Re: [exim] Out of Office and collateral spam

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Author: Michael Heydon
Date:  
To: Jeroen van Aart
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [exim] Out of Office and collateral spam
Jeroen van Aart wrote:
> Phil (Medway Hosting) wrote:
>
>
>> Email is NOT the correct medium to get time imperative responses.
>>
>> Email is NOT secure.
>>
>> Email is NOT guaranteed.
>>
>
> I agree fully. It's sad to see how many people base even life changing
> decisions on the (non) arrival of emails. Getting mad at your future
> ex-spouse because they didn't respond, you get the idea.
>
>


Isn't that exactly the point of the OoO reply? Sure it would be nice if
everyone understood that email isn't perfect, but in the real world if
someone thinks I am ignoring them then they will yell and scream/email
my boss/set fire to my cat/etc. A well configured autoreply behind a
decent spam filter will calm these people down will doing minimal/no
damage to everyone else.

In a perfect world we should be educating these people instead of
catering to them, but try telling the boss of a major customer that he
needs to follow up his emails with a phone call. The obvious response
would be "Supplier X down the road doesn't make me do that, maybe I will
go deal with them". If and when he realises that supplier x doesn't have
a perfect email system either, he is already gone and won't be coming
back to you.

*Michael Heydon - IT Administrator *
michaelh@??? <mailto:michaelh@jaswin.com.au>