Re: Out of office replies

2009-01-17 Thread Jim Popovitch
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 08:14, Dusty Wilson  wrote:
> Sometimes you have a situation where the recipient is
> f...@someplace.com, but that is forwarded to f...@someotherplace.com.

Ahhh, but that is the recipient's problem (user generated) and
therefore not the realm of Sender: or ML.  Let those people, with
those convoluted setups, solve their own problems as opposed to
inflicting spam on the rest of the world (and yes, mis-guided OoO
replies are spam, IMHO).

> I believe that the easiest thing is to say is "Precedence: bulk" in

What about fred's man-in-the-middle Exchange that might clean up
"extra" headers?   Honestly if fred is fowarding email from Exchange
box to Exchange box it's easily possible that fred is removing
headers.

-Jim P.


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Re: Out of office replies

2009-01-17 Thread mouss
Jim Popovitch a écrit :
> On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 12:50 AM, Izak Burger  wrote:
>> our own auto-reply exim router (as requested by clients) checks for about 16
>> different headers
> 
> On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 06:44, Dusty Wilson  wrote:
> [snip]
>> I understand that it takes both sides to fix the problem:  mailing
>> list software to send the headers to be obvious that there shouldn't
>> be an auto-reply, mailserver software to read the headers and
>> therefore not auto-reply.
> 
> Bah!!   Headers change over time.  


Headers don't change that often...

Auto-responder authors should read RFC 3834.

> The simple and easy way to solve
> OoO problems is for vacation responders to only reply to From:/Sender:

never reply to addresses found in headers. auto-resp should go to
(original) envelope sender. I don't want to get an OoO if I post to a
list (be that a real mailing-list or a "simple" list).

> if (and only if) To: == $recipient.
> 

of course, no auto-response should be sent if the "mailbox owner" is not
found in the To: or Cc: headers. but parsing RFC 822 addresses is harder
than parsing Precedence, Auto-Submitted headers, looking for typical
list addresses in a few headers, ... etc.





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Re: Out of office replies

2009-01-17 Thread Bernd Eckenfels
In article <42670320901170344i4a7eb397g5522af4b38375...@mail.gmail.com> you 
wrote:
> Considering the wide number of installs of Exchange, you'd think
> they'd eventually fix that *in* Exchange

Exchanged does the right thing.

Gruss
Bernd


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Re: Out of office replies

2009-01-17 Thread Bernd Eckenfels
In article  you 
wrote:
> So first prize is not having to use an auto-reply at all. Second prize
> is one that checks for common headers at the very least. If you don't
> have enough control over this (for example you're running exchange)
> you should either not subscribe that email address to a list, or you
> should not use the vacation feature.

Exchnage is observing the precedence: list header. What I had done is a exim
smarthost with some filters (like "if From: *-owner@") just adding the
precendence header to stop auto answers to lists which do not set the
headers right. Ultimately the problem is on the site of the list software
(in the case of missing header).

Gruss
Bernd


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Re: Out of office replies

2009-01-17 Thread Dusty Wilson
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 6:40 AM, Jim Popovitch  wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 07:29, Frank Lanitz  wrote:
>> On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 07:15:30 -0500 "Jim Popovitch"  wrote:
>>> Bah!!   Headers change over time.   The simple and easy way to solve
>>> OoO problems is for vacation responders to only reply to From:/Sender:
>>> if (and only if) To: == $recipient.
>>
>> This will not work since you got e.g. in Exchange virtuell recipients
>
> Virtual recipients shouldn't be a problem.   The vacation responder
> (no matter where it exist in the process) shouldn't respond if To: !=
> $recipient (virtual recipient or not).

Sometimes you have a situation where the recipient is
f...@someplace.com, but that is forwarded to f...@someotherplace.com.
His auto-responder is on someotherplace.com.  His mailserver won't
know that f...@someplace.com == f...@someotherplace.com and therefore
would never send any auto-replies.  And before you say they can just
add the first-stop email address as an alias and have the responder
smart enough to know that they are the same address, he might have
been BCC'd into an email conversation and his mailserver would never
know who the original recipient would have been.  In that case, you'll
have fewer auto-replies than you would have expected.

I believe that the easiest thing is to say is "Precedence: bulk" in
the header and hope for the best.  If the auto-respond program (or
mailserver, whatever) sees it, don't auto-reply.  That's the only
reliable thing I can think of, unless any mailservers on the way to
your mailbox remove it (but why would they?).

Dusty


(sorry Jim for replying to you directly, my mistake)


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Re: Out of office replies

2009-01-17 Thread Jim Popovitch
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 07:29, Frank Lanitz  wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 07:15:30 -0500 "Jim Popovitch"  wrote:
>> Bah!!   Headers change over time.   The simple and easy way to solve
>> OoO problems is for vacation responders to only reply to From:/Sender:
>> if (and only if) To: == $recipient.
>
> This will not work since you got e.g. in Exchange virtuell recipients

Virtual recipients shouldn't be a problem.   The vacation responder
(no matter where it exist in the process) shouldn't respond if To: !=
$recipient (virtual recipient or not).

> and I know people that really likes to register on ML etc. with these
> addresses on the one hand and setting these messages on the other side.

I fail to see how that figures into the OoO equation.  MLs *don't*
want OoO replies. ;-)

> To avoid such things the first step needs to be done on user side e.g.
> forcing them to create folders for lists and setting such rules only
> folder wide.

Huh!?!?!?

-Jim P.


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Re: Out of office replies

2009-01-17 Thread Frank Lanitz
On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 07:15:30 -0500
"Jim Popovitch"  wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 12:50 AM, Izak Burger 
> wrote:
> > our own auto-reply exim router (as requested by clients) checks for
> > about 16 different headers
> 
> On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 06:44, Dusty Wilson  wrote:
> [snip]
> > I understand that it takes both sides to fix the problem:  mailing
> > list software to send the headers to be obvious that there shouldn't
> > be an auto-reply, mailserver software to read the headers and
> > therefore not auto-reply.
> 
> Bah!!   Headers change over time.   The simple and easy way to solve
> OoO problems is for vacation responders to only reply to From:/Sender:
> if (and only if) To: == $recipient.

This will not work since you got e.g. in Exchange virtuell recipients
and I know people that really likes to register on ML etc. with these
addresses on the one hand and setting these messages on the other side.
To avoid such things the first step needs to be done on user side e.g.
forcing them to create folders for lists and setting such rules only
folder wide. But I doubt this will be very successful as well as you
can educate everybody around.

Cheers, 
Frank
-- 
http://frank.uvena.de/en/


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Re: Out of office replies

2009-01-17 Thread Jim Popovitch
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 12:50 AM, Izak Burger  wrote:
> our own auto-reply exim router (as requested by clients) checks for about 16
> different headers

On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 06:44, Dusty Wilson  wrote:
[snip]
> I understand that it takes both sides to fix the problem:  mailing
> list software to send the headers to be obvious that there shouldn't
> be an auto-reply, mailserver software to read the headers and
> therefore not auto-reply.

Bah!!   Headers change over time.   The simple and easy way to solve
OoO problems is for vacation responders to only reply to From:/Sender:
if (and only if) To: == $recipient.

-Jim P.


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Re: Out of office replies

2009-01-17 Thread Dusty Wilson
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 12:50 AM, Izak Burger  wrote:
>> "Stephen Vaughan"  wrote:
>>> When will people learn not to set auto replies
>
> Nothing wrong with a proper auto-reply (one that does some decent
> caching, only replies once a day, avoids mailing lists and things with
> precedence: bulk, etc etc).
>
> The problem IMHO is that that is so hard to do. For example, our own
> auto-reply exim router (as requested by clients) checks for about 16
> different headers in an attempt to avoid the most common non-human
> entities (mailman, roundup, eBay).
>
> So first prize is not having to use an auto-reply at all. Second prize
> is one that checks for common headers at the very least. If you don't
> have enough control over this (for example you're running exchange)
> you should either not subscribe that email address to a list, or you
> should not use the vacation feature.

Considering the wide number of installs of Exchange, you'd think
they'd eventually fix that *in* Exchange and not require any kind of
addon or special user actions.  As most things Microsoft, I'm
surprised they make so much money off of this product.  I understand
it's difficult, but if they aren't willing to do the job, they
shouldn't have signed up for the job.  You sell mailserver software,
you make it not do stupid things.  Seems simple to me.

I understand that it takes both sides to fix the problem:  mailing
list software to send the headers to be obvious that there shouldn't
be an auto-reply, mailserver software to read the headers and
therefore not auto-reply.

FYI: I have to admin Exchange... and I hate it.

Dusty


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Re: Out of office replies

2009-01-16 Thread Izak Burger
> "Stephen Vaughan"  wrote:
>> When will people learn not to set auto replies

Nothing wrong with a proper auto-reply (one that does some decent
caching, only replies once a day, avoids mailing lists and things with
precedence: bulk, etc etc).

The problem IMHO is that that is so hard to do. For example, our own
auto-reply exim router (as requested by clients) checks for about 16
different headers in an attempt to avoid the most common non-human
entities (mailman, roundup, eBay).

So first prize is not having to use an auto-reply at all. Second prize
is one that checks for common headers at the very least. If you don't
have enough control over this (for example you're running exchange)
you should either not subscribe that email address to a list, or you
should not use the vacation feature.


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Out of office replies

2009-01-16 Thread Frank Lanitz
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:10:09 +1100
"Stephen Vaughan"  wrote:

> returning 29/09/2008 ??
> 
> When will people learn not to set auto replies

When other people understand, email is not a real time medium. 
"Didn't you get my mail I've sent 2 minutes ago!?!?!?!?!" 

Cheers,
Frank
-- 
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