Re: OT: going offline

The server automatically unsubscribes an account after a certain
number of bounces. The server also sends me a copy of each bounced
mail -- In some rare cases sometimes my mail has been 80-90% percent
bounces. This was quite bead when the server would keep trying for 3
days. I could easily get overwhelmed because at a peak rate of  100
posts a day, as few as 3 bouncers could swamp me.In addition, some
mail agents will send several messages as they repeatedly retry and
failto deliver the same message.

Currently if 10 messages bounce, the server will unsubscribe you and
send you mail (that you're unlikely to receive). Some bounces can't
be detected by the server, and if it looks like a temporary problem
(like disk quota), I will set someone nomail rather than making them
resubscribe.

   -- David

At 8:11 AM -0400 9/7/00, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>Sorry if this doesn't belong here, but I'm just wondering how the conlang
>listserv works w.r.t. mail server downtime.
>
>Yesterday, I had to physically relocate my machine, and was disconnected
>for about 7-9 hours. The email address subscribed to the conlang list goes
>directly to my machine, which means that during those 7-9 hours, any
>incoming mail would bounce. When I finally reconnected last night, I was
>expecting incoming mail to be delivered, since that's what the conlang
>listserv has been doing when I had downtime before. However, nothing from
>conlang arrived, so this morning I checked and found out I've been
>unsubscribed from the list.
>
>I'm not complaining about being unsubscribed, since I know that extended
>MX downtime isn't exactly the most tolerable thing to listserv admins.
>However, I'm curious to know what made the difference last night that
>caused unsubscription, when previously the conlang listserv would just
>re-deliver the mail later?
>
>The only *plausible* reason I can think of so far is the fact that I reset
>my (dynamic) DNS record in advance this time, because I knew I was going
>offline. (Rather than previously, when I would get disconnected from time
>to time by my ISP without warning, which leaves a non-functional DNS
>record.) This has the effect of causing DNS lookups of my domain to return
>a non-existence error. Is this why I got unsubscribed? (Want to know so I
>can prevent this in future.)
>
>And sorry that this is totally off-topic... but hey, we've veered
>off-topic a lot recently haven't we? *ducks* :-P
>
>
>T
--
-------------------------------
David Durand
david@dynamicDiagrams.com
Chief Technical Officer
Dynamic Diagrams
http://www.dynamicDiagrams.com/