HARPER@CSC.FI ("Robert Harper Finland", CSC) (01/30/91)
Gag.... Here is a pot of spagetti and it has one meatball in it.
I put may hand into the warm spagetti and pull out the meatball
and say here is the meatball... you say I don't see anything only
a mess of spagetti.
Dave made a brave attempt to explain the mechanics of the Biosci
network. He gave away the big secret that there are TWO lists
at each BIOSCI node. Lets take for example the master/slave list
at IRLEARN. The master list is called BIONEWS and the slave list
is called +BIONEWS ( The rational behind this is to try to prevent
mail from looping )
Here is the meatball:-)
master
User sends mail---> BIONEWS@IRLEARN
which sends mail to
------> Genbank/master
-----------> UK/master
--------------> BMC/master
-----------------> +BIONEWS/slave
Now the +BIONEWS/slave list has all the ID@NODES of the people
who have subscribed to BIONEWS at IRLEARN and it is the +BIONEWS
list that distributes messages to peoples MAILBOXES, If you get
a CONFIRM notice to your MAILBOX then most likely it will have
come from one of the BIOSCI lists with a "+" in it... which is
a slave list. At least that is the way it SHOULD WORK.
We must remember however that the BIONEWS/master list also has
members... namely Genbank/master etc, and I think that what has
happened is that the MASTER lists at all the other BIOSCI nodes
are being asked to confirm their subscription to the BIONEWS/master
list.... arrrrgggggghhhhhh
If that hurt you head to read... I know it hurt my head to write it, then
it is best to forget the whole deal.
Rob "bon vivant" Harper