[4678] in WWW Security List Archive
Re: frustrations
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Harmon)
Thu Mar 6 00:53:58 1997
Date: Wed, 05 Mar 1997 22:14:50 -0500
From: Jim Harmon <jharmon@telecnnct.com>
To: acuykens@ulb.ac.be
Cc: Gretchin Lair <gretchin@uscolo.edu>, www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
Errors-To: owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
Anthony Cuykens wrote:
>
> I get the problem too, does anybody know what is happening ?
>
> Gretchin Lair wrote:
> >
> > is anyone else having this problem? whenever i respond to a message on the
> > list, it takes _forever_ to get anywhere, and i always get at least three
> > bounces & undeliverable mail messages. is there any way to take people off
> > the list who are bouncing?
I'm sure many will agree, as well as disagree <smile>, that this is not
an uncommon sentiment or experience.
Anyone who subscribes to a mailing list can, and will, experience this
from time to time, and the most usual CAUSE is also a strong argument
AGAINST auto-removing addresses that bounce "undeliverable" frequently.
Although I haven't adminstrated mail for very long, I've been a mail
user for many years, and what I've experienced is that anyone who builds
these "autoreply" messages into their mailers is a higher-level mail
administrator type who shuts down his personal login for the purpose of
taking a vacation, or who shuts-down overnight in his/her local
timezone, which is almost always 8-12 hours different from my own.
If you were to automatically unenroll anyone who shut a machine off
during their non-working hours, you would increase the labor of each
person to the point where they wouldn't subscribe at all, and then
couldn't answer the important questions that they most surely know the
answers to--and no one else does... <smile> thus depriving everyone of
the value of their participation.
If you don't like recieving bounced "undeliverable" or "I'm on vacation"
notices, DON'T get frustrated and unsubscribe yourself... use mail
FILTERS to dump the annoying messages into your /dev/null box.
There's a good deal of good info on how to do that in the MAN pages, and
it allows you to do more than just dump annoying trash before you get
it. It can sort, parcel, flag, file, even page you or dump critical
mail on your designated terminal of choice based on simple pattern
matching.
I urge you to investigate further, and if you have questions, feel free
to email me and I'll help you create a filter to meet the solution you
need. Cool?
--
Jim Harmon The Telephone Connection
jim@telecnnct.com Rockville, Maryland
