A feature of Nabble that I really like is that, when I post to a forum to which I am subscribed, I receive an email of my own post. This is very valuable because (a) it lets me know that my post has been sent, and (b) it gives me a chance to see how it looks and to catch and correct any boo-boos promptly.
Some other forum systems I have used don't do this - emails of my posts go to all subscribers except me. Why do they do this apparently dysfunctional thing? The one sensible I have heard has to do with auto-responders. The nasty scenario goes like this:
- Fred belongs to a forum that emails a post notification to the poster.
- Fred goes on vacation, and sets his auto-responder to auto-reply to all messages he receives with a message saying "I'm on vacation till August 1".
- Sally posts a message on the forum.
- Fred's auto-responder receives Sally's message. It immediately replies to the forum with the "I'm on vacation till August 1" message.
- The forum receives Fred's "I'm on vacation till August 1" message, posts it as a reply to Sally's post, and immediately emails it out to all forum subscribers - including Fred.
- Fred's auto-responder receives the "I'm on vacation till August 1" email from the forum, and auto-replies to it again, so the "I'm on vacation till August 1" message goes out to all subscribers - again including Fred - and the barrage repeats until Fred turns off his auto-responder.
Some auto-responders slow down this vicious cycle by waiting for several days before auto-replying to a message that they have already auto-replied to. But others don't.
I assume that Nabble has encountered this issue and has dealt with it somehow. That these other forum systems might emulate Nabble, could somebody reveal how you've done it?
~ Thanks! Ken
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