Dave,

When it comes to Out-of-Office messages it's the email software (Outlook, Pegasus,
etc) that determines how the vacation message is sent.  With MS Outlook, the message
goes back to the original sender of the message, and it usually doesn't end up going to
all of the subscribers to the list.  There are other email software packages that send the
To: address (which would be the list address) or the Reply-To: address (which can also
be the list address.  This is when OOO messages get sent to subscribers.

There are a few things that you can do to prevent multiple vacation messages from
being sent to the list.  Once the first OOO message appears you can set the user to
NOMAIL.  This would stop the subscriber from sending email, but they would still
receive messages from the list.

The other setting that can be made is to add a Confirm option in the Send= keyword.
For example, if Send=Private, you can add Confirm to it to read Send=Private,Confirm.
If a subscriber has a vacation message turned on, and it tries to go back to the list,
LISTSERV will send a message to that subscriber asking him/her to confirm the
message being sent.  The downside to this is that all subscribers would have to confirm
their messages in order for them to be delivered to the list.

I hope this help you out Dave.

Richard Keller

> Our subscribers get very upset when somebody turns on their "vacation"
> program and every message to the list results in an "out of office"
> message being sent to the entire list.
>
> I was always under the impression that it was a misbehaving "vacation"
> program that was the cause of this. But several subscribers state that
> "most other list I subscribe to has technology in place that will
> catch out-of-office messages."
>
> Is there something I can do with the list configuration to stop the
> distribution of these messages? The list is a discussion group, so it
> is set up in such a way that replies go to the list.
>
> If not, is there at least some specifics I can give my subscribers
> about why it is their fault that this is happening?