Anita said: > bellmail: cannot append to /usr/spoo/mail/robertso > bellmail: cannot create // dead letter > bellmail: error closing file: Bad file number > 550<[log in to unmask] Insufficient Permission > What does it mean, "insufficient permission"? Can I send it back to the > Mailer-Daemon and get a human answer on what has happened? I have tried this > approach before and only gotten confused messages back, such as "no humans > here". Jim has given you a brief explanation of this mumbo-jumbo. I'll try to give some more general advice on handling bounced mail from the list. I'm sending it to the list because I think there are a number of new list owners here who may find this useful. It really isn't necessary to understand most error messages. Almost all can be paraphrased: Your message did not get delivered. The important information is who the subscriber is. (It is amazing to me that some systems send bounces from which it is almost impossible to who the message was sent to.) In your case, the subscriber is clear. This is enough for many owners. They may wait a day or two to see if the problem goes away. If not, they delete the subscriber. Other owners (including me) try a bit harder to keep subscribers. I categorize error messages into two kinds: deleted users and other. If the error message indicates that the account does not exist ("unknown user" is often the wording) then I delete the subscription. I get a lot of these during the summer as the accounts that people had during the school year are terminated. Other error messages usually indicate some sort of problem on the receiving machine. For these I have a form letter I send to the postmaster. The purpose of the letter is two-fold: first, to let them know they have a problem so they can fix it. Second, I want to know if it is a temporary problem--if so I'll delay deleting the subscriber. (The length of time I'll wait depends on the number of bounce messages I'm receiving. I wait much longer on our low-volume lists than those that run 50-100 per day.) The bounce messages we get are generated automatically by programs, but every system is supposed to have a real human in charge of the mail who can be reached as "postmaster" on the system. Thus, if you want to follow up on the error from Beloit, write to: [log in to unmask] Mail to [log in to unmask] might also work to reach the human, but the postmaster address is the standard way which is supposed to work. I find that most postmasters try to be helpful. They are busy people and their messages tend to be short, like "It's fixed" or "This machine has been shut down, you can remove the subscribers." They often apologize for their incomprehensible error messages, but they really don't have time to explain them. By "most," I mean more than 50 percent. There are lots of systems from which I don't get an answer from the postmaster. Attached below is the form letter I use. I have a macro that puts the error message at the end and sends it for me. Sending one of these takes under 30 seconds. Peace, Dan << Daniel D. Wheeler Internet: [log in to unmask] >> << University of Cincinnati Bitnet: wheeler@ucbeh >> +++++++++++++++++++++++++< attachment >+++++++++++++++++++++++++ Postmaster, I am the list owner for several mailing lists connected with the KIDLINK Project. We use the LISTSERVer at North Dakota State University for these lists. Attached below is an error message I received from the LISTSERVer indicating a mail problem in the distribution of a message from one of our lists. Can you give me any more information about the cause of the problem and the expected duration? I hate to remove subscribers from our lists if the problem is about to be resolved. I would appreciate your help. When a system is failing, I get an error message for each message we send out to each subscriber on the failed system. If the address(es) to which the message was sent is no longer valid, please let me know so that I can remove the address(es) from our list. Thanks for your help. Peace, Dan << Daniel D. Wheeler Internet: [log in to unmask] >> << University of Cincinnati Bitnet: wheeler@ucbeh >> P.S. Our lists include KIDLINK, KIDCAFEx, KIDLEADx, KIDPROJ, KIDPLAN, KIDPLAN2, RESPONSE, KIDFORUM and KIDTEST. Richard Naylor <[log in to unmask]> and I share ownership duties for these lists. ============================< attachment >===========================