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Every now and then someone assembles a huge list of WAM
e-mail addresses and puts them all on the
To: line of a message -- either for advertising
purposes or just to sow chaos in the WAM mail system. This is
a violation of the mass-mail prohibition in the WAM account
guidelines.
However, this initial violation is nothing compared to what
happens when the unthinking recipients of such a message
reply to it, intentionally or unintentionally including all
the original recipients in the reply -- which is just as much
a violation of the guidelines as the initial mailing. The
chain reaction that ensues can create serious problems.
To prevent this from occurring, there is currently a limit of
500 "visible" addressees (i.e., on the To:
or Cc: lines) in the header of any mail item
received by WAM or Glue mail. Any mail exceeding that is
rejected, with the message:
If it is necessary to send to more than 500 people (or even
50!), the addresses should be put on the
Bcc: line. This gets around the limitation, and
eliminates the potential for a chain reaction, since the
addresses are invisible. (In pine, the Bcc: line is
accessible by typing a control-R while the cursor is in the
header section of the mail you're composing.)
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