I am not sure this  is such a hot idea, or rather, I  am not sure this is
the way  to do it. Nowadays,  BITNET nodes have internet  addresses which
are likely to be  used for a large number of  recipients. If a particular
node is going away, just  removing addresses of the form "[log in to unmask]"
won't be enough; if what you want to  do is delete all users of that node
from all  the lists in  the network,  you will have  to take care  of the
internet address as well, which of course is no longer available once the
node is gone from BITEARN NODES.
 
A second problem  is that it is  NOT clear whether you really  want to do
that:
 
Case 1: the  node is leaving BITNET but keeps  an internet connection. In
        that case  you should only  delete the BITNET addresses  or, even
        better, change them to use the internet address.
 
Case 2: the node is basically being  renamed, in that case you don't want
        to delete anything - just rename the addresses.
 
The real  solution is this :oldnode/:newnode  proposal, but it has  to be
extended to cover the internet addresses. I'm also afraid I'm getting fed
up at  the amount of time  I spend supporting "new  format" BITEARN NODES
things (which  will bring a near-zero  benefit to the end-user)  when the
activity I see on NODMGT-L regarding  the introduction of this new format
is almost nonexistent (ie although the  Princeton people are doing a very
good job at  writing conversion and validation tools,  there doesn't seem
to be anything going on at the NIC regarding the *actual* introduction of
this new  format, and until the  NIC is ready  to exploit it we  won't be
able to introduce it).
 
  Eric