Tue, 1 Sep 1992 11:37:52 EST
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As you say, it's generally impossible to know what is causing the mail
delivery failures from the contents of the "countdown" messages. Nice
way to describe them by the way. :) I would recommend sending a note
the postmaster asking him/her for information. I've found that sometimes
such notes actually are the first indication the postmaster has that
there is a problem. In those cases, they serve a more important purpose
than just providing you with an explanation of the mail delivery problems.
I generally don't mail postmasters at the regional Bitnet/Internet gateways
since they are providing a generic service, and probably don't know anything
about most of the machines they are asked to contact via SMTP connections.
That is, if aardvard.xyz.edu is a workstation that has been down for a
week, the postmaster at the xyz.edu mail gateway is probably going to know
what's going on (or can find out). But the postmaster at your regional
INTERBIT isn't likely to know more than you've learned from the mail
rejection notice already.
-jj
PS - I also consider the postmaster to be another person that's been
bitten by whatever software/hardware problem has caused the delivery
failure. So, my notes tend not to be "flames" but rather requests for
assistance and/or information. There are exceptions of course, but
you'll have to decide for yourself if/when the bounces are caused by
unforseeable hardware/software problems or negligence and phrase your
responses accordingly.
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