RFC 3834 on Recommendations for Automatic Responses to Electronic Mail

A new Request for Comments is now available in online RFC libraries.

        RFC 3834

        Title:      Recommendations for Automatic Responses to
                    Electronic Mail
        Author(s):  K. Moore
        Status:     Standards Track
        Date:       August 2004
        Mailbox:    moore@cs.utk.edu
        Pages:      22
        Characters: 53119
        Updates/Obsoletes/SeeAlso:    None

        I-D Tag:    draft-moore-auto-email-response-05.txt

        URL:        ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3834.txt

This memo makes recommendations for software that automatically
responds to incoming electronic mail messages, including "out of the
office" or "vacation" response generators, mail filtering software,
email-based information services, and other automatic responders.  The
purpose of these recommendations is to discourage undesirable behavior
which is caused or aggravated by such software, to encourage uniform
behavior (where appropriate) among automatic mail responders, and to
clear up some sources of confusion among implementors of automatic
email responders.

This is now a Proposed Standard Protocol.

This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for
the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions
for improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the
"Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the
standardization state and status of this protocol.  Distribution
of this memo is unlimited.

This announcement is sent to the IETF list and the RFC-DIST list.
Requests to be added to or deleted from the IETF distribution list
should be sent to IETF-REQUEST@IETF.ORG.  Requests to be
added to or deleted from the RFC-DIST distribution list should
be sent to RFC-DIST-REQUEST@RFC-EDITOR.ORG.

Details on obtaining RFCs via FTP or EMAIL may be obtained by sending
an EMAIL message to rfc-info@RFC-EDITOR.ORG with the message body 
help: ways_to_get_rfcs.  For example:

        To: rfc-info@RFC-EDITOR.ORG
        Subject: getting rfcs

        help: ways_to_get_rfcs

Requests for special distribution should be addressed to either the
author of the RFC in question, or to RFC-Manager@RFC-EDITOR.ORG.  Unless
specifically noted otherwise on the RFC itself, all RFCs are for
unlimited distribution.

Submissions for Requests for Comments should be sent to
RFC-EDITOR@RFC-EDITOR.ORG.  Please consult RFC 2223, Instructions to RFC
Authors, for further information.

Joyce K. Reynolds and Sandy Ginoza
USC/Information Sciences Institute

...

Below is the data which will enable a MIME compliant Mail Reader 
implementation to automatically retrieve the ASCII version
of the RFCs.