[1544] in linux-announce channel archive
when problems happen
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David S. Miller)
Sat Jan 13 17:46:51 1996
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 09:40:55 -0500
From: "David S. Miller" <davem@caip.rutgers.edu>
To: linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu
CC: vger-helpers@vger.rutgers.edu, linux-announce@vger.rutgers.edu
I think we need to find a method to usefully report mailing list
problems when they happen. If a glitch happens (no matter how small)
realize that every single person on the linux lists (thousands and
thousands and thousands of people) can decide to send
postmaster/majordomo here and myself personally tons of mail stating
the problem, and they usually do. Usually I get forwarded copies of
bogus mails that were sent out, sometimes several megabytes in length.
Every time a problem happens I keep receiving these mails for a week
after the problem occurs.
This is not useful at all and just overflows my mailbox more than it
already is. In fact it detracts from the time that I can actually
assert towards fixing the problem.
So can we find a new way to eliminate this masacre of mail I get?
Mailer daemon already spews my mailbox plenty more than I'd like.
Realize, people moaned about the slowness of the lists. Fine, the
only way to get any significant gains required a complete
reconfiguration and lots of changes to vgers mailing system. This is
bound to cause plenty problems during the initial stages of
transition. I'd like people to take this into consideration when they
are about to spam my mailbox.
I run the linux lists out of my own good graces. I do it in my spare
time, and even with some people helping out maintain specific lists
the load is astronomical on me. Please don't make me feel like I am
wasting my time. I would like to see how someone else would handle
sifting through 2000 (not kidding here) or more mails a day due to the
mailing lists and actively fix all the problems involved.
Ok, this was a rant. But I get mails full of much more violent rants
containing more exclamation marks than actual alphabetical characters
in bulk on a daily basis. Seems like no one cares who is behind this
all and how much work is expended to keep the lists going at all. Yes,
a few of you do let me know that things are appreciated and to keep up
the good work, but these are few and far between.
Vger is overworked too, even with 64MB of ram and 256MB or swap it
gets overworked, and all it does is mail. Even the smartest mailer
(zmailer) that does things as intelligently as possible has trouble
pushing these lists out efficiently. I'm sure vger isn't happy about
the situation either.
This is why I recently made a posting to linux-announce seeking
exploder sites to decrease the load and speed things up.
I am actively seeking definate solutions to all the problems these
lists have. People will have to just be patient when things go awry.
Later,
David S. Miller
davem@caip.rutgers.edu
