[net.physics] huge messages

knutsen@sri-unix.ARPA (10/29/85)

From:  knutsen (Andrew Knutsen)


	Those huge messages were due to a mailer off in some
remote part of the net sending error messages back to the "from"
address.  The new digesting software, in order to facilitate replys
to the list, lists the list as the "from" address. So, when that
mailer didnt recover from its "internal error"s in a reasonable amount
of time....

	What Ive done for now is remove the offending site from
the list.  Fortunately that site also sent out "date" lines in a format
"rnews" couldnt parse, so none of the cruft leaked into Usenet (as far
as I can tell).  However, Im not too sure about an appropriate final solution.
The choice seems to be to pray that very few sites have long-term problems
and also send errors to the "from" address, or to list "physics-request"
as the "from" address which will result in misdirected traffic to me on
some replies.  Any other ideas?

Andrew, physics-request

MJackson.Wbst@Xerox.ARPA (10/30/85)

Would this have happened with the old, nondigesting software?  If not,
I'd vote for going back to the old stuff.  I don't find the present
grouping service particularly useful, given the fact that the range of
response times is substantially greater than the grouping interval (24
hours).

Mark

mikes@AMES-NAS.ARPA (10/30/85)

From:  mikes@AMES-NAS.ARPA (Peter Mikes)

                  Any other ideas (on handling mail problems)?  Yes:
          How about reading the digests before you send them out?
                       I always thought you do that . (?).