>CONNECT= in the  response to CP Q  T holds only two digits  in the hours
>field.  Thus if  LISTSERV is  connected more  than 4  days the  ratio is
>wrong.
 
Well, you're supposed to do an ACNT ALL every day. I could indeed get the
connection  time from  the "last  IPL  date/time" info  that LISTSERV  is
keeping, but that  would assume that you log out  LISTSERV every time you
reboot it, which I don't think is a good assumption.
 
>If I'm not mistaken EXPLODE  doesn't consider Mail-Via=DIST2. The actual
>vs. calculated savings depend on the method of distribution.
 
This is absolutely true, but consider the amount of CPU time required if,
for each possible  configuration, it would try out exactly  how to spread
the people  using the DIST2 algorithm.  The way it is  done, the distance
between  the various  recipients and  the suggested  peers is  minimized,
which is about as  accurate an estimate as one can  get with a reasonable
amount of  CPU time.  One easy step  in the right  direction would  be to
count  all the  recipients at  backbone LISTSERV  sites as  being only  1
person, but somehow  that's not going to be enough.  Well it's relatively
easy  to find  out,  for  each recipient,  the  distance  to the  closest
backbone server, but that costs quite a lot of CPU time.
 
>Furthermore  it   doesn't  suggest  the  movement   (or  connection  for
>BESTPEERS) of peers.
 
Only BESTPEERS  should suggest  anything like that,  and deciding  on the
connection... well I don't know how  other people do it, but personally I
pay more  attention to the reliability  of the links involved,  amount of
horsepower available at  the site and quality of  postmaster support than
to the actual network  load, since only 1 file is  sent between the peers
:-) Would it be worth the work???
 
  Eric