Intro for LSTOWN-L subscribers: for several months I have been reporting what I call "errors" in the ':internet.' tags of a number of nodes. As you know these tags are used for BITNET<->Internet address mapping. While about a dozen sites have fixed their entries, most of them have replied that they think the tags are not in error, based on the description of the tag in NEWTAGS DESCRIPT. Historically, the first version of the tag description was very vague and close to being unusable, which didn't matter since nobody was making use of the tag. When LISTSERV started supporting it in release 1.6e, I was asked to write a better description for the tag which is more or less what is now in NEWTAGS DESCRIPT (a couple changes in wording were made later on to clarify the meaning). Unfortunately I had forgotten to document the aspect of consistency across entries (as opposed to consistency of a given entry), so the specs do not say that the incorrect entries are incorrect and many people refuse to change them, saying that they don't see the problem. The reason many don't see the problem is that the tie-breaking algorithm used by LISTSERV chanced to produce the behaviour they expected. This, however, is totally random and may change with the addition of any node referring to the same Internet address, unpredictably. After a long discussion with the various people involved with updating NEWTAGS DESCRIPT, it turns out that everyone except the BITNIC (acting on CREN's behalf) is willing to alter the specifications, given that LISTSERV is the only known user of the tag and that this reflects a requirement which has been there from day 1 and which I had merely forgotten to document, rather than something required by a change in the software. I have decided not to make a fuss about that as I have better things to do than fight religious battles with the BITNIC. I accept the fact that the tags which I insist on calling incorrect are in fact perfectly correct as per the definition of NEWTAGS DESCRIPT and that people are free to keep them if they want. However, it has been a permanent restriction of LISTSERV from day 1 that this produces unpredictable results with LISTSERV, and I have invested 5 minutes reversing the tie break algorithm used by LISTSERV to demonstrate one of the problems these perfectly correct but non-working tags can cause. With release 1.7f, a number of sites will find themselves without a working :internet tag (and conversely a few sites which couldn't figure out why theirs didn't work will suddenly find that it now works). Since LISTSERV is the only application using this tag, this will hopefully give people an incentive to replace their perfectly correct and acceptable but non-working tags with other, equally correct and acceptable but also working tags. By introducing the problem for everyone at the same time, I can warn list owners in advance and the change will not be a surprise to anyone; this way, both my and the list owners' time is saved. For the record, the last time I had to investigate such a case of "non-working" internet tag, I spent about 2h staring at the code and running all sorts of traces for nothing because the conflict was with a node whose name was completely different from the name of the main node, and I couldn't guess they would have been related. To understand the problem I had to write the program which I now use to generate the monthly trouble reports I am posting to NODMGT-L. And that was after the list owner had hesitated for a week to contact her local LISTSERV expert, who had also wasted time trying to figure it out. If you don't mind, I'd like to have a working network - whether it is legally correct or incorrect I don't care, as long as it works. Eric