[Mgs] In case you were wondering

[Truxtun Southworth]

I so remember that fiasco

On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 1:33 PM Mark J Bradakis via Mgs <mgs at autox.team.net>
wrote:

> Not everybody has been on this list for decades.  Some of you may be
> wondering about the Dan Hughes reference, and 'out of office' comments.
>
> What happened those many years ago was that a list subscriber set up an
> automatic email response to any incoming mail.  I don't recall exactly
> how he did it, but it wasn't done according to, oh, shall we say best
> accepted practice at the time.  And in those early days of mailman
> software running the lists, there were some things that could have been
> improved.
>
> So Dan sets up this vacation response program and goes on his merry
> way.  He gets a message from the MG list.  His program responds to the
> MG list with his 'out of the office' canned response.  The MG list gets
> his response, and sends it out to the list.  Dan's autoresponder gets a
> copy of his 'out of the office' and responds by sending his canned
> response to the list.  The MG list gets his response, and sends it out
> to the list.  Dan's autoresponder gets a copy of his 'out of the office'
> and responds by sending his canned response to the list.  The MG list
> gets his response, and sends it out to the list.  Dan's autoresponder
> gets a copy of his 'out of the office' and responds by sending his
> canned response to the list.  The MG list gets his response, and sends
> it out to the list.  Dan's autoresponder gets a copy of his 'out of the
> office' and responds by sending his canned response to the list.  The MG
> list gets his response, and sends it out to the list.  Dan's
> autoresponder gets a copy of his 'out of the office' and responds by
> sending his canned response to the list.  The MG list gets his response,
> and sends it out to the list.  Dan's autoresponder gets a copy of his
> 'out of the office' and responds by sending his canned response to the
> list...
>
> You get the idea.  Basically this infinite loop put many thousands of
> email messages in the queue in a short time, really clogging things up
> and of course annoying 100% of the list members.  And it took some time
> on my part to step in, stop the loop and clean up the mess.  Just
> another day in the leisurely life of an overpaid and underworked sys admin.
>
> mjb.
>
>
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