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Re: Looping problem

2002-02-26 22:06:57
Yea, sysadmins! Heed the story of this man with an albatross around his
neck, for he labors not to dissemble, but to tell his sorry tale.

Me, it's just too much to read. I admit it, ok?

For others who may want the executive summary then, let me (or as the case
may be "pardon me") for excerpting relevant bits, with COMPLETE
attribution:

PSE-L(_at_)mail(_dot_)professional(_dot_)org (Professional Software 
Engineering) wrote:
Take a deep breath.  Understand that this is written in a tone discouraging
the use of the SMTM ("Show Me The Money") method, and isn't an attempt to
be inflammatory against those who might choose to employ SMTM.  If you
start to think I'm picking on you, take a break, reference this paragraph,
then when your BP has subsided, continue reading.

Take a DEEP breath. Understand... oh never mind.

At 16:50 2002-02-26 -0800, Fred Morris wrote:
People just don't like the idea of justifying themselves, do they?

Not on a mailing list they don't.  Excepting perhaps ONE occasion, every
case of a SMTM bounce I've seen was caused by a post to a mailing list -
not a message TO that individual, but a message TO A LIST.  To which that
clever individual elected to subscribe themselves.  It's in the same class
of clueless user as sending vacation messages in response to mailing list
messages (or any other message not addressed cleartext to you).

Note as a valid risk. It is an experience different from my own. Note the
syllogism however. Yes. Everybody should have experienced vacation bots by
now. Some people apparently just turn them on for coffee breaks... that I
have experienced, and it dropped my X-Loop header at that.

Know what happens when a listserv changes hosting services and just "drags"
the original list subscribership over to the new host?  Now, take that
person who's got a SMTM filter (and was greenlisting that list by it's
original address) and figure they went skiiing for the weekend.

As did the list admin. Go figure.

Don't that suck?

Gee, yes it does. It sucks as much as somebody who sells their subscriber
list to a spammer. Operationally, I can't tell the difference. Nor do I
care.

Just as with vacation autoresponders gone amok, the user
will find themselves booted from that list if the listadmin can be
contacted, or enough people decide to deal with whatever is necessary to
forge or otherwise push through an unsubscribe for them on that list.

Note this as a risk.

--

Fred Morris
m3047(_at_)inwa(_dot_)net


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