I know what you are saying about the "out of the office" messages. I subscribe
to a couple other professional computer-related organizations through Yahoo!
Groups. I believe the "out of the office" messages are part of an IBM standard
implemented by IBM for customer service purposes such that when anybody sends an
email to an IBM 'contact' who is temporarily unavailable, a "Reply" email is
promptly auto-generated and sent back to the prospective customer apprising them
of the unavailability of the particular IBM contact they attempted to
communicate with. I am not sure if IBM personnel can control who the
auto-generated Replies go out to short of their temporarily unsubscribing to the
"auto-forwarding" feature of any and all Yahoo! Groups. I too have always found
the "out of the office" emails pretty annoying, but I have learned to ignore
them, realizing that it is a side effect of certain peoples' professional
employment standards, which they are not at liberty to side-step.
People can be blind-copied on communications within any given Yahoo! Group,
so they don't have to sign into the web everyday to see what the latest news is;
instead any correspondence within that Yahoo! Group is automatically forwarded
to their personal mailbox(es) for their immediate attention. It is very
convenient, but the downside is when an auto-response message is bounced right
back at the Yahoo! Group and everyone subscribing to that Yahoo! Group.
What I find even more annoying (and I know many will agree because it has been
a common complaint to Yahoo! ever since the founding of Yahoo! Groups) is the
way the entire thread is repeated every time someone responds to the thread. I
guess Yahoo! is still working on it. Perhaps the thread is kept intact for
legal reasons so an abuser of the Yahoo! system cannot claim they misinterpreted
the thread or only saw part of a thread??? Alas, the pros and cons of
technology!