> > This is probably reason enough to peer the list.  If some way can be
> > determined to split up the SMTP addresses, so that they are distributed
> > across 10 servers located on the IP backbone.  10*800 has to be better than
> > 1*8000.
 
> The problem  is that there  is no  such way if  all the addresses  end in
> domains routed through INTERBIT. And in  fact you will probably find that
> the closest host  to all these US subscribers is  in Europe, because EARN
> has a "clean" INTERBIT topology  whereas only 2 official INTERBIT's exist
> in the US.  This causes your average  EARN node to be  closer to INTERBIT
> than your  average CREN  node, and  since the  Internet has  no published
> topology you  can easily  end up  with thousands of  US subscribers  on a
> european list and there  is nothing you can do about  it: the Internet is
> not in the US any more than it is in Europe or in the South Pole.
 
10,000 recipients just seems like a bit too much for a mailing list.  Even if
you could split the INTERBIT load up a bit, it would still be a tremendous
waste of resources to be sending all those copies of mail.  Netnews was
designed for exactly these sorts of hugely popular discussion groups, and is
very efficient at getting copies of many messages to thousands of
subscribers.  With 10,000 subscribers, there should be no difficulty getting
enough support to create the newsgroup.
 
Assuming that roughly 75% of the 8500 non-BITNET subscribers have access to
netnews and are willing to subscribe to NAVIGATE as a newsgroup rather than as
a mailing list, it should be possible to split the discussion group into three
parts gatewayed together, with 2000 subscribers to a BITNET peered LISTSERV,
2000 subscribers to an Internet peered Unix LISTSERV, and the remaining 6500
subscribed to a Usenet newsgroup.
 
I am curious what the charter for the NAVIGATE discussion group is, for the
list to be so tremendously popular.   If it's for a subject which I can
reasonably justify, I would even be willing to volunteer to coordinate the
Internet side of such a three-way gatewayed discussion group, including
organizing the creation of a Usenet newsgroup and coordinating the Internet
Unix LISTSERV sites.
 
@alex