[Mailman-Users] problem with list member's vacation script

[mailman at tux.org]

On 12 Oct 2002, Jon Carnes wrote:

> Really the best solution is to teach folks the proper way to setup a
> vacation message.  Vacation messages should *only* respond to emails
> where either the TO: or CC: of the message has the users email address
> in it.

> On Fri, 2002-10-11 at 10:18, linux_news at nextphere.com wrote:
>
> > I manage a mailing list site with mailman, and I recently had the
> > following  problem:
> >
> > Lets say I have a list called test at site.org with 3 members:
> > m1 at foo.org, m2 at foo.org and m3 at foo.org. m3 has its vacation script
> > turned on. m1 sends an email to test at site.org, so m2,m3 and m1 itself
> > receive the email. m3's vacation script replies to m1 and to
> > test at site.org, so m1 gets 2 copies of the reply (one directly and one
> > through test at site.org), m2 gets a copy and m1 gets a copy of its own
> > reply which in turn will be replied by its vacation script and so on.
> > So my mail server ends up sending a lot of useless emails.  How can I
> > stop this situation?

... Also, vacation programs should keep track of addresses to which
they have already sent an on-vacation message, and not send another
such message within X number of days.  Jon's suggestions will do more
to eliminate your problem, while mine only reduces the problem.  (But,
importantly, my suggestion does eliminate the looping effect; the "and
so on" part of your problem report.)  Both Jon's suggestions and mine
require you to be able to influence the behavior of your list members,
and I agree with Jon that dropping people from the list is a perfectly
valid way to attempt to influence people who cause endless message
loops -- especially to a mailing list.  At any rate, it is the
appropriate thing to do with list members who do nothing when you
politely point out to them why their vacation message set-up and/or
program is causing problems.

- Andrew

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