Re: too many "Out of Office AutoReply"

[Keith Moore <moore at cs.utk.edu>]

> > This is arguably another problem with such messages - they should probably
> > go to the envelope return address (from the SMTP MAIL FROM command or the
> > return-path header field) rather than to the author's address (from the
> > From header field).
> 
> 
> That will get them sent to  the mailing list manager, who certainly will not
> care to learn which of the thousands of mailing list members are on vacation
> at any given time.

Actually, these days it's increasingly likely to get sent to a "bounced 
message parser" that tries to parse bounced messages and discover which
recipients' addresses are consistently failing.  That parser can also be
taught to ignore "out of office autoreplies".
 
> Of  course, the  mailing list  manager  also does  not care  to learn  which
> mailing list members  have exhausted their disk quotas  either, but hundreds
> of mailservers are  very happy to tell him to please  send the message again
> later.

When the reporting MTAs use DSN format (and report the proper status codes
for this condition) the bounced mail parser can treat disk quota failures 
differently from "no such user" and other more permanent conditions, and 
avoid removing list recipients for temporary disk quota failures.

Keith