On Tue,  26 Oct  1993 15:56:41  PDT Dave  Gomberg <[log in to unmask]>
said:
 
>Eric, you  are saying that it  is the obligation of  mailers to generate
>bounce  messages that  listservs can  automatically process  by dropping
>unreachable users?
 
I'm saying this is the only method  that scales up. Look, I'm getting the
impression I'm trying to explain  some philosophical theory in Chinese to
a crowd of  Madonna fans. Every time  I say that netwide  delete does not
scale up, period, people answer "but  it is a useful function". Of course
it is a useful  function, but it can't be done this way,  so it has to be
done another way. The only reason it's been tolerable so far is that less
than 50 sites use it. This is  like if anyone could hop into the Concorde
with a regular  charter ticket provided that they  genuinely thought they
had a good reason to get to  NYC in 3h, lie detector and everything. Well
I bet you'd  find thousands of people every day  who genuinely think they
need  to get  there in  3h and  not be  jet-lagged, and  I also  bet they
wouldn't keep this offer up for long.
 
People can  install mailers  that generate  delivery errors  LISTSERV can
understand, or they can develop  their own procedures to send non-netwide
SIGNOFF commands  when a  message from owner-whatever  is received  for a
user  that doesn't  exist.  Of course  it  is easier  to  send a  netwide
signoff, just as it is more  comfortable to travel with the Concorde. But
who will pay?
 
  Eric