Ok. Being adjacent to WISCVM and planning to get FRECP11-LISTSERV running REAL SOON NOW I have a few thoughts on the ARPAlist redistributions. 1. Has anyone looked at the traffic the lists impose on the gateway? I would expect that a small number of the lists (say 10%) impose the bulk of the traffic (maybe 90%) - the 90/10 rule. IF a small number of lists are involved perhaps we should concentrate on those by providing normal LISTSERV lists on BITNET for them. 2. Some of the lists are available via Netnews. For those who asked, Netnews is a distribution system available on BNEnet which forwards items in packets and also has a user interface to allow customizing what items a person wants to see. Unlike mail it stores ONE copy of the item on the local system which all users can share. (This is USENET on UNIX systems). As I understand it, both Penn State and Princeton have developed servers and user software to handle netnews on CMS. A controlled network of netnews sites, where items are sent from one site to the next (only one copy usually goes down the same link) could certainly cut down on some of the traffic. Again, it would help to look at the pattern of the items (source and destination) to see what amount of effort would be required for what gain (eg. if a school had 100 people on SF-Lovers then netnews might save 99 items). 3. I think we should be very careful about deciding what OTHER sites should be doing. Some of the network hubs have taken on a very large burden on our behalf. Perhaps some of us who are not topologically situated to be transmission hubs can help in other ways - for instance by running a major LISTSERV node. The transmission may not be optimum but the load is spread around a bit. 4. I am a bit concerned that if WISCVM does limit the number of RCPT lines to 10, users who are using the multiple entries will just divide the mail up into additional files so no one exceeds 10 (or so there is 1 addressee per envelope even!). The cure could be worse than the disease. 5. Is the WISCVM - Arpanet gateway being overworked? What are the options? I do not know all the politics or financing arrangements. But I suspect that is a lot of work with little or no money to work on it. If it is being maintained by volunteers who are students, what happens when they leave? Are we expecting too much for what we are paying? :-) 6. What are the ramifications of DISTRIBUTing FILES instead of sending MAIL? Will this have an effect on all the user agents out there? I hate to cause more problems with non-standard files, etc. (That may not be a problem - just my lack of understanding). Marty Hoag