Re: smallui2

[Mario.Wolczko@Eng.Sun.COM (Mario Wolczko)]

   Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 15:19:45 +0200 (MET DST)
   From: Thierry Goubier <Thierry.Goubier@enst-bretagne.fr>
   Cc: self-interest@self.sunlabs.com

   you can find it on ftp://self.smli.com/mario/self/Snapshot.smallUI2.gz
   (sorry to have looked inside mario's part of the ftp server)

No problem -- anything that's there is OK for public consumption.

   P.S. : For the rest of the list... could anybody remove all thoses
   unusables adresses which pop ups days after the send with a subject
   "Unknown Address" or the like ? I can give a list of theses addresses (I
   collect all undelivered mail on my messages).

I really wanted to address this part of the message.

I currently maintain the mailing list.  About a year ago we switched
to the unmoderated format, where any message to the list goes out
automatically, instead of me having to resend it.  I prefer this
format because (a) it means less work for me, which means the messages
go out in a timely manner, and (b) the message headers are from the
true sender, not me.

The downside is that any problems in delivering the mail are sent back
to the originator.  I get a copy too, so if you see any problems, you
can ignore them, safe in the knowledge they will be dealt with
eventually.  If someone knows how to set up sendmail -- I'm no
sendmail expert, and, frankly, have no desire to become one -- so that
the errors come only to me, I would really appreciate being told.  So
much so, I think I'll offer a free Self mug to the first person who
gives me information leading to a working solution!

However, in my defense, I would like to point out that the rate of
decay of email addresses is very high.  Self-interest currently has
about 300 subscribers.  I would estimate that one of these addresses
becomes invalid on average every day or two, presumably because the
recipient's account has moved.  Additionally, for every invalid
address, there are typically 5 delivery failures, due to machines
being down, and similar problems.  And, of course, many machines
insist on telling the sender, and me, that there are delivery problems
at 1, 3, 5 and sometimes even 10 and 30 day intervals!  So, the result
is that I get a lot of reports of bounced email, and much of it isn't
helpful because the problem will be fixed in a few days without my
intervention.  Occasionally, however, there is an address that has
become bad and nothing is going to fix it, so I have to remove it from
the list.

My strategy in these cases is to wait until several messages to that
address have bounced, after which I will remove it from the list and
send a notification message to the address, just in case the problem
was temporary.

If anyone knows a better way (and by "better" it must involve no extra
work for me ;-), I'd like to hear it...
Meanwhile, continue sending stuff to the list, and just ignore any
messages you get about delivery problems -- I'm on top of it.

-Mario
self-interest maintainer