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Another annoying email practiceMany mail packages, particularly within company email systems, provide an auto-reply feature. This way, if you go on vacation, or are sick, or you decide to go out for a long liquid lunch, you can let the world know. If someone sends you a message, your mail system will automatically respond with "Boris Badenov has left the building and will not be back until after he gets his flu shot. If it's an emergency, please contact Natasha Fatale." Back when I worked for Novell, and they came out with this feature in GroupWise, we all thought this was pretty cool and used it frequently. It was handy because you would have a better idea of when you'd be getting a response from your correspondent. However, like many good ideas, the world has sailed on by. This idea came out before the Internet was popular and unfortunately still lingers. Now, a not-insignificant amount of the clutter in my mailbox isn't spam, it's auto-responses from various people burning with the desire to let me know that I'm working and they're not. I publish several email newsletters (all subscription based) and every time I send one out, I'll get several such "auto-spams." For example, I just received one that read, "Dr. Chips is on an indefinite extended medical leave. If you are requesting necropsy/pathology information please contact Dudley Doright at dudu@frostbite.edu." The problem isn't one that I can fix. He's auto responding to a mail list that is maintained by someone else...not by me. So I can't delete him from the list! I am now destined to keep receiving Dr. Chip's auto-responses until he either dies, or returns to active duty. What a thrilling prospect that is. And if I do maintain the list, and drop him, you can bet he'll complain about why he is no longer getting my emails. He and I will exchange a few messages until it gets resolved, chewing up even more of my time. Many of us change our voice mail messages to reflect the fact that we'll be out of town. But that isn't an inconvenience to the callers. It's not like your voice mail system will call them, after they leave the message, advising them that you'll be in Pago Pago on business for the next 6 weeks. You can be sure you'd make lots of friends with that kind of arrangement. But somehow it's OK to auto-spam these silly announcements to everyone who has the misfortune to send mail to you either directly or indirectly. You might think the solution is to set up a filter in my mail package to delete these messages. Unfortunately, the more filters you set up, the more complicated your email system becomes and the more prone it is to failure. And you now have all these rules to manage. If I had 100 filters set up for all of the "auto-spam" that I get, it would take longer to get my mail AND the system would be less stable. If the Doc ever does come back to work, and sends me a regular message, I'll miss it because the filter is killing it. What I could do is send the following message, which will, of course, generate an auto-response. "Because you have set up your email auto-responder, and because you are subscribed to a mailing list over which I have no control, I have set up a filter to delete all messages I receive from your mail address. This means I will never be able to receive an email from you again. Sorry. I hope you don't send anything important. You can always write me a letter when you turn off your auto-responder." Not particularly polite, but it does let you vent your spleen. There is a better answer here, my friends. Just say no to auto-responders, particularly if you have subscribed to any mailing lists, newsletters, discussion groups, etc. Anyway, does the world really need to know that you're getting your teeth cleaned today?
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