On Mon, 12 Jan 2004, Pete Weiss wrote:

>Other than simply doing a mass-delete of a userid@node when that address
>is no longer valid, how do you "handled" the case when that userid@node
>is a colleague and has died?  E.g., do you do so QUIETly and perhaps then
>edit the report and e-mail the list-owners (-REQUEST) why you have done
>the delete; or perhaps you do a non-QUIET delete and await inquiries
>(sometimes angry, either because the list-owner did not interpret the
>auto-generated message properly, or thought they were the only one that
>could affect subscription), etc.
>
>Our organization has thousands of lists, and some proportional larger
>number of thousands of list-owners spread across the university and world.

I have encountered that situation. I just do a "quiet del * addr", but
I do not rush into it. In most cases, the individual list owners are
already aware of the situation and have taken the appropriate steps.