Due to a recent outbreak of mail bounces, and with the coming summer season
and accompanying vacations, allow me a brief bandwidth waste to restate my
policies on mail delivery problems.
 
As you are probably aware, e-mail is far from guaranteed delivery.  Machines
go down, network links go down, nameservers and their data are not 100%
reliable, mailboxes fill up, e-mail addresses change, you-name-it.  Delivery
error notices come to yours truly by the scores daily.  Some are legitimate
(a user changes jobs/service providers without signing off) but most are
just "transient" errors.  I do my best to avoid deleting anyone from the
mailing list, but like the network, I'm not 100% accurate either.  I made
the wrong call for two subscribers this week.  Anyway...
 
I handle these errors by selecting all bounces, sort by origin host, and then
address the "repeat offenders" that persist more than a day or so.  If the
origin system dictates a permanent error (unknown userID, for example) you
get deleted.  For transient errors, I will set your address in "digest" mode
so that you will get a daily digest of postings and I don't have to deal with
all of the individual bounce messages.
 
Now, besides my efforts, Listserv does some "automatic" monitoring of mail
bounces that conform to the delivery error format defined in RFC-something.
These are pretty cut-and-dry and deal with permanent error classes.  If you
generate errors for 4 days, or generate 100 individual errors, you are then
removed from the list.
 
So... in the event you don't seem to be receiving postings, or you find
yourself in "digest mode", it's nothing personal (for certain!) and hopefully
not a mystery (if you are reading this).  If you want to check/change your
subscription, send a message to <[log in to unmask]> with the following
text for the associated function:
 
   query HP3000-L     (To see if you're on the list and check delivery format)
   subscribe HP3000-L Your Name  (To add yourself back to the list)
   set HP3000-L mail nodigest    (To change from 'digest' back to normal)
 
One exception to the usual "liberal" policy above:  for established ISPs that
maintain mailbox limits (AOL, COMPUSERVE, etc) you pretty much go straight to
digest mode for "mailbox full" bounces.
 
If any additional questions/comments please reply to me directly.  Thanks for
your time and tolerance of this relatively off-topic post (particularly for
comp.sys.hp.mpe newsgroup readers).
 
Jeff Kell <[log in to unmask]>
 
PS - It is also possible for *you* to receive bounce messages from some of
our subscriber's mail systems (they shouldn't do this, but they do).  If
you get a bounce message from a posting, look to see if it came *from*
utcvm.utc.edu.  If not, your posting was fine, the bounce relates to one
of the list subscribers and you can forward it to me to monitor/take action.