Subject: vacation

From: Matt Ackeret <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 09:47:04 -0800 (PST)

On Thu, 20 Dec 2001 [email-masked] wrote:
>What you need to do the above is a program called "vacation". If your EMail
>resides on a Unix server and if your server allows you to run programs whenever
>an EMail is received for you by the system (through the .forward-mechanism),
>then you can use "vacation".

Though we're getting even further off topic, just a bit of warning about
vacation.

Think carefully before you set up auto-respond messages and such.
If you get mailing lists, your auto-responses will GO TO THE MAILING LIST,
and then people will complain to you and/or the list, thus snowballing into
a big pain in the neck, and you likely being (at least temporarily) removed
from the mailing list.

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From: Freda B Birnbaum <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 13:04:40 -0500 (EST)

On Thu, 20 Dec 2001, Matt Ackeret wrote:

> Though we're getting even further off topic, just a bit of warning
> about vacation.
> 
> Think carefully before you set up auto-respond messages and such. If
> you get mailing lists, your auto-responses will GO TO THE MAILING
> LIST, and then people will complain to you and/or the list, thus
> snowballing into a big pain in the neck, and you likely being (at
> least temporarily) removed from the mailing list.

Right on topic, thanks!!

As a listowner and list-"assistant", as well as a listmember of many
lists, I cannot agree too strongly with this one!!

Freda Birnbaum, [email-masked]
"Call on God, but row away from the rocks"

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From: daniel lance herrick <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 14:29:34 -0500 (EST)

But isn't vacation, unlike some commercial
software from large vendors, clever enough to not
send its automatic message in response to properly
marked list mail?

dan

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From: Mats Dufberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 20:47:21 +0100 (CET)

> a big pain in the neck, and you likely being (at least temporarily) removed

The warning is valid, but vacation is smart or conservative enough not to
cause the problem if correctly configured.

Vacation sends no auto-message unless the mail is addressed TO the address
or one of the addresses that you have configured vacation to react on. I
would typically tell vacation to react on "[email-masked]". If and
only of the mail is sent TO that address any message will be sent. No
messages will be sent to a mail TO "[email-masked]".

A second limitation of vacation is that it only sends one auto-message per
two weeks (a time period that could be set).

Mats

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Mats Dufberg                                 [email-masked]
Blåarvsgränd 42                                    +46-8-38 48 59
SE-162 45 Vällingby, Sweden                       +46-70-258 2588

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From: Constantin Gonzalez <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 10:52:40 +0100 (MET)

Hi,

> a big pain in the neck, and you likely being (at least temporarily) removed

yes, that's true. That's one of the reasons I would recommend procmail
over the traditional vacation. It comes with some nice scripts for providing
a good, solid vacation-like mechanism without the threat of auto-answering
to mailing-lists and daemons.

Still, I don't think this is off-topic. Pine has been designed with Usability
in mind. One of its core features are ease of use. And as we see from the
previous EMails, a user does not care who provides the service of auto-
responding he just wants the notification to reach the sendet when he's away.

Since Pine is their interface of choice for doing anything EMail-related, it's
logical that Pine users ask for this functionality to be included into Pine.

So, it really would be nice if Pine (at least under Unix) would help users
configure their vacation program (or even Procmail, but that's another story).

Just my two Euro-cents.

Regards,
   Constantin

--
Constantin Gonzalez                                       Sun Microsystems GmbH
Systems Engineer                                                  Sonnenallee 1
Technology & Product Consulting                     85551 Kirchheim-Heimstetten
Tel.: +49 89/4 60 08-25 91                          Federal Republic of Germany
Fax : +49 89/4 60 08-22 22                                   http://www.sun.de/

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From: Kenneth Crudup <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 06:28:56 -0800 (PST)

> logical that Pine users ask for this functionality to be included into Pine.

Hrmph. I suggest we take a vote on that.

Hell, what's next to go into pine? We've already *got* newsreading, file
management, and mail- why not go completely Bloatware and add an office
suite, too?!

	-Kenny

-- 
Kenneth R. Crudup   Sr. SW Engineer, Scott County Consulting, Washington, D.C.
Home1: PO Box 914         Silver Spring, MD 20910-0914         [email-masked]
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Work: 5141 California Suite 200, Irvine, CA 92612               (949) 737-2785

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From: Ed Arnold <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 07:35:10 -0700 (MST)

> management, and mail- why not go completely Bloatware and add an office

Great idea!   And while they're at it, the Pine team should make it
susceptible to all those windoze virii, too.  After all, what's 
compatibility if not complete?				:-)