(* I sent this one week ago, but it was blackholed somewhere... *)
 
Dear Listserv/Listearn mailing list:
 
Several items:
 
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As of June 5, the problem with list mail containing listserv job
lines and duplicate mail bodies still exists. I am on several dozen
lists, and only one of them is affected, all others work fine.
Approximately every 20th mail from HASKLD-L@YALEVM is damaged, the
list of recipients in the job include people at AEARN, .CH and .IL.
 
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I strongly support the votes for a "query * (netwide" command.
In my case, I will perhaps have to change all my subscriptions
(because I move to another node), and I need some easy way to find
out to which lists I'm subscribed without deleting my subscriptions.
 
(by the way, I support Eric's opinion that a Reply-to line
should be used with care and not by default)
 
Also, I strongly dislike the renewal mechanism (which is on by default
on LISTEARNs): Especially during holidays, the time between the warning
and the deletion may be too short (I read my mail only now and then).
Moreover, when mail is redirected to some flakey workstation, or when
my userid expires during a longer absence and mail is thrown away, or
..., the warning may be lost. And finally, it is annoying!
 
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I also strongly agree that LISTSERV's and LISTEARN's should be
reunited. I am not aware of the political backgrounds, but
* Incompatibilities increase, and they confuse both users and list
owners (for example, the defaults for list headers are different in
LISTSERV and LISTEARN. If a list is moved from one type of LISTxxxx
to another, it suddenly behaves differently!).
* Two software packages will always contain more bugs than one of them,
and we have seen a lot of troubles during the last few months
(jobs in mail bodies, empty mail bodies, people on lists to which they
never subscribed, misdirected dist jobs, unwanted acknowledgements for
list mail, and finally the x-del job problem).
* If the EARN administration really wants to improve the LISTxxxx
situation, it should pay Turgut for
a) Writing Listserv documentation (this is really badly needed!)
b) Writing Listserv utilities (user interfaces, maint tools, ...)
c) Keeping all Listserv's in Europe up to date and consistent
instead of asking him to put efforts into duplicating Eric's work with
more drawbacks then benefits for the network users.
 
AEARN is an EARN backbone which recently switched from LISTEARN to
LISTSERV.
 
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The problem of virtual mail addresses (mail addresses which
are introduced to hide the internals of some local network, but
have no physical existence, i.e. mail addresses which should be used
for receiving mail, but cannot be used to send mail or tell commands)
has hit me several times:
 
* In my case, I should continue to receive mail on the address
...@AEARN (which is currently real, will become an alias for some other
BITNET address soon, and will forward mail to my internet workstation
starting in fall). However, this userid will be discontinued soon, I
will no longer be able to send mail from that machine, which becomes
a network backbone not open to ordinary logins.
How do I send subscriptions/deletions/other requests for the
AEARN address from a completely different machine/address/network??
 
* I also own a list, and the problems are the same: All LISTSERV
diagnostics and error messages concerning my list should be sent to
the virtual address, but I have to maintain the list from a different
address.
 
* I have similar troubles for members of my list in Vienna:
They are urged to receive mail only on the virtual addresses
"[log in to unmask]", but can send
mail only from "[log in to unmask]". I have solved
that problem by hand as a list owner, because my list is small
and by-owner/validate-all anyway, but how would you handle this problem
in general for big lists???
 
Greetings
 
************************************************************************
* Klaus Kusche                                                         *
* Research Institute for Symbolic Computation                          *
* Johannes Kepler University           Tel: +43 7236 3231 67           *
* A-4040 Linz                          Telex: (Austria) 22323 uni li a *
* Austria (Europe)                     Fax: +43 7236 3338 30           *
*                                                                      *
* Bitnet:           K312240@AEARN                                      *
* Arpa/CS/Internet: [log in to unmask]               *
* UUCP:             mcsun!aearn.bitnet!K312240                         *
* Janet:            [log in to unmask] or k312240%aearn@earn-relay     *
************************************************************************