On 2004-05-31 12:25:04 +0100 Ian P. Christian pookey@pookey.co.uk wrote:
One downside is that some people think an email saying 'I WILL NOT GET YOUR MESSAGE UNLESS YOU REPLY TO THIS - yadda yadda explination yadda' doesn't apply to them, or they get confused. In my opinion though, this is a good thing, I don't want to talk to people who can't understand that.
If you are using a auto-reply, be very very very careful. Most users become inadvertant spammers.
Personally, there are very few emails where I bother to reply to such an auto-response. The most common case I get them is when I am sending someone useful information, often that which has been requested outside email. They should damn well not send replies saying "now do more work to prove yourself" in that case.
I always reply to challenges sent to mailing lists in error, as a result of spam with a spoofed from. It makes challenge-response less effective and I think they should be discouraged.