Most of the ARPA load comes  from distribution lists and "digests". When such
a file  arrives at WISCVM  from ARPA, the gateway  generates one copy  for each
EARN/BITNET recipient.  Those files are  usually 1,500  to 4,500 lines,  ie not
small files AT ALL.  The gateway does not use the  MAILER network to distribute
the digests. It does not use the LISTSERV DISTRIBUTE feature which could divide
the load by more than 5 for  european mailings. I've received a suggestion from
some US people who  asked me not to give out their  names for political reasons
that I try  to encourage FRECP11-LISTSERV owners to create  ARPA lists on their
machine to redistribute ARPA mail. This is indeed a good idea, but it came from
several people who  are NOT willing to  run a LISTSERV on their  own machine to
participate in the operation, be it because of their own decision or because of
political reasons. Since those nodes are precisely those where such a redistri-
bution would be needed the most, I  am inclined to think that the best solution
would be  to have the gateways  use the LISTSERV DISTRIBUTE  system which would
provide an even better efficiency than local lists. Only one single copy of the
mail items would be sent from WISCVM to the nearest LISTSERV, which is unfortu-
nately 4  nodes away  (CLVM). What  do you think  about this?  LSTSRV-L people,
would you be willing  to accept the network and CPU load  that this would place
on your machines for the sake of the network (wow! :-) )?
 
  Eric