On Thu, 14 Dec 2000 00:47:00 -0500, John Stracke <francis(_at_)ecal(_dot_)com>
wrote:
Ted Gavin wrote:
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.
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?
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
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"Will highways on the internet become more few?"
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