[JDEV] Problems with auto reply

[Matthias Wimmer]

Hi Tijl!

On Sat, Nov 23, 2002 at 12:50:27PM +0100, Tijl Houtbeckers wrote:
> However, I don't think it's necessary.

It is! Maybe you don't have these problems at your server because it is
used mostly by clients programmed by yourself. But at the average Jabber
server this can be a problem - and people implementing clients (or bots)
are often not aware of the problem. If they would get information how to
handle auto replies in the specs, I'm sure there would be less problems.

> Why would *anyone* implement the system the way it is now?

If nobody would implement the system like it is now, why do we then have
this system? Auto replies have been implemented, that's a fact. There
is even a (depreciated) server module (mod_filter) for this.

> delay before sending out the autoreply! (though thankfully karma will 
> slow them down a bit). 

My experience shows that already many messages have been exchanged after
karma begins to slow this down. - I don't want to use more restrictive karma,
as this would also limit legal usage of the server.

> It could stop itself from sending any more of those confirmation 
> messages on autoreplies of that user within the next 60 seconds or 
> something (as I already suggested).

it would be nice, if this is implemented by a Jabber entity too. But this
doesn't meen that you shouldn't flag automatic messages as being automatically
created.

> The problem with using some kind of 
> tag to flag that you don't want an autoreply is that some people (who 
> don't like autoreplies) will send it out by default, wich will be 
> reason for some client developers (who want their autoreply to send 
> anyway) will ignore the tag, wich will bring us back to where we 
> started. 

Don't be stupid ... I don't think that people send auto replies if they
know that the other side doesn't want them. Why should they? It's not spam,
they think that it is nice, but I really expect that they would accept
if somebody doesn't want auto replies.

but there is a good idea in this: The flag could also express, that somebody
doesn't want auto replies. Something like this could be the syntax:

<x xmlns='jabber:x:autoreply' isautomatic='true' wantautomatic='false'/>

> type="autoreply", or if that's too drastic a tag marking that your 
> message *is* an autoreply (not that you don't want one back).

Please read the messages you have replied to. This is exactly what has been
discussed yet: Mark automatic messages as being machine generated.

But the idea that you can flag messages to express that you don't want an
automatic reply is interesting too.


Tot kijk
    Matthias
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