OK people. If you're on any listservs, UNSUBSCRIBE BEFORE YOUR VACATION.

[eyesroll]

:argh:

I'm on a listserv for work, and apparently one of the members went on vacation.

Now, normal autoresponders just send out one "hey, I'm on vacation" message per address -- if you send me one message or 100 during the time I'm away, you only get the one autoresponse. (I don't even use the autoresponder anymore, because it also autoresponds to spam with bogus addresses, which just bounces back into my inbox. But anyway.)

Not this one. It sent a vacation message to the listserv.
When the person on vacation got the message, the autoresponder sent another vacation message to the listserv.

And so on...until the vacationer's mailbox crashes or until the list admin cancels the vacationer's subscription, anyway. (I've received at least 250 "I'll be out of the office" messages so far...)

:grr:

[tcfrogs]

1. What a pain in the ass

I get that too...

[chiburb]

2. So... how was your vacation?

Did you get many emails while you were gone?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

3. Oh - welcome back!!!

:hi:

[eyesroll]

4. I'm not the vacationer. Some guy on my list was.

:grr:

[chiburb]

5. I guess it's a shit list now, right?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

6. The dastard!

[Phillycat]

7. Hi--moron here.

What is a listserv? :dunce:

[eyesroll]

8. Basically an e-mail discussion list.

It's an older term -- I was on listservs in the early-mid 1990s. I think the word itself might actually describe the mailing software or protocols.

[Phillycat]

10. Hmm.

Well, since I don't know what it is, I probably don't belong to one, huh? I guess I'm safe. Thanks for the info. :)

[Wickerman]

9. I once came into work and found the same

The listserve I was subscribed to had two folks on vacation and they bounced back and forth between each other and the main listserve. There were 2,500 messages, I couldn't delete them fast enough. Shut down my email box, cluttered up the University server and from what I understand did the same over the country. What a mess.