[news.misc] BITNET redistributions and USENET Gateways

ravi@duke.cs.duke.edu (Ravi Subrahmanyan) (02/01/88)

In article <22802@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu (Erik E. Fair) writes:
>Failing that, you can complain to
>INFO-ATARI16-REQUEST@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, which is the address of the
>ARPANET mailing list coordinator.
>
>
>	Erik E. Fair	ucbvax!fair	fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu


	Before we're innundated with gobs of flames, I'd like to point
out that Bill Westfield (he's the chap who puts the digests together)
has added a "SENDER" field to the outgoing digests, in the hope that
the errant BITNET mailer(s) will bounce mail back to the address in
the SENDER field, and not to the name in the "FROM" field.  The SENDER
field is set to "info-atari-request" so that we'll get the bounced
digests and take action.  The "FROM" field remains "info-atari", so that 
BITNET folks who use the REPLY function to send notes to info-atari will be 
able to do so without swamping the "request" address with mail that
should go to the list.  Of course, all this assumes some sort of
rational behaviour on the part of the BITNET mailers...

>P.S.	there is a special place in purgatory for the people
>	responsible for BITNET's so-called mail system.

	I just wanted everyone to read that again..

								-ravi

fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu (Erik E. Fair) (02/01/88)

Lately in comp.sys.atari.st there has been a flurry of bounced
digests and other cruft being posted by my gateway from the bowels
of BITNET. Sorry that I took so long to respond folks, but I don't
read comp.sys.atari.st and I didn't know about it until the middle
of last week.

Quick explanation: comp.sys.atari.st is bi-directionally gatewayed to
INFO-ATARI16@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU. Among the other addresses on this
list are redistribution points for BITNET. Unfortunately, someone on
BITNET is not doing his/her header hacking right, and when delivery
fails, the digests get bounced back to the whole list, instead of to
the responsible administrator. Ah, if they'd only convert to netnews,
we wouldn't have this problem...

Fortunately, my gateway can filter stuff, and now that I am aware
that this is happening, there is a filter in place to stop it from
ever reaching those of us fortunate to be on USENET. I have also
posted cancel control messages for those errant articles, so they
will be removed from your disk as soon as the control messages
arrive on your system.

The responsible BITNET site, so far as I am able to determine is
CANADA01, and as soon as I know who the site contact is, I'll post
his/her address here as a followup to this article to let you all
know who to bitch at. Failing that, you can complain to
INFO-ATARI16-REQUEST@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, which is the address of the
ARPANET mailing list coordinator.

	keeper of the ucbvax USENET gateway,

	Erik E. Fair	ucbvax!fair	fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu

P.S.	there is a special place in purgatory for the people
	responsible for BITNET's so-called mail system.

wisner@fenchurch.MIT.EDU (Bill Wisner) (02/01/88)

Erik E. Fair:
>The responsible BITNET site, so far as I am able to determine is
>CANADA01, and as soon as I know who the site contact is, I'll post
>his/her address here as a followup to this article to let you all
>know who to bitch at. Failing that, you can complain to
>INFO-ATARI16-REQUEST@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, which is the address of the
>ARPANET mailing list coordinator.

Coordinators.

Complaining to us wouldn't do much good; we've (or at least, I've) been
complaining to CANADA01 already. (CANADA01 is one of the LISTSERV sites
that does BITNET redistribution of the digest.)

..bill
--
Fenchurch doesn't get mail; reply to wisner@eddie.MIT.EDU.

davidli@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Dave Meile) (02/01/88)

In article <22802@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu (Erik E. Fair) writes:
>know who to bitch at. Failing that, you can complain to
>INFO-ATARI16-REQUEST@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, which is the address of the
>ARPANET mailing list coordinator.
>
>	Erik E. Fair	ucbvax!fair	fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu

PLEASE, don't everybody write complaining to INFO-ATARI16-REQUEST.  A
nicely worded message stating a problem, maybe, but be aware that the
moderators see the problem almost as soon as you do.  The solution
generally takes about 24 hours (but that doesn't help when 15 INFO-ATARI16
digests go out in that space of time, eh?)

Thanks to Erik for the info and the "filter".

biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) (02/02/88)

In article <11005@duke.cs.duke.edu> ravi@duke.UUCP (Ravi Subrahmanyan) writes:
 >Bill Westfield has added a "SENDER" field to the outgoing digests,
 >in the hope that the errant BITNET mailer(s) will bounce mail back
 >to the address in the SENDER field, and not to the name in the "FROM" field. 
 >The SENDER field is set to "info-atari-request" (...).
 >The "FROM" field remains "info-atari", so that BITNET folks who use
 >the REPLY function to send notes to info-atari will be able to do so
 >without swamping the "request" address with mail that should go to the list. 
 >Of course, all this assumes some sort of rational behaviour on the part
 >of the BITNET mailers...

I think the "From: " field should contain the address of the person who
wrote the article. Hitting the whole newsgroup/mailing list/whatever
should never be the default.

 >>P.S.	there is a special place in purgatory for the people
 >>	responsible for BITNET's so-called mail system.		[-Erik Fair]
 
 >	I just wanted everyone to read that again..		-ravi
-- 
						Biep.  (biep@cs.vu.nl via mcvax)
	Never confound "power", "command" with "right",
	 especially not when it concerns our own body!

fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) (02/02/88)

As promised, the site administrator/postmaster of CANADA01.BITNET
(that BITNET site which is apparently responsible for the bad mail
header munging that causes bounced INFO-ATARI16 digests to go back
out to the whole world) is Les Dennis <DENNIS@CANADA01.BITNET> (use
your favorite BITNET gateway to get there; "psuvax1" for those of you
in UUCP land, "cunyvm.cuny.edu" for those of you on the Internet).

Be polite, but insistent; we musn't let them get away with this sort
of highly improper network behavior.

	Where is Mr. Protocol when I need him?

	Erik E. Fair	ucbvax!fair	fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu

ravi@mcnc.org (Ravi Subrahmanyan) (02/03/88)

In article <980@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes:
>
>I think the "From: " field should contain the address of the person who
>wrote the article. Hitting the whole newsgroup/mailing list/whatever
>should never be the default.

	The stuff referred to in the original articles (which info-atari 
sends out to bitnet) is in the form of DIGESTS, so there isn't any one author.  
The sender is therefore "info-atari", and replies to that address are
sent out to the newsgroup.  That's how it all works, and except for
occasional glitches, it's pretty reasonable overall..

								-ravi

val@wsccs.UUCP (Val Kartchner) (02/09/88)

     How do we use inter-net gateways?

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