Kevin Brunson <[log in to unmask]> asks:
 
>I hoping for confirmation that I'm interpreting the following message
>correctly.  When the message reaches NDRESNET, Listserv looks at the From:
>line, determines that Rich Graves <[log in to unmask]>
>is not subscribed, and so it goes to the Owner--Right?
>
>Now, looking at To:; [log in to unmask] is an email address that
>received the message from Graves  and passed it to NDRESNET (resnet-forum is
>subscribed to the list).  It should be From: [log in to unmask] to
>be processed correctly.  Is either mailer "at fault"?
 
"Peter M. Weiss +1 814 863 1843" <[log in to unmask]> responds:
 
>What LISTSERV?
 
>Based on SHOW ALIAS MITVMA, DIG mitvma.mit.edu, DIG mit.edu,
>and a test message to the LISTSERV@MITVMA, I do not see any
>evidence that mitvma is any way related to mit.edu (other than
>existing at the same institution (but not host)).
 
MIT information services provides two list distribution mechanisms.  One
is on their "Athena" system, which defaults to a domain of
[log in to unmask] This is a manually administered Moira database, i.e.,
list owners add and remove users with commands (and they must be logged
on to an Athena computer to do so), and only other Athena users can add
themselves.  Since the details of this are probably not of interest to
Listserv users, I won't go into it anymore (though you can send me
personal mail if you have more questions, Kevin--the list you refer to
is, in fact, on this manual system).
 
The second is Listserv 1.8b, which we here know and (mostly) love, and
the address of that is [log in to unmask]  This is a *separate*
domain although there were some rumblings that they wanted to eliminate
conflicts where the same "username" existed in both mit.edu and
mitvma.mit.edu.  To confuse matters further, [log in to unmask] is an ALIAS
(set up as a 1-entry manual list) to [log in to unmask], but there
is no real "listserv" in the mit.edu domain!  (Also, some Listserv-based
list-owners on mitvma.mit.edu also choose to set up same-name aliases on
mit.edu, or different-name aliases, or sometimes it's a completely
unrelated address, or ... [sigh].)
 
Shahrukh Merchant