Re: Address Change Requested (fwd)

[Tanner Lovelace <lovelace@netcom.com>]

Poster: Tanner Lovelace <lovelace@netcom.com>

Hello everyone,

This is the apology from the administrator at widomaker about
sending so many messages to our list.  I was rather impressed by it.

In service,
Kendrick
Listkeeper
---
             |                     lovelace@netcom.com      
             |\                       Arlington, VA
 8*<%%%%%%%%%|+>-===================================================-----
             |/      Per chevron argent and azure, a wolf passant 
             |     sable between three compass roses counterchanged.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 23:59:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: Widomaker Admin <root@widomaker.com>
To: Tanner Lovelace <lovelace@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Address Change Requested

Tanner,

My appologies.  I certainly hope your list is a moderated one (although
I'll bet it isn't as it looked like this pig was replying to its own
posts), if not please pass my appologies on to the list.  The trouble you
report has nothing to do with Smail's ability to hit an "Errors-To:"
header (although I won't certify that it will).  It actually came from a
young, aspiring admin trying to ensure that he was covering every bet.  He
is getting a Bcc on this so the leasson will be learned.

Basically, the guy works for me and has recently put in a server to house
a non-prof he runs.  We had an agreement that he could provide accounts
for a few select people involved in this same non-prof on widomaker
hardware (we are an ISP) until he got his box up and habitible.  To make a
long story short, he recently moved the accounts to his shiney new server.
Being the "Custermer service wiz" kinda guy he is, he decided to put up
aliases dumping these users mail into a bit o'perl (canned_reply) that
would spit back that very polite and yet informative message from
"Postmaster".  Being kinda new to this, the words "Loop Detection" &
"Mailing lists" probably didn't even cross his mind (even though he runs
at least 2 lists right now).

I guess you can see where this goes......

Anyway, since I'm his boss, he probably mentioned the whole setup to me
and I Uhuh'd it without really looking at it so I guess it is my fault in
the end.  But, since this is the second time (he burned my house down in
the same manner using canned_reply as a quick vacation ripoff.  Can you
say "Unable to write /var/spool/mail, file system full!") I think he will
do penance by hacking some loop detection into that canned_reply script.
So, if you'd like a copy of it, drop me a note in a few weeks (he'll need
to eat a perl book or two).

I'm really sorry that our goof ended up blasting your list and generally
wasting a boatload of diskspace & bandwidth, not to mention your list
reader's time.  We usually do a much better job of keeping those in house.

If you see any more "weirdness" originating from here, please let me know.
If you'd like, I'll make sure an appology goes out to the list, or you
could just send this one out.


Ben Loyall
President
Widomaker Communication Services, Inc.

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