can join up to discuss the GSSAPI or CALSIFY or something else pretty well removed from needing an understanding of the workings of the mail systems of the Internet at large? We certainly aren't giving them any help in that regard with our list "welcome" message.

I'd be okay (not happy) with a policy of "unsubscribe and send a friendly form letter explaining why and how to fix it", though I don't think it's as good as keeping delivery going when that's easy and doesn't impact the rest of the list membership. But a policy of simply unsubscribing would likely lead them to the conclusion that the IETF mail system is broken (and if you consider policies a part of the system I'd say they'd be right), and that by association, the IETF is as lame and clueless as we're claiming the subscriber and his sysadmins are.

Why write code to _accommodate_ auto-response senders? Mailman already has a mechanism in place for bounces. This mechanism will not "unsubscribe" the account, but instead disables messages from being delivered. At some point, recipients will become aware of a problem. The archives will contain messages missed, and confirm a cessation. Suspending delivery ensures auto-responses are not made to other list posters as well. Everyone will be happier except those sending auto-replies. TT.

In the case of ongoing bounces, it is not possible to notify recipients of an altered status or how they might reinstate delivery. However, it will be far more educational to _not_ issue notifications in the auto-response case as well. Disabling delivery of messages without notification require the clueless to investigate. This lesson may be shared with IT staff when they becoming part of a really clueless recipient's investigation. The IT staff are also best able to ensure future notifications are curtailed.

In the Mailman management page, indicate the repeated sending of messages like "I'm on vacation" may be a reason for delivery to become disabled. Problem solved with an effective educational component included.

-Doug



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