Subject: Re: guidance (re: social event politeness)

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 21:13:49 -0700 (MST)

> From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>

> Another common curtesy issue this thread has raised is vacation scripts...
>
> I've recieved 3 dozen or so responses from people on the mailing list who
> have automated vacation scripts. Please if you must use a vaction script
> on your mail either unsubscribe from the mailing list while you're gone,
> use procmail to filter your lists so they don't get caught by your
> vacation script, or just don't use vacation...

It's far from all vacation mechanisms that do the evil deed.  If you look
at the headers, you'll almost certainly find a telltale line of the form:

    X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (...

All ordinary submissions with that black mark should be rejected. 
All requests sent to IETF list control addresses should be interpreted
as unsubscribe requests.  This would not purge the lists of the
current abusers (those who insist on using that junkware and abusing
the rest of us), but it would reduce their proliferation and
encourage some to switch reasonable MUA's.

If the IETF doesn't try to enforce minimal standards where it
affects the business of the IETF, then the junkware vendors will
never bother to fix their junk.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

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From: Ted Gavin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 23:49:58 -0500

>    X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (...

Don't blame the product - in this case the blame rests firmly upon the
user. I used that product for years and managed to avoid spamming this
or any other list with useless information about my travel schedule.
If users would try testing their rules before trusting their own
abilities, they might spot the mistakes.

>never bother to fix their junk.

I remember having a similar perspective once - when I blackholed every
free e-mail service I could find from our systems, so we weren't
subjected to their high volume of spam. Of course, none of our
customers on hotmail could e-mail us, but...

Ted Gavin                http://member.newsguy.com/~tedgavin
------------------------------------------------------------
 "Hackers love PERL like they love their family dog."
 -read in "Database Processing" by David M. Kroenke

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From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 00:47:00 -0500

> or any other list with useless information about my travel schedule.

Yes, but why is it almost always that product? Maybe other products are smart
enough not to reply if the recipient's address isn't in the headers?

--
/=================================================================\
|John Stracke    | http://www.ecal.com |My opinions are my own.   |
|Chief Scientist |================================================|
|eCal Corp.      |World domination should never be left to chance.|
[email-masked]|                                                |
\=================================================================/

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From: John Martin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 15:26:58 +0100

...and speaking of bad manners, I noticed that there is a resurgence of 
people talking mobile-phone calls in meetings. I was only there for one day 
but it happened twice in three meetings. Another annoyance is those who 
allow it to ring and then cancel the call (presumably using CLI or 
something). This is not as bad but still pretty disruptive, particularly 
for the person speaking at the time.

Please switch them off. You shouldn't need to be asked.

John
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NL-2132 NG Hoofddorp               Main Office: +31 23 567 9600
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From: Ted Gavin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:09:35 -0500

>enough not to reply if the recipient's address isn't in the headers?

IMNSHO, because $BIG_SOFTWARE_COMPANY markets their products with the
focus of making life "easier" for the user. The product in question
is, by far, one of the easier ones to get working (from the client
perspective). It is not, however, all that simple to get it working
"Correctly", as we have all experienced.

With that model, $SOFTWARE contributes to the "dumbing down" of the
userbase. If the six people who, as of the time I sent the first
message, had used a mailer that required more knowledge to configure
to even a basic level of operation, chances are that they would have
gotten the Auto-Annoy feature configured properly.

And if they couldn't, they would have at least RTFMmed or not bothered
in the first place.

My inclination is to send the auto-reply to the abuse@ and postmaster@
accounts for each of the respective domains, and inform them that a
few specific users, WHO OUGHT TO KNOW BETTER, require some additional
instruction on how to use their e-mail client.

Ted Gavin                http://member.newsguy.com/~tedgavin
------------------------------------------------------------
"Will highways on the internet become more few?"

 - George W. Bush