Fw: [Mailman-Developers] Re: [Mailman-Announce] Announcing Mailman 2.0 beta 6
*sigh* what can we do about misbehaving vacation programs? I know it's hard to decide for such software who it should and shouldn't write a reply, but the least thing it could do is not reply to messages marked as 'Bulk'
--- Forwarded Message --- From: Leann.Blackmon@state.co.us To: <mailman-developers@python.org> Sent: Sat, 23 Sep 2000 22:08:40 -0600 Subject: [Mailman-Developers] Re: [Mailman-Announce] Announcing Mailman 2.0 beta 6
I will be on vacation beginning 9/18/00 and returning on 9/25/00.
http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-developers
Ricardo.
"You think that's air you're breathing?" -- Morpheus
"RK" == Ricardo Kustner <ricardo@rixhq.nu> writes:
RK> *sigh* what can we do about misbehaving vacation programs? I
RK> know it's hard to decide for such software who it should and
RK> shouldn't write a reply, but the least thing it could do is
RK> not reply to messages marked as 'Bulk'I wonder if we should add "vacation" to Utils.IsAdministrivia()?
-Barry
P.S. I also hate MTAs that insist on sending warnings to bulk email, and I /really/ hate idiot MTAs that send bounces with no detectable recipient email address in them. How helpful, thanks!
:(
At 8:51 AM -0400 9/24/00, Barry A. Warsaw wrote:
I wonder if we should add "vacation" to Utils.IsAdministrivia()?
"vacation" isn't safe -- too many false positives. "on vacation" is better, but only works in the states (in most of the rest of the world, it's "holiday").
"out of the office" works pretty well, too.
What I prefer to do, though, is to trap the footer. If someone replies and leaves the footer attached, it's either an unedited message or a mailbot, and either way you probably want to trap that. So I look for a string in the footer or the digest list info, and try to put a string in there that isn't going to show up in normal conversation.
-- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com)
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'"
On Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 07:44:21AM -0700, Chuq Von Rospach wrote:
What I prefer to do, though, is to trap the footer. If someone replies and leaves the footer attached, it's either an unedited message or a mailbot, and either way you probably want to trap that. So I look for a string in the footer or the digest list info, and try to put a string in there that isn't going to show up in normal conversation.
There's a *lot* of vacation-like stuff out there that doesn't include the original message (or even something that identifies the message, like the subject or any of the mail headers!)
-- Thomas Wouters <thomas@xs4all.net>
Hi! I'm a .signature virus! copy me into your .signature file to help me spread!
At 5:54 PM +0200 9/24/00, Thomas Wouters wrote:
]There's a *lot* of vacation-like stuff out there that doesn't include the original message (or even something that identifies the message, like the subject or any of the mail headers!)
that's true, but it's a start. And more importantly, it catches the worst offenders, which are the ones most likely to start the 1000-messages-in-an-hour mail loops.
My policy is that anyone who's mailbot blats at a list or at someone who posts to a list is dropped from the list when I see it, and that helps convince people to fix them next time. I'm not *as* worried about the once-in-a-while vacation message (although they're very irritating to me and many users, and a huge waste of resource) as I am the ones that aren't smart enough not to respond to themselves and start disasterous mail loops.
You won't find 100% solutions for these, but there are things you can do to catch many of them.
-- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com)
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'"
bwarsaw@beopen.com said:
P.S. I also hate MTAs that insist on sending warnings to bulk email, and I /really/ hate idiot MTAs that send bounces with no detectable recipient email address in them. How helpful, thanks!
Hmm... good point...
Exim in earlier incarnations (can't remember when it changed) sent delay warning messages by default for all messages. Recent versions have the defaults changed to not send warnings for bulk/list etc messages - at least ones marked with Precedence.
I'll add this to the exim document sometime soon, however in the mean time if sites you are sending to send back warning messages for list mail, you can hit the postmaster there over the head with http://www.exim.org/exim-html-3.10/doc/html/spec_11.html#SEC196
which is the default setting since I think around version 3.10.
Nigel.-- [ - Opinions expressed are personal and may not be shared by VData - ] [ Nigel Metheringham Nigel.Metheringham@VData.co.uk ] [ Phone: +44 1423 850000 Fax +44 1423 858866 ]
At 10:15 AM +0100 9/25/00, Nigel Metheringham wrote:
bwarsaw@beopen.com said:
P.S. I also hate MTAs that insist on sending warnings to bulk email, and I /really/ hate idiot MTAs that send bounces with no detectable recipient email address in them. How helpful, thanks!
Hmm... good point...
The brain-damage of the century award goes to -- Lotus Notes. Because for at least some releases (I don't know if it's fixed, but I doubt it), the server can be configured to send back a "message opened" "message deleted" "message laughed at" note. But this was an option configurable by the admin, not the user. Which means a server can blat back on every message, including mail lists, and the user doesn't know it and can't change it. Fortunately, most admins turn it off, but I've banned some Notes sites from my systems because of this.
A global "send a message every time an e-mail is *touched*" mode, with no way to have a user turn it off, and no logic to keep it from annoying lists or any other e-mail service. What were they thinking?
In general, though, Notes is not my favorite mailer, although Microsoft Exchange continues with the life achiement award for cluelessness.
-- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com)
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'"
"NM" == Nigel Metheringham <Nigel.Metheringham@vdata.co.uk> writes:
NM> I'll add this to the exim document sometime soon, however in
NM> the mean time if sites you are sending to send back warning
NM> messages for list mail, you can hit the postmaster there over
NM> the head with
NM> http://www.exim.org/exim-html-3.10/doc/html/spec_11.html#SEC196
NM> which is the default setting since I think around version
NM> 3.10.Excellent, thanks.
-Barry
participants (5)
-
bwarsaw＠beopen.com -
Chuq Von Rospach -
Nigel Metheringham -
Ricardo Kustner -
Thomas Wouters