On 2 Mar 2001, at 9:46, Stephens, Larry V wrote:

>AMEN, AMEN, AMEN, and it's amazing how many people won't believe you, and
>how many providers point the finger somewhere else. Then suddenly, A
>MIRACLE! Their email (after complaining to their provider, who insists it
>has to be listserv or the list owner, or anything but them) starts pouring
>in.

I hate "me too's" but I've seen this to an extent that makes me wonder
if I'm hallucinating.  One of the worst, Concentric.net, appeared to be
using a BS tracking system that would step complaining subscribers through
a checklist of lies ("no problem", "problem with the listserv", "we blocked
spam from Listserv", "we defensivily limited volume from Listserv") so
rigidly that subscribers could crib from each other and send rebuttals along
in anticipation of the canned responses they still got anyway, from a half
dozen people sharing two female names.  The upshot was that Concentric
refused to lift THEIR block until we had OUR management authorize it (I
had to confirm this repeatedly over the phone because part of my brain
simply refused to accept it).

This next one wasn't malicious, but last month ATT kept insisting that
SJU was blocking ATT because maelstrom.STJOHNS.edu kept refusing to relay
messages to maelstrom.edu.  This was traced to a bug deep in the bowels
of ATT that was supposed to strip the "stjohns" off of an obscure part of
their mail system called stjohns.att.net.

And so it goes.
                                                -Kary