Part of the confusion may be that many of us received Larry Landwebers
original letter on Arpa gateway congestion via other means.  I got it from
a local list coordinator who was apparently picked up off of the BITNIC
NICSERVE LISTSERV GROUPS file by Gligor.
   I think it is worth sending to this list.  It is probably impolite for
me to discuss something which some of the group has not seen.  Here is a
copy of the mail our list coordinator received:
 
...
..
Date: 14 November 86 18:38 EST
From: RMXJ@CORNELLA
Subject: (copy) [No Subject]
To: ... one of our list coordinators ...
...
..
 
To:      ARPANET and BITNET List Administrators
From:    Larry Landweber  <LHL @ WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Subject: WISCVM Mail Relay
 
Because of Arpanet congestion problems, our WISCVM mail relay is unable
to keep up with the quantity of mail sent to it for forwarding. While the
problem is particularly acute in the Bitnet to Arpanet direction, the level
of traffic in both directions is a problem.  A large part of this
traffic results from mailing lists.  Furthermore, while we are usually only
sent a single copy of a list mailing, the recipient list is often very long.
A single message may require the sending of over a hundred copies. This
is  a problem for two reasons... Arpanet congesion makes it difficult at
times to establish and keep TCP connections and such connections are slow;
second, the implementation of the gateway at present makes multiple copies
for forwarding (a poor design choice that is being worked on).
At present, the first problem is far important.
significant.
 
To alleviate the problems cited above and enable us to provide a reasonable
level of service, we are asking Arpanet list maintainers to provide list
exploders on Bitnet and vice versa.  Your cooperation will be very much
appreciated. Note that in a about a month we will begin limiting the number
of copies we will relay by putting a limit on the number of recipients
in RCPT TO lines in SMTP and BSMTP.  This limit is likely to be 10.
 
Gligor Tashkovich <[log in to unmask]>
has agreed to help coordinate the process of putting
maintainers on one net in touch with relevant people on the other list.
 
Thanks in advance for your cooperation in this matter.
 
Larry Landweber
 
 
cc: NIC @ SRI-NIC.ARPA   CIC @ SH.CS.NET   INFO @ BITNIC
    PEB @ CERNVM