On Mon, 14 Jun 1999, Bret Diamond wrote:

> Hello,
>
> In many cases, I get error messages simply when someone's mailbox is
> too full, or they're having an internal problem.  Usually I just get
> an error message every time a message goes out to the list that they
> can't receive.  In some cases, I seem to get error messages every
> minute--with these I set the account to nomail, and then contact the
> listmember in a few days to see if things have been sorted out.
>
> My questions are this:  What is the best way to handle these?  If I
> delete or set nomail someone while they're having problems, they or
> course do not get the notification message (I'm assuming) telling them
> about the changes that I made to their account.  I'm not infallible,
> and on a few occasions, i forgot to follow up on their account, and
> then got e-mail wondering why they had been deleted.

    What I do is to set the subscribers with this type of problem
to DIGEST.  It has several advantages over no-mail.
 1)  If I still get one error message each day, I can assume that the
    problem still exists.
 2)  If the error message is in fact erroneous and the subscriber is
    actually receiving his/her list mail, the sudden change to a DIGEST
    distribution usually causes him/her to write to me to ask why.
 3)  If there really was a problem, the subscriber will start receiving
    the DIGEST as soon as the problem is cleared up, without my having
    to remember to follow-up.   Again they usually write to ask why the
    change occurred.  I then know the problem has cleared up and tell
    them how to return to MAIL.  (In a few cases they prefer to remain
    at DIGEST).

   Unfortunately there are always some shy ones who don't write to ask
   about the change until weeks or months go by, but on the whole this
   method works well for me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Judith Hopkins, Listowner of Autocat
     [log in to unmask]     AND  [log in to unmask]
     My home page: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~ulcjh
     AUTOCAT home page:
     http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/cts/autocat/

>
> It would seem to me that a really nice feature would be the command
> "suspend blank-l"  which would simply stop sending mail to that
> account for a few days during which time i think most problems would
> be taken care of--this would be easy to do (from the owner's
> standpoint) and wouldn't let people slip through the cracks.
>
> Lastly, is there a way for me to get a list of the my listmembers who
> are currently set at nomail?
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Bret Diamond
>
>