During the slow revitalization of Listserv@CMUCCVMA, I sent it mail to
go OFFLINE immediately upon IPL so it wouldn't flood the net with
94 posts to Info-VAX each fanning out to about 70 subscribers.
 
In this, it sent mail to each and every one on the list.  One person
REPLYed to the mail, saying "What are you talking about" to which
Listserv suggested that he try HELP.  Here is his letter explaining
what he thought about the situation...
 
Received: from Sushi.Stanford.EDU by wiscvm.wisc.edu on 02/16/87 at 03:55:47 CST
Date: Mon 16 Feb 87 01:54:31-PST
From: Andy Freeman <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [Revised List Processor (1.5f) <LISTSERV@cmuccvma>: Important
To: [log in to unmask]
In-Reply-To: Message from "Marc Shannon <[log in to unmask]>"
 of Sat 14 Feb 87 22:28:05-PST
Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]>
 
The "It should tell how to get to a human" comment referred to the
FIRST message I received from listserv.  I sent a "what are you
talking about" and received an error message that said to ask for
help.  (You get points for that, thanks.  One can argue that messages
in the wrong syntax should be forwarded to a human instead of
generating an error message, but ....)  It wasn't until I got the
response from the help message that I got a human's address.  By then,
I'd wasted a considerable amount of time; I knew that I needed to talk
to a human after I received the first message.
 
To restate what I should have said clearly the first time, almost
every messages that listserv sends that should include a pointer to
its human keeper.  All error messages should include a pointer.
 
thanks,
-andy
-------
 
Comments?
 
--Marc