[Mimedefang] ADMINISTRIVIA: Out-of-office replies

[WBrown at e1b.org]

DFS wrote on 09/06/2007 01:36:19 PM:

> If I or the MIMEDefang list receives an "out-of-office" reply in
> response to a list posting, I will unsubscribe the offender from
> MIMEDefang.  There's really no excuse in 2007 for using broken
> auto-responders that respond to mailing lists.

True.
 
> And even if you are forced to use M$FT- or L0TUS-ware, you're running
> MIMEDefang (right?) so you should be able to code up rules to
> prevent out-of-office notifications from going to the list.

I can't speak for M$ products, but for Lotus Notes, there is no excuse for 
returning OOO notices to lists.  There is an option to not respond to 
internet addresses.  There is an option to not respond if the subject 
contains certain phrases (such as [Mimedefang] -- this is case sensitive). 
 You can also specify individual senders to not respond to.

But even if a Notes user fails to block this, using any of the tools 
above, at least it won't cause mail OOO loops as it only responds one to a 
particular sender.  One of my other hats is being LSoft Listserv manager, 
and it works well with it.  I don't know well how this works with bizzaro 
list software like Lyris where they make up a new sender for each outgoing 
message.  This "feature" used to cause me grief with greylisting...

Of course, Notes being an application development platform, some user 
could decide to write their own code to blast a notice to all recipients 
as well as the sender.  Had that happen a few times here.  I hate users 
that know a little bit, but not enough.

I'm hoping that the rewritten out of office features in Notes 8 fix things 
so that even the most dain bramaged end-user doesn't OOO to a list.