Eldo Hildebrand (ELDO@unb.ca)
Thu, 23 Apr 1998 09:24:36 +0000
Message-ID: <199804231223.JAA28554@mailserv.unb.ca> Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 09:24:36 +0000 From: Eldo Hildebrand <ELDO@unb.ca> Subject: Error messages and removal from the list (from the owner) To: CIVIL-L@hermes.csd.unb.ca Dear subscribers I have been operating this list for about ten years and thought I should let you know a little about the operation. The list is maintained here at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. It has gone through a variety of relatively transparent changes over the years. Originally set up on a 3270 mainframe, I believe it now runs on one of our Unix boxes (I only need to know a little about its operation since the Listserv expert is usually around for coffee in the afternoon). My operation of the list is through my personal Email account (I use Pegasus on an older 486 DX that seems a little slow but functional). Since the list has several hundred subscribers, I get a large number of error messages regularly. Some errors are handled automatically by the system; however many are not (10 to 50 per day). I set Pegasus to highlight errors in red so that I can delete batches of them easily when I don't feel like dealing with them. Every month or so I try to "cleanup" the list by threading through errors etc. and removing users that seem to have gone missing (no route to the host, unknown user, repeated timeouts etc.). Occasionally I make a mistake and remove a user whose problems were only temporary. Soooo, if you get a message like.."you have been removed by..." and you really want back on the list, just subscribe again. I also get occasional request to be removed from the list from people whose accounts have been changed and they are no longer able to remove their old Email address. In a perfect world, all these things would be handled automatically; however given the very wide variety of equipment and software handling Email worldwide, it isn't going to happen soon. Sorry for the length of this but I just felt "chatty" this morning after wading through another 40 odd error messages. Eldo Hildebrand, PhD., P.Eng. Director of the Geological Engineering Program University of New Brunswick P.O Box 4400 Fredericton, NB E3B 5A3 tel 506-453-4521 fax 506-453-3568