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?