Hi, everyone, I am sorry to have taken so long to report back on the changing of all AOLers on my list to FULL822 instead of SUBJECTHDR. Because of family reasons, I took a month off and left the list in the hands of my co-listowner who only had only recently extricated himself from AOL. While I was inactive, he just reported if anyone asked that I had had trouble with AOL and had been working on it and he didn't know what the problem was. He didn't, actually. So far as AOL, changing to FULL822 has worked except for a couple of times when AOL sent a fire-breathing error messages listing mostly different people from their earlier error messages. I am sorry but I don't have it to send it to you. I just ignored it and it has now been quiet for quite a long time. Only about three people on AOL contacted me about no longer having the name on the subject line, and I changed their settings back to SUBJECTHDR with an explanation of the reason for the change. A query to Listserv about an AOLer produces this answer: FULL822 (Obsolete, formerly "FULLHDR") Full mail headers with individual "To:" field I think AOL is not set up to harass lists when they have to respond individually to a number of people as they do under FULL822. The poor people on their server don't know anything else and don't know how to change options. I have not made any effort to inform them. After it goes on another month or so, I may change them back to SUBJECTHDR and see if it happens again. I rather imagine it will since AOL is set up on such narrow terms. So I may after all just leave it like it is and let AOL continue to get all the messages individually instead of one nice little tidy package. Our system can stand the pace. AOL can fly a kite for all I care. And I am very thankful that Ben Parker gave me this clue and others who made me realize that only the Listserv maintainer could handle the feedback loop. I did not want to burden our people with that task, and the full822 is just what the doctor ordered, apparently. Thanks again to all concerned. Barbara Barbara Passmore Listowner, FLORIDABIRDS-L -----Original Message----- From: LISTSERV list owners' forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ben Parker Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 2:08 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [LSTOWN-L] AOL's Feedback Loop On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 22:42:12 -0500, Barbara Passmore <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >Is this okay? I don't know how the AOLers received the post but I would >assume that the listname does not appear on their subject lines either. Listname on the Subject line requires the SUBJECTHDR setting. FULLHDR or FULL822 replaces SUBJECTHDR so the Listname on the Subject line no longer happens. This is pretty well documented. >No one has contacted me about it. Yet... They may. Or not. Wait and see. >So I don't know what the above means, whether FULL822 is correct or whether >it is obsolete and has been replace by FULLHDR which is what I have always >seen. Is the way the options should read as to header? FULL822 is an obsolete setting and may disappear from future versions of LISTSERV. For now it is still supported. In small volumes it has no measurable impact on the server. In larger volumes it can, since it forces LISTSERV to prepare a separate, individual email message for each such recipient. Normally LISTSERV sends mail by BSMTP (Bulk SMTP) means where all recipients at the same destination (e.g. all *@aol.com) are grouped and sent together. Sending 1 message to aol.com with 172 addresses is "easier" on the sending server (and the receiving server at aol.com) since only 1 file is created and handled and much fewer total bytes are sent. Sending 172 separate individual messages, means handling 172 separate files, takes longer, results in many more total bytes sent, etc. Now adding 172 small emails to the total server load is not really a huge difference, but if all list owners did it for all destinations, it would have a very large (negative) impact on the server. >Also is there anyway I can get the feedback information without going >through the admin of Listserv? I see it requires the access numbers which I >do not have. AOL intentionally has designed their feedback loop mechanism only for "Postmasters" or Server Administrators, i.e. the person(s) fully responsible for the internet "behavior" of a given machine or group of machines. List Owners typically are not also Server Admins (some are of course) and they don't have the necessary access to control the server's "behavior" so AOL is not interested in working with List Owners at this lower level.