Subject: Re: Why the out of office messages aren't an example of misconfiguration.

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 20:54:41 -0800

At 02:38 PM 12/29/00 -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>Lots of people keep saying "Gee, well, exchange lets you turn off
>sending out of office messages to the internet. That's the problem --
>misconfiguration." Why is this next message NOT an example of
>misconfiguration?
>...
>It is not an example of misconfiguration because I NEVER SENT ED KLEIN
>A MESSAGE. I sent a message to an exploder.

Maybe, and yes.

You DID sent the message and it DID go to Ed.  Ed got it from you.

Although there is a line of argument that, actually, Ed got it from the 
mailing list service, the typical end-user view is that the message came 
from you and that the list service is just a convenient enhancement to the 
transfer service.  (Here I am talking about end-users and not email 
technical architecture.)

That's how we get to the behavior that sends automatic responses to 
messages.  Send them to the From.  Without qualification.

The error, then, is really that the software has not been made to pay 
proper attention to a broader range human realities.

         The rule "if the recipient is not cited in the
         message header To or CC (and if there is no BCC)
         then do not sent an automatic response" embodies
         the distinction between personal mail and bulk mail.

It is a heuristic, but a good one.  (A local project mailing list might 
want the vacation notice, but probably not.)

So, it is NOT a configuration error, in that the software is doing a 
user-to-user service, without having the proper behavior for typical 
user-to-user message situations.  MAYBE it is a configuration error in that 
it might be ok to have a configuration switch controlling this.

And that said, it's clear we need a standard covering automated responses.

THEN it will quite clearly NOT be a matter of configuration...

d/

=-=-=-=-=
Dave Crocker  <[email-masked]>
Brandenburg Consulting  <www.brandenburg.com>
Tel: +1.408.246.8253,  Fax: +1.408.273.6464