Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 11:08:10 -0700
From: Lisa Rogers <eqwq.lrogers-AT-state.ut.us>
Subject:  **CURRENT TECHNICAL STATE OF THE LIST**


>>> Matt D. <mattd-AT-freenet.tlh.fl.us>  2/13/96, 10:24am >>>
I am getting postings to the list completely out of order; sometimes
I'll get the response a day or more before I see the post it's
addressing!  Why is this?  Is there anything that could be done about
it?
***

Well, Matt, you are not alone in your wonderings, and it is even
worse than you think, because some things seem to be disappearing
entirely.  I posted something on this yesterday, but I don't know if
you have received it by now, or if you ever will.  I wish it weren't
so, but there it is.

I know a little more today than I did yesterday, so I guess I should
issue a revised statement.  I heard second hand that Spoons posted
something directly to the list this morning, but I haven't seen that
either, and maybe I was misinformed, anyway here goes ...

This is all that Spoons [list admin] knows at this time, and all that
it _can_ know.  The matter is out of Spoons' hands.  While we don't
know exactly what 'the Virginia people' are doing at every moment, we
do believe that they are making reasonable efforts to get Spoons
lists back online.
***

CURRENT STATUS OF SPOON LISTS

-  For a while now, there have been problems with list-mail delivery.
There have been novel kinds of mail loops; mail would get delivered
to only some subscribers and not others; mail would get delayed or
lost; there would be strange error bounces; the Virginia machines
would crash.

-  After the jefferson machine crashed about 2 weeks ago, the
Virginia system people decided to embark on some radical measures to
try and get to the root of the problem.  One of these radical
measures was to disable all the digests for all the spoon lists.  We
were told that this would be a very short-term measure, but it's been
in effect for a number of days now and we've had no word about when
it will end.

-  Meanwhile, it appears that the list-mail delivery problems have
not gone away.  They may be problems with jefferson, with the network
in Virginia, with Virginia's connection to the rest of the world, or
with some piece of software.  Whatever it is, mail delivery seems
very slow and unreliable; messages sent to lists often disappear or
get delivered only to part of the list's subscribership. 

-  Spoons have no hand in solving this problem or in any other way
influencing the course of Virginia's work on it.  Basically, all we
can do is wait and be patient. 

-  All messages sent to lists should be saved and perhaps re-sent if
they don't seem to appear on the list within a reasonable amount of
time. 

-  All digests are still disabled, and Virginia (not spoons) is
working on fixing all the problems, but it might take a while.  We
don't know how long.

***




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