joshua@athertn.Atherton.COM (Flame Bait) (12/07/90)
I run a mailing list, which currently has about 170 addresses in it. I handle this by passing a file with all the addresses in it to /usr/lib/sendmail on a slightly overloaded Sun 3/280 running SunOS 3.5. (Please don't hassle me about underpowered machines or stone age operating systems. :-) The problem is that every dozen or so postings, I get email from some random person asking why they got a posting from the mailing list. These people are not on the mailing list at all, and I have no idea why they are getting postings. As far as I know, no one has gotten a posting more than once. Does anyone know what is causing this? Is there some information on running large mailing lists? (Is 170 addresses a large list?) Thanks for any help. Joshua Levy (joshua@atherton.com) (408) 734-9822
rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) (12/07/90)
In article <33848@joshua.athertn.Atherton.COM> joshua@Atherton.COM (Flame Bait) writes: > >I run a mailing list, which currently has about 170 addresses in it. >The problem is that every dozen or so postings, I get email from some >random person asking why they got a posting from the mailing list. Most likely some of your recipient addresses are themselves mailing lists which redistribute the mail. If they send you a complete copy of the mail you might be able to narrow this down by looking at the 'Received:' headers. Then if you and the suspect destination are on Internet, you can 'telnet' to the 'smtp' port and use the 'EXPN' command to expand the address you are sendingto. -- =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science <rickert@cs.niu.edu> Northern Illinois Univ. DeKalb, IL 60115. +1-815-753-6940
joshua@athertn.Atherton.COM (Flame Bait) (12/08/90)
rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes: > joshua@Atherton.COM (Flame Bait) writes: > > > >I run a mailing list, which currently has about 170 addresses in it. > > >The problem is that every dozen or so postings, I get email from some > >random person asking why they got a posting from the mailing list. > > Most likely some of your recipient addresses are themselves mailing > lists which redistribute the mail. I asked the list if they were doing this, and no one spoke up. Furthermore, the random people who get the postings only seem to get one each, so I do not think that redistrubution is the problem. Also, only one or two of the wrong addresses were at sites where someone else was getting the mailing list. If the problem were redistrubtion, I'd expect more at sites already on the list. > If they send you a complete copy > of the mail you might be able to narrow this down by looking at the > 'Received:' headers. Then if you and the suspect destination are on > Internet, you can 'telnet' to the 'smtp' port and use the 'EXPN' > command to expand the address you are sendingto. Unforntuately, I'm not on the Internet. Also, people do not seem to save the wrong postings they get, and since they never get a second posting, I have never captured the envelope of one of these wrong postings. Sigh. Joshua Levy (408) 734-9822 joshua@atherton.com