George Frajkor <[log in to unmask]> writes:
 
>     The Mideur-L list has been flooded with this strange mail bounce
> that I have never seeen before.  It goes to the whole list, not just
> to the owner.   UUnet says it is not their error, and there is no
> reply from any postmaster at the "capital" node.  Can anyone tell me
> what is happening and how to stop it?
 
Did you try mailing to root@capital, and/or asking kdonow and taylor
who their syadmin is?  When you finally get the person, tell them:
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
RFC-822                                Standard for Internet Text Messages
 
     6.3.  RESERVED ADDRESS
 
          It often is necessary to send mail to a site, without  know-
     ing  any  of its valid addresses.  For example, there may be mail
     system dysfunctions, or a user may wish to find  out  a  person's
     correct address, at that site.
 
          This standard specifies a single, reserved  mailbox  address
     (local-part)  which  is  to  be valid at each site.  Mail sent to
     that address is to be routed to  a  person  responsible  for  the
     site's mail system or to a person with responsibility for general
     site operation.  The name of the reserved local-part address is:
 
                                Postmaster
 
     so that "Postmaster@domain" is required to be valid.
 
     Note:  This reserved local-part must be  matched  without  sensi-
            tivity to alphabetic case, so that "POSTMASTER", "postmas-
            ter", and even "poStmASteR" is to be accepted.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 
> From: [log in to unmask]
 
> remote execution        [uucp job uunetC2TC3 (3/2-3:48:37)]
>         rmail kdonow taylor
> exited with status 1
>
>
>         ===== stderr was =====
> Usage: rmail username
 
This looks like someone's primitive idea of "user not found".  Do you
have list members named kdonow@capital and taylor@capital?  If so,
try setting each, one at a time, to NOMAIL and see if you still get
the error.
 
If NOMAILing a particular one of them makes the error go away, then
it's likely that person no longer is a user at capital.
 
If NOMAILing *either* one of them makes the error go away, then
capital's rmail can't handle multiple user names.  You can get around
this by breaking up their distribution; set one of them to
[log in to unmask], and the other to [log in to unmask], or
[log in to unmask], or somesuch.
 
There may be a way to tell LISTSERV to specifically not mail them
together, too....?
 
Steve