Subject: Re: List administration

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 16:47:00 -0500 (EST)

On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Ólafur Gudmundsson/DNSEXT co-chair wrote:

> <chair>
> At 19:47 2003-12-02, Dean Anderson wrote:
> 
> >I think that if PSG does not have the resources to handle the mail for
> >namedroppers without capriciously deleted mail, then it should be handed
> >to someone else who does have the resources.
> 
> There is a big difference between having resources and publicly
> intimidating a random ISP. Take your pick on what Randy was saying.

He said he was altering the operations of his mail servers to delete mail
that wasn't delivered in one hour.  This is unreasonable, regardless of
what Verizon does.  Sometimes mailservers or internet connections are down
for short periods.  I doubt all of the namedroppers subscribers have
redundant connections, or even redundant mail servers. Those subscribers
require queuing and one hour is certainly unreasonable.  IETF lists should
not be used as "intimidation" for apparently personal gain.  I would say
that IETF email lists should not be toyed with by the administrator.

I don't know whether he made up the story.  But obviously, he noticed the
problem in the first place, so something brought it to his attention.  He
didn't say that Verizon customers were complaining to him that their mail
was slow.  He just said he didn't have the queue space to save the
messages for more than one hour.  I'd have to take him at his word.  
Especially when he says he has changed his mailserver configuration.

This "one hour" change was inappropriate, and I would like some
confirmation that this is no longer the case. I would also like to know
whether he made up the story and never made any changes, or if he has
backed out the changes.

And while I can't really criticize him for being ineffective at
intimidation, there are certainly better ways of publicly intimidating an
ISP than making threats involving operations of IETF lists.

The last DJB "scandal" was last January, and Randy stepped down from the
chair in June.

In the months where he does a good job, a good job was done.  I
congratulate him for that. But it seems that every once in while there is
something that detracts from this.

Namedroppers does seem remarkably free from spam, despite the fact that
spammers could simply forge subscriber's addresses and post.  I wonder if
perhaps spammers don't want to spam namedroppers anymore.  Or perhaps they
just wanted the list administration to change, and after having made their
point, don't care to spam the list anymore.  Whatever the case, I guess we
don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth.  They stopped. We're glad.  
If Randy made them stop, I congratulate him on that, too.

		--Dean

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---

From: Greg Black <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2003 12:35:07 +1000

On 2003-12-03, Dean Anderson wrote:
> what Verizon does.

Yes, it utterly unreasonable.  Things go wrong in the real
world:  power utilities have disasters; fires, floods and solar
flares cause problems; computer hardware loses its magic smoke.
Many people have stopped using backup MX hosts, as these just
seem to collect extra spam.

Because of all these factors, mailing lists should be prepared
to queue mail to subscribers for at least a few days.  If some
mailing list server is unwilling or unable to manage that, it
needs to hand over the job to a competent organisation.

Greg

---

From: Jaap Akkerhuis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2003 10:02:24 +0100

Rather than chastising Randy, we should be thanking him for a great job
    he has been doing.
    
Yes!

	jaap